Winter-Spring 2012

Transcription

Winter-Spring 2012

Purchase College
State University of New York
735 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577-1400
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Purchase College Alumni Association
Board of Directors 2012
Fadi Areifij ’99
Pur
ine | think wide open
WINTER /SPRING 2012
Paula Cancro ’79
Kevin Collymore ’10
Audrey Cozzarin ’79,
President Emerita
Michael Fonseca ’08
Alison Kaplan ’86
Emily O’Leary ’06, Treasurer
Mark Patnode ’78, Secretary
Jeffrey Putman ’96, President
Gorman John Ruggiero ’76,
Vice President
Thomas J. Schwarz
President, Purchase College
Morgan Selkirk ’05
Simone Varadian ’05
EX OFFICIO:
Jeannine Starr, CFRE
Associate Vice President of
Institutional Advancement
Carla Weiland-Zaleznak
Director of Annual Giving
Address Updates
If this address is not current,
kindly forward correct address
information to us at
[email protected]
or (914) 251-6054.
Thank you.
PURCHASE ENTREPRENEURS
TURN “WHAT IF?” DREAMS
INTO REAL-LIFE SUCCESS
PLUS:
CREATING A GATEWAY TO
THE BURGEONING BIOTECH FIELD
From Anime to Zumba:
Fun at Purchase Is Student-Run
WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!@PURCHASE
Pursuits
1
Entrepreneurs Turn “What If”
Dreams into Real-Life Success
5
New Leadership for the
Purchase College Foundation
12
WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!
@PURCHASE
14
Creating a Gateway to the
Burgeoning Biotech Field
16
News Briefs
20
From Anime to Zumba:
Fun at Purchase Is Student-Run 23
2012 Senior Class Gift
32
Annual Fund
33
Please visit the college’s website
(www.purchase.edu) or contact the Alumni
Association by email ([email protected])
for programs and activities that may be
of greatest interest to you.
Purchase magazine is published biannually by
the Office of Communications & Creative
Services, in collaboration with the Office of
Institutional Advancement at Purchase College.
Purchase College, State University of New York
Phone: (914) 251-6046
Fax: (914) 251-6047
Email: [email protected]
Editor: Sandy Dylak, director,
Communications & Creative Services
[ this moment ]
in Time
By Thomas J. Schwarz
Dear Friends:
The Obama administration and the national press have spent
much time focused on the issues of graduation and retention
and particularly on the desired outcome of a college degree:
preparation for work and success in the workplace. Part of the
discussion is the access to and relevance of higher education.
The feature articles in this issue of PURCHASE magazine are
timely and validate the relevance of Purchase College’s
education in both preparing students for the workplace and,
more importantly, positioning them for successful careers.
One of this issue’s articles introduces you to some rising stars
in our natural sciences. It is significant that these rising stars
are students who, without the financial support provided by a
grant awarded by the National Science Foundation, might not
be in college. Embedded in the stories of these students is the national dialogue:
the importance of an education, the need to support economically disadvantaged
students, and the value of a strong connection between the community colleges
and four-year colleges.
In another article, you will meet a few of our alumni entrepreneurs, each with an
interesting and inspiring story of designing, launching, and running a business.
They did not major in business while at Purchase. In fact, their academic
experiences varied greatly. The common thread is that their Purchase education
prepared them to explore options, seize opportunities, consider the unconventional, and take risks. This is a great tribute to the Purchase College education. It
also proves that access to a high-quality, well-rounded education not wedded to
specific vocations but instead based on exploration and creativity yields students
ready to contribute to the economy and society.
I write this letter to you as spring semester midterms conclude—keenly aware that
Commencement 2012 is around the corner. We mark the passage of time not only
with our graduation, but also with changes among our faculty, administration, and
boards. This past fall, the Purchase College Foundation said good-bye to its chair
of many years, Emily Grant, and welcomed Lucille Werlinich as her replacement.
The Purchase College Foundation plays an important role in the lives of our
students and faculty as overseer of the Purchase College endowment—a critical
source of scholarship and faculty support. Like grants, the foundation’s support
allows for Purchase to continue in its mission to provide access to high-quality
education.
Enjoy the magazine. Please visit our website. Feel free to contact us as always.
Editorial Coordinator: Nancy Diaz
Design: Scott W. Santoro, Worksight.com
Cover Photograph: Kelly Campbell
[email protected]
Inside Photography: Kelly Campbell,
David Grimaldi, Roberto Deoliveira,
Jared Periera
Thomas J. Schwarz
President
PURSUITS/Faculty news & notes
SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
National Academy
Museum & School NYC
Lenora Champagne, Theatre Arts, performed a new solo, Memory’s
Storehouse, as part of TINY LIGHTS, a shared performance with Lizzie
Olesker, at the Invisible Dog in Brooklyn in January. The project was
supported in part by a grant from the Brooklyn Arts Council.
Featuring works by over 100 artists
and architects, “Annual: 2012” at
the National Academy Museum &
School in New York City reveals
the cross-generational dialogue
occurring in the art world by
juxtaposing contemporary masters
with emerging and midcareer
artists. Purchase faculty members
Donna Dennis, Kate Gilmore,
Sharon Horvath, and Murray Zimiles
all have work in the exhibition,
which is on display through
April 20, 2012.
Larry Clark, Dance, was appointed the artistic director and one of three
adjudicators for a new festival in Hong Kong called the AsiaYouthDance.
Clark judged six dances from Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China,
taught a master class, and chaired a debate on choreography as well. The
directors of the festival are Purchase alumni based in Singapore, Selina
Tan ’94 (Dance) and her husband, Tommy Wong ’94 (Design/Technology).
Clark also joined Conservatory of Dance Director Wallie Wolfgruber
for three weeks in Singapore as an artist in residence at the Nanyang
Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA).
While there, Wolfgruber taught
ballet and choreographed a new
work, which she set on the NAFA
students. Wolfgruber’s piece,
“Aglaia Turns Her Cheek,” featured
13 dancers on pointe. Clark
instructed modern dance classes
and also created a new work
AsiaYouthDance
during his residency.
Hal Galper, Music, released a new recording this winter, Trip the Light
Fantastic: The Hal Galper Trio (Origin Records), featuring Jeff Johnson on
bass and John Bishop on drums.
David Grill, Theatre Arts, provided
lighting direction for the Super
Bowl XLVI halftime show, featuring
pop icon Madonna. The Indianapolis event was Grill’s eighth as
lighting director for the Super Bowl
fantasia. Gill was also lighting director for the Pan American Games
2011 in Guadalajara.
Karen Guancione, Art+Design, was
the artistic director of the 2011
New Jersey Book Arts symposium,
“Money, Currency, Value, and
Exchange,” and co-curator of an
accompanying exhibition, which
featured six New Jersey artists.
The Pan American Games
lighting design by David Grill
Tommy Hartung and Sarah Walker,
Art+Design, are both recipients of 2011 Painters & Sculptors Grant
Program awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. The $25,000 grants
assist individual painters and sculptors creating work of exceptional quality. In addition, Hartung was interviewed by PBS’s Art21 in New York
Close Up, a documentary film series devoted to New York City artists in
the first decade of their professional careers.
Galper, Johnson, and Bishop
Anne Gilman, Art+Design, had a solo exhibition, “Observations, Errors +
Corrections: A Survey of Anne Gilman’s Drawings, Prints + Artist Books,”
at the Allen Hall Art Gallery at Mansfield University of Pennsylvania in
October 2011.
Kate Gilmore, Art+Design, had work shown this winter in “Campaign,”
curated by Amy Smith-Stewart, at C24 Gallery, and in “The Annual” at the
National Academy Museum (both in New York), as well as a long-term
installation in the group exhibition “Unfolding Tales: Selections from the
Contemporary Collection” at the Brooklyn Museum. Gilmore was also
included in “Videobytes” at Russ and Daughters, in collaboration with the
James Cohan Gallery; “Who’s Afraid of Performance Art” at the Fonds d’Art
Contemporain de la Ville de Genève in Geneva, Switzerland; and “Broken
Homes” at Momenta Art in Brooklyn. Her work was featured with Xavier
Simmons in the David Castillo Gallery presentation at Art Basel/Miami.
Kate Gilmore
Sharon Horvath
Todd Coolman, Music, performed this winter in international jazz festivals
held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and in Bermuda. Coolman also performed
in the fall with Jon Faddis, Music, and the Jon Faddis Quartet, in Mumbai,
India, at the National Centre for the Performing Arts’ inaugural international jazz festival.
Antonio C. Cuyler, Arts Management, will have his essay “Living Beyond
the Dream Deferred: An Auto/ethnography of My Experiences in the
Academy” published in the anthology Overcoming Adversity in Academia:
Reflections from the Ivory Tower by the University Press of America next
fall. The anthology is a collection of expository essays on Generation X
professors’ experiences in academia.
Donna Dennis
www.nationalacademy.org/artmuseum/exhibitions
Sharon Horvath, Art+Design, presented “Lovelife,” a solo exhibition of
paintings on paper, at Lori Bookstein Fine Art in New York in October and
November 2011.
Photo: Michael Lionstar
Table
of Contents
Stuart Isacoff, Music, published a new book, A Natural History of the
Piano: The Instrument, the Music, the Musicians—from Mozart to Modern
Jazz and Everything in Between (Knopf,
2011). Several prepublication reviews
lauded this new book, including “
a big slice of heaven for piano lovers”
—Booklist. Discussing his new book,
Isacoff was a featured speaker in
“Author Talk” at the 92nd Street Y in
New York in December 2011. In January,
Stuart Isacoff
he lectured on the history of the piano
PURCHASE | 1
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with the museum’s
curator of musical instruments, Ken Moore. Isacoff discussed his book
on NPR’s All Things Considered, and the Wall Street Journal covered the
book’s release.
Warren Lehrer, Art+Design, received a grant from the New York City
Department of Cultural Affairs to make a series of video animations based
on voices from his Crossing the BLVD project. Lehrer also received a commission from the Queens Symphony Orchestra to compose expressionist
titles/visuals for 1001 Voices: A Symphony for Queens, with a libretto by
Judith Sloan and music by Frank London. The newest manifestation of
Lehrer’s Crossing the BLVD project is a short animated video, Globalization:
Preventing the Sameness of the World. The video manifesto was officially
released in February: www.earsay.org/globalization/.
Judy Lieff, Dance, had the
broadcast premiere of her
documentary film Deaf
Jam on the PBS series
Independent Lens in early
November 2011. The film
continued to play nationally on all the PBS stations
during the rest of the
month. It was also
screened at the
Woodstock Film Festival,
the Mill Valley Film
Festival, and the Starz
Judy Lieff
Denver Film Festival, and was recently the centerpiece of the Boston
Jewish Film Festival. In January, it was screened at Lincoln Center as part
of the 2012 New York Jewish Film Festival; it now heads to Sweden to
participate in the 35th Goteborg International Film Festival.
Laura Kaminsky, Music, was awarded a commission for a new musical
composition by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of
Congress and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, Inc. Kaminsky is also
artistic director of Symphony Space in New York, and currently serves as a
director of Chamber Music America. Her new work is written for the St.
Petersburg (Russia) Chamber Philharmonic.
Phil Moffa, Music, recently celebrated the first anniversary of Butcha
Sound Studios’ Manhattan location. In the past year, Moffa, who owns
and operates Butcha, has produced and mixed several projects at the new
facility, including collaborations with fellow faculty members Joe Ferry and Du Yun, as
well as many Purchase alumni.
Studio production and studio
composition students have also
had the opportunity to work as
interns at the New York City
facility. www.butchasound.com.
Gene O’Donovan, Theatre Arts,
is the production manager of
the new Broadway show The
Mountaintop, by Katori Hall,
recognized with a 2010 Olivier
Award for Best New Play in the
West End before coming to
New York. The Mountaintop’s
lighting design, scenery, and
projection design teams are
composed of Purchase College
Theatre Arts alumni.
PURCHASE | 2
Rachel Owens, Art+Design, has
a new multimedia installation,
“Inveterate Composition for
Clare,” located in the Dag
Hammarskjöld Plaza, across the
street from the United Nations
on the corner of First Avenue
and 47th Street. The public
sculpture, a New York City
Parks Department project, is
dedicated to the late Clare
Weiss, curator of public art for
the Parks Department from
2005 to 2009.
Ted Piltzecker, Music, published
an article, “Clearly Speaking,”
in the September 2011 issue of
Percussive Notes.
Eric Wildrick,
Art+Design, has two
public art sculpture
installations, “About
Eight Hands” and
“About Five Hundred
Hands,” on view at the
Cross County Shopping
Center in Yonkers
through April 20, 2012.
Eric Wildrick’s sculptures
School of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Rachel Owens’s “Inveterate”
Christopher Robbins, Art+Design, completed a cross-cultural art project
in Serbia. The project explored the contemporary views of identity of
young people in the region of southern Serbia and northern Macedonia
through printmaking workshops and discussions. Workshops took place
in Serbian towns that are known for their specific cultural identities, and
culminated in an exhibition of the art created and “logos” produced, in a
gallery setting, on the streets of the towns in which the workshops took
place, and in an e-book for further distribution. Additionally, Ghana
ThinkTank, a project co-founded by Robbins, has been selected for the
U.S. State Department’s smARTpower program to work in Lebanon with
the Arab Image Foundation. Established in 2011 by the State
Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Bronx
Museum of the Arts, smARTpower engages a diverse range of American
visual artists to work with communities around the world to create
community-based projects.
Michael Torlen, Art+Design, is now represented in the permanent
collection of the Springfield Art Museum in Missouri. His watercolor
and gouache diptych painting, “Hot Fat” (2011), was purchased by the
Watercolor U.S.A. Honor Society from the exhibition Watercolor
USA 2011.
Conservatory of Dance Faculty
and Staff with Beijing
Dance Academy delegates
Carol K. Walker, Dance, and
Wallie Wolfgruber, director of
the Conservatory of Dance at
Purchase, hosted a delegation
of 15 faculty and administrators
from the Beijing Dance
Academy, the premier professional dance training institution
in China, in October 2011. The
Conservatory of Dance hosted
five visiting scholars from the
Beijing Dance Academy last year,
and two more faculty members
will be in residence during the
spring term. Purchase College
and the Beijing Dance Academy
recently signed a memorandum
of understanding to initiate a
student exchange program
between the two institutions,
which began in the fall of 2011.
Shemeem Burney Abbas, Political Science, republished “Sakineh, the
Narrator of Karbala: An Ethnographic Description of Women’s Majles
Ritual in Pakistan,” in Islam and Society in Pakistan: Anthropological
Perspectives (Oxford in Pakistan Readings in Sociology and Social
Anthropology; Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010). The article was
originally published in The Women of Karbala: Ritual Performance and
Symbolic Discourses in Modern Shi’i Islam.
Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat, Political Science, was invited by the Helsinki
Foundation for Human Rights to participate in its international conference, “Human Rights—Current State of Debate,” held in December 2011
in Warsaw, Poland. Arat also recently published a journal article,
“Globalization, Feminisms, and Women’s Empowerment: Comments on
Rhoda Howard-Hassmann’s Essay, ‘Universal Women’s Rights since
1970,’” in the December 2011 issue of the Journal of Human Rights, as well
as a book chapter: “From Omission to Reluctant Recognition: Political
Parties’ Approach to Women’s Rights in Turkey,” in Human Rights in the
Middle East: Frameworks, Goals, and Strategies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Stephen Cooke, Chemistry, received a
National Science Foundation grant of
$44,086 for a chemical instrumentation project. The instrument, a type of
Fournier transform microwave spectrometer used for the study of molecules, acts by shining radio waves onto
interstellar molecules—molecules in
space—and examining the response.
Meagan Curtis, Psychology, published
two chapters, “Musical Communication
Stephen Cooke
as Alignment of Non-Propositional
Brain States” and “Alignment of Brain States: Response to
Commentaries,” in Oxford University Press’s Language and Music as
Cognitive Systems.
James Daly, Biology, and his Japanese colleague Takashi Aoki have
published the chapter “Pasteurellosis and Other Diseases” in Fish
Diseases and Disorders, vol. 3: Viral, Bacterial, and Fungal Infection, 2nd ed.
(CABI, 2011).
Jan Factor, Biology, and 11 students completed the first offering of the
Coral Reef Biology and Ecology course in Roatan, Honduras, during the
winter session. Eight students became certified scuba divers during the
program, and all used scuba to learn about the ecology of the MesoAmerican reef, as well as the fish, invertebrates, turtles, and dolphins
that inhabit the reef. The program culminated in research projects carried
out underwater. Factor received a 2011 Chancellor’s Award for
Internationalization for this program.
Geoffrey Field, History, published Blood, Sweat, and Toil: Remaking the
British Working Class, 1939–45 (Oxford University Press, 2011). The book,
the first scholarly history of the British working
class in the Second World War, examines the
war’s social and political impact on workers in the
varied contexts of the family, military service, the
workplace, local communities, and the nation.
Field also co-edited the latest issue of
International Labor and Working-Class History
(Cambridge) on “Labor and the Military” with
essays on Bolivia, Great Britain, German East
Africa (Tanzania), and the United States. He contributed an essay, “Civilians in Uniform: Class and
Politics in the British Armed Forces, 1939–45.”
John Gitlitz, Political Science, was honored in January with a Martin
Luther King Jr. Award at a ceremony hosted by the LarchmontMamaroneck Committee on Human Rights. The award recognizes
Gitlitz’s local efforts as well as his work in Peru and other Latin American
countries—researching, documenting, and helping develop initiatives to
achieve equal opportunity and protection for underrepresented and
exploited populations. Gitlitz was also one of 11 invited speakers to a
three-day congress on intercultural justice organized by the Peruvian
judiciary. The more than 400 attendees included five Supreme Court
justices, judges from the majority of appeals courts in the country, and
other judges, as well as academics, peasant community and ronda leaders,
and indigenous leaders from the Amazon jungles.
Paul Kaplan, Art History, is a fellow at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for
African and African American Research at Harvard University, where he
is working on his study of black Africans in Italian and European art circa
1600. He is also serving as a consultant on “Revealing the African Presence
in Renaissance Europe,” an exhibition at the Walters Art Museum in
Baltimore that will open in the fall of 2012, and contributing two essays
to the exhibition catalogue. Kaplan has been invited to lecture at the
British Museum as part of its “Cultural Olympiad,” which will take place
in the late summer or early fall.
Suzanne Kessler, dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the
project director for a grant that partners Purchase College with the Bank
Street College of Education in New York City. Bank Street College has
approved a third-year contract, for $27,596, to supply its Future School
Leader Academy with curricula and training institutes in diversity and
school improvement. Chrys Ingraham, Sociology, is formulating the curricula and working with the Bank Street faculty to provide the training
institutes for school district leaders in Putnam and Westchester Counties.
Alexis Silver, Sociology, is serving as the program evaluator. This project,
which began in September 2009, will conclude at the end of June 2012.
Susan G. Letcher, Environmental Studies, along with Deborah A. Clark of
the University of Missouri—St. Louis, was awarded a five-year National
Science Foundation grant for $441,524 to continue ongoing research that
began 29 years ago in the rainforest of northern La Selva, Costa Rica.
“LTREB Renewal: Multidecadal Performance of Tropical Rainforest
Canopy Trees—Climate Change, Disturbance, and Ontogeny” is the
longest investigation of annual tropical rainforest performance worldwide. This five-year
project renewal, which
will bring the total period
spanned by the La Selva
measurements to 33 years,
will greatly increase scientific understanding of the
impacts of warming and of
other potentially changing
climatic factors on tropical
Susan G. Letcher
rainforest trees.
PURCHASE | 3
Michael Lobel, Art History, was a Terra Foundation Visiting Professor at
the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. The eight-week visiting
professorships are focused on the history of American art and transatlantic exchange and are shared among the departments of art history and
American studies at the École Normale Supérieure, the Université Paris
Ouest Nanterre La Défense, and the Université de Tours.
Veronica Perera, Sociology, will lead a new study-abroad program in
Buenos Aires this summer. Students participating in the three-week program, “Social Activism, Memory, and Human Rights in Argentina,” will
explore contemporary Argentinean society, politics, and culture. Two
complementary courses—one in sociology and one in literature and art—
will address Argentina’s “dirty war” (1976–83) and its political, socioeconomic, and cultural legacy, which led to the 2001 crisis.
Jason Pine, Media, Society, and the Arts, was invited to give a presentation of his forthcoming book, The Art of Making Do in Naples, at Hofstra
University as part of the conference “Delirious Naples: For a Cultural,
Intellectual, and Urban History of the City of the Sun.” He also participated in a workshop, “Methodological Problems in Urban Anthropology,” at
the Institute for Philosophical Studies in Naples.
Paul Siegel, Psychology, was awarded a $10,000 research grant from the
American Psychoanalytic Association and a $4,000 research grant from
the International Psychoanalytic Association. These scientific organizations have generously supported Siegel’s research, awarding him $47,000
in the past three years. The funding will support an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) study Siegel is conducting at the New York
State Psychiatric Institute of Columbia University Medical Center (NYSPICUMC) in collaboration with Dr. Bradley Peterson, director of MRI
research and director of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYSPI-CUMC.
FON D L Y R EMEM B E R IN G A R T I S T
A N D FO R ME R P R OFE S S O R
J A N G R OO V E R
The Purchase College community was saddened to learn of the
passing of former professor Jan Groover, an esteemed photographer who taught in the School of Art+Design. Professor Groover
was hired to teach part time in 1979, and in the fall of 1982
became a part-time associate professor. She taught at Purchase
College until 1991. Professor Groover was a recipient of the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. She leaves
behind a wealth of photographic work, some of which has been
displayed at the Whitney, the Museum of Modern Art, the George
Eastman House, and the International Center of Photography. She
is remembered fondly as an inspiring and influential teacher.
“Jan’s affiliation with Purchase was a cherished one. She thrived
on the conversations, the discussions, the laughs with each
class,” notes Janet Borden, Jan’s longtime friend and dealer
(Janet Borden Gallery). “I don’t believe that the effect that she
had on the students can be overstated. Her regard for them
was immeasurable.”
Brooke Singer, New Media, was awarded a research residency and production commission from Matadero Madrid Contemporary Art Center
with Ricardo Miranda Zuñiga. The residency in Madrid ran in December
2011 and January 2012. The project, “Excedentes/Excess,” focused on
food waste in the city, using Madrid and New York City as case studies.
Jennifer Uleman, Philosophy, delivered “This Is What Democracy IS Like,”
an invited multimedia presentation on Occupy Wall Street at Universidad
de los Andes, Bogotá, in November 2011. Uleman organized and gave a
presentation at “Thinking Occupation: Philosophers Respond to Occupy
Wall Street,” a special session at the American Philosophical Association
Eastern Division meeting in Washington, DC, in December. The title of her
presentation was “The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants: Thinking
Occupy Wall Street.”
By David McKay Wilson
Photography by Kelly Campbell
Untitled, 127, 1982; 11x14, platinum-palladium
PURCHASE | 4
For her senior project as a student in the School
of Art+Design, Chaya Herman ’09 created a line of
Mary Alice Williams, Journalism, moderated a panel discussion, “The
Women at the United States Supreme Court,” in February at the
Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
was among the esteemed panelists.
Chuck Workman, Film and Media Studies, was
asked to make the 90th Anniversary film for the
Motion Picture and Television Fund, the organization behind the Motion Picture and Television
Country House and several medical centers that
cater to film and television industry workers. The
short film, which features Jon Hamm and many
other film and television stars and executives,
Chuck Workman
premiered November 5, 2011, and then was
shown at several screenings throughout December in Los Angeles and
New York. Workman was invited to bring another of his new films,
Visionaries, to Hamilton College in November and to Indiana University in
early 2012. The film played at Tribeca and several other festivals in 2010
and 2011.
∂
30 greeting cards, which she says belong in the
“dysfunctional family” section of the card rack.
With deepest sympathy, sorry for your loss, laments the outside of
a bereavement card. Although in your case, you are probably better
off, it confides inside.
Herman’s dark humor and graphic-design expertise have turned
that project into a fledgling business that’s ramping up for a
robust 2012. Her company, Dented Can Greetings, sold 72,000
cards from a selection of four on display at Target department
stores in 2011. Another 25 Dented Can cards are in the Target
pipeline for 2012.
Untitled, 1978
PURCHASE | 5
“We wanted a way to have an artistic dialogue through collaborative design,” says Amy, of Oakland, CA, who is three years
younger than her sister. “We felt we had something to say that
wasn’t out there.”
Tabachnick, an attorney and award-winning lighting designer,
says performing and visual artists are particularly affected by the
new paradigm. “You must be entrepreneurial. That’s the underlying critical issue today for any artist who has to build his or her
own career,” says Tabachnick, who was general manager of New
York City Ballet.
Dented Can Greetings: From senior project to fledgling business
Seeds were sown for the cards during Herman’s high school days
in Somers, NY. The idea blossomed into reality at Purchase. “I
remember looking for greeting cards, and they all said the same
thing—none expressed what or how I was actually feeling at that
time,” says Herman, 31, who now lives in Nyack, NY, and also
sells her line at www.dentedcangreetings.com. “My cards are
what you expect to see visually on the outside, but tell the truth
about what you’re actually thinking or experiencing on the
inside. The truth can be very funny and getting people to laugh
at themselves is what it’s all about.”
Earning a living from versions of the truth, however, takes more
than snappy design and good humor. Like so many entrepreneurial Purchase alumni, Herman followed her dream to carve out a
niche in the ever-fickle economic world with single-minded dedication, business savvy, and the stamina to weather the ups and
downs of a business start-up.
The entrepreneurial spirit that drove Herman to create her own
line is shared by fellow Purchase alumni who have struck out on
their own, or who have redefined their roles within an organization by creating new opportunities.
“You really can chase your dreams,” says Nathaniel McClure ’00,
founder and CEO of Scientifically Proven Entertainment in
Farmington Hills, MI, which creates and produces video games.
“Nothing is guaranteed, but there are opportunities out there.
You might fall on your face, but then you just get back up and
keep going.”
Ali Sciandra ’12, whose senior project this spring will develop a
line of personal-care products for homeless and women’s shelters, says she’s determined to bring her dream to market after
graduation in May. Her project’s staged event will be a presentation to shelter operators and potential funders and investors.
“Working for a large firm isn’t my ideal situation,” says Sciandra,
21, who grew up in Buffalo. “While I’m still young, I want to
break the mold—before I succumb to it.”
Institutional Policy: Mix Art and Smart
Entrepreneurship is a Purchase College attribute. “The ability to
marry creative expression with creative thought is a critical component of today’s business world,” says Ken Tabachnick, dean
of the School of the Arts at Purchase. “And that only intensifies
the necessity that all our students develop an entrepreneurial
outlook.” He says it’s increasingly important in the arts, with
the declining clout of the art world’s large institutions.
PURCHASE | 6
They started with eight bold designs for handpainted wallpaper,
including some patterns loosely based on paintings by Matisse
and Picasso. Their catalogue, carried by showrooms around the
world, now includes 20 designs, each with four to six color variations. The Mills sisters are now developing a collection for hotels,
which remake their interiors every four or five years. Those
designs are expected to be more subdued than the zebra or
leopard prints that homeowners have found for their powderroom walls.
The School of the Arts has responded to the changing dynamic
with courses that provide insight for those striking out on their
own. Tabachnick teaches a course, “Business and Strategic
Planning,” which delves into how to launch one’s dream and
move it forward. Visual artists can study gallery management,
while the Conservatory of Music offers a class in managing
music groups.
Turbulence Starts Before TakeOff
Creative thinking runs strong among students, alumni, faculty,
and staff, as well as in the institution itself. The Purchase
College Association’s “Purchase Park2Fly” service is pure
entrepreneurship. The endeavor involves an offsite parking
operation for Westchester County Airport travelers (see
page 11), capitalizing on unused campus parking space.
The college’s continuing
education program is gaining
attention throughout the
community with a raft of new
programs, inspired to address
the growing needs of residents seeking noncredit courses in
such areas as interior design, social-media marketing, nonprofit
management, and Pilates instruction. There’s also a teaching
certificate program for artists looking for school residencies.
“The program for teaching artists was a great fit,” says Director
of Continuing Education Kelly Jackson. “There’s a skill set
they need.”
Coloring Outside the Lines
It doesn’t hurt to have spent four years in an environment that
embraces and encourages creative thinking when opportunity
strikes the entrepreneurial nerve.
Brendan McElroy ’08 was bartending in midtown Manhattan to make
ends meet in 2009 when he
dropped his iPhone 3G and cracked
its screen. Apple was going to
charge him $200 to repair it. He
decided to fix it himself. McElroy,
a graduate of the Conservatory of
Music who majored in studio production and likes to tinker, figured
out how to replace the screen for
much less than $200. Then he
placed an online ad on Craigslist
offering his repair service, charging about $125 for screen replacement. At first, he did all the repairs. But the demand grew so
great that by August 2010, he decided to hire help and open a
store called Dr. Brendan on St. Mark’s Place in the East Village.
He opened his second store in Park Slope, Brooklyn, in
September 2011.
Today, McElroy has five employees to handle the increased workload since he expanded his repair business to all Apple products.
McElroy organized a public birthday party
for what would have been Steve Jobs’s
57th birthday. The “party,” staged outside
the New York City Flagship Apple store,
drew national media attention.
He also provides data-recovery services starting at $125—far
below what his competitors charge. He’s now looking to establish shops on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and Upper West Side.
“The toughest part was transitioning from a one-man show
focused on repairing phones, to having a small business with
employees that does many things,” says McElroy, 30. “It got
more complicated very quickly.”
It’s not uncommon for siblings to have similar skills, talents, and
mindsets. And it’s not surprising that sisters who combine creative energy with
critical thinking
would wind up
together at Purchase.
Amy Mills ’92 and her
sister, Noelle Mills
’92, both studied
printmaking at
Purchase, and then
found work in the
fabric and wallpaper
trade. Thirteen years
after graduation,
they decided to collaborate on their own
line, which would be
sold through their
company, Paper Mills.
Amy and Noelle Mills with
samples from thier Paper Mills
wallpaper line.
Some students launch their businesses while still
undergraduates. Dan Flohr ’78 arrived at
Purchase in the mid-70s as the campus was taking shape and the U.S. government was providing substantial incentives for the installation of
solar hot-water heaters. As Flohr earned his
degree in environmental science, for a time, he
ran a construction company out of his Purchase dorm room,
which had crews installing solar hot-water heaters in suburban
Westchester. “It was a little weird when Dun & Bradstreet came to campus
looking for my office,” recalls Flohr, 56, of Wilmington, NC. His success with solar energy in homes expanded to the commercial market. But Flohr wasn’t content in the construction field. A
couple of years after he graduated, the IBM personal computer
burst on the scene, and he learned how to work with the spreadsheet software called Lotus 123. Soon, he had established a
software company that developed templates for corporate
financial information. When a mail-order firm approached him, wanting to buy his company, he sold it, less than six years after graduating. “It all happened so fast,” he says. “There I was, in my late 20s, having sold
my first company. I then needed to find another problem to
solve, using the new technologies.”
That mid-1980s personal entertainment phenomenon the SONY
Walkman next captured his imagination. His idea: develop a
Walkman that tuned in to only one station, which he would sell
to radio stations like Z100 as a promotional giveaway. Before
long, he had an order for 5,000, which led to spinoffs for governments and businesses around the world. That business evolved
when Flohr developed and marketed the first PC fax-modem. It
later went public as a video conferencing and broadband networking company.
He then did some real estate development and while that proved
profitable, it didn’t tap into his creativity as did technology. (He
called it “boring.”) His latest company, called Sequentric Energy
Systems, has developed a sophisticated system that helps electric utilities manage the power grid. It’s now in use in residences
and commercial locations served by utilities in the U.S. and
Canada.
Flohr’s success at Sequentric didn’t come overnight. He developed the technology in 2004, but didn’t begin selling it to Duke
Energy until 2008 as the company became interested in develop-
PURCHASE | 7
ing the Smart Grid. “At a point, I was wondering, ‘Am I being
stupid here?’” he says. “But then the patents were issued, and
Duke stepped in. The entrepreneurial lows can be really far down
there, but the highs can be really high.
“A definition of an entrepreneur is someone who has a great idea,
tells it to 100 people and, when they all say it’s a dumb idea,
looks at him or herself in the mirror firmly convinced that they
are all wrong.” Flohr adds, “You need to believe in yourself big
time. A big ego certainly doesn’t hurt.”
Nathaniel McClure, the consumer video-game producer, was
certainly riding high in the video-game world on the Call of Duty
franchise at Activision, working his way up over six years from
being an entry-level tester to becoming producer of Call of Duty
4. His team had gelled, shipping 14 versions of the top-selling
game over 10 months. But it came at a cost. He was sleeping in
his office several nights a week. At 3 o’clock one morning, he’d
had enough.
By day, Lohrasp Kansara ’04 studies acting, finds
work in television dramas, and works the business
side of his thriving career. By night, he’s the internationally renowned deejay called DJ L, playing his
engaging mixes at trendy hot spots in Manhattan
and around the world.
“There I was, at one of the
world’s top video-game franchises, and I was killing myself,”
says McClure, who lives in
Farmington Hills, MI, with his
wife, Andrea Anderson ’00,
and their three children.
“At that second I knew it was
time to leave and start my own
company.”
Not bad for an economics major who transferred to Purchase
after his dream of playing professional basketball crumbled.
Kansara could score with his deft shot, but he stopped growing
at six feet one inch and wasn’t nearly hefty enough to withstand
the sport’s physicality at its highest levels.
“When you have such a big dream, and it doesn’t happen, it
breaks your heart into bits and pieces,” says Kansara, 28, of New
York City, who also works as a model for print magazines. “I had
to find another dream. And I was very lucky to find something
new that I loved.”
His company’s first game, Real
Heroes Firefighter, took the
first-person shooter concept
from Call of Duty and transformed it into a nonviolent
game, in which the firefighter is
“shooting” with his fire hose to
extinguish a fire and using his ax
to save people. Other games he has developed include Rock of
the Dead, in which the player kills zombies and aliens with guitars
Kansara’s penchant for dreaming—and knack for living out those
dreams—has fueled success in the performing world.
At Purchase, Kansara (who graduated with a 4.0 GPA) discovered
the art and craft of deejaying while interning in 2002 at Def Jam
Records, where he learned about music production at one of the
top hip-hop labels. He quickly discovered that the successful
music producers at Def Jam had gotten their starts as deejays.
“Deejaying for me started as a hobby, and it became my passion,” says Kansara, whose deejay business can be found at
www.experiencel.com. “I fell in love with it. It was a new dream
that gave me new meaning, new desire.”
He started spinning—and scratching—vinyl albums at Purchase
College parties. He created CD mixes and passed them out by
the thousands to spread his name. Before long, DJ L had a brand,
and was in demand at other college campuses and New York
clubs. His renown brought him gigs around the world—Paris;
London; Dubai; Kingston, Jamaica; Mumbai, India; Melbourne,
Australia; and Gstaad, Switzerland.
“The easy part is the music; the harder part is getting the gigs to
get the revenue,” he says. “You need to keep yourself on everyone’s radar. And you need to keep your fans wanting more and
following you.”
In February, he played at the VIP Room and White Room in Paris,
and the W Hotel and China White in London. He no longer carts
around crates of LPs. Today, he has 10,000 digitized songs in his
laptop—from Chris Brown’s Turn Up the Music, his current favorite dance tune, to songs by the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and
Marvin Gaye.
PURCHASE | 8
and drums, and Man v. Wild, which is based on the Discovery
Channel show.
But McClure’s success has come with his share of adversity.
He moved his company to Michigan to take advantage of the
state’s generous subsidy program for film and entertainment
enterprises, which provided a 40 percent rebate for corporate
spending in such businesses. The state, however, denied his
application for the funds. He sued and won his case against
Michigan, which granted him the subsidy. But the state has
since appealed that decision.
“It has been a frustrating couple of years,” he says. “But we’re
doing all right. And that’s a perfect example of how I fell flat
on my face. Or maybe it was more like getting hit in the head
with a two-by-four.”
Entrepreneurs Bet on Themselves
Some entrepreneurs, such as graphic designer Herman, set
sail direct from college. Others, such as Warren Katz ’93,
president of Global Scenic Services, and Mark DiMassimo ’86,
CEO and chief creative officer at DIGO Brands, worked for
well-established firms before launching their own companies.
DiMassimo worked in top
public relations firms such as
J. Walter Thompson, BBDO,
and Kirshenbaum & Bond
before he started his firm in
1996. Over the ensuing 15
years, DiMassimo says he has
prospered, and has developed
his company with dedication to
constant improvement, resilience, and optimism. “It helps
Mark DiMassimo
to be a little unrealistic in the
beginning,” says DiMassimo,
who lives with his wife, Jill, and three boys in Rye, NY. “You have
to be able to fall in love with ideas so totally, so they look easier
to do than they really are.”
He says he comes to the clubs for his midnight shows with a
blueprint for the evening’s music in his head. But that plan
often changes by the time he plays the last dance at 5 a.m.
“I let my imagination and the crowd take me where they take
me,” he says.
His imagination also led him in 2008 to the Black Nexus Acting
Studio in Manhattan to study with Susan Batson, one of city’s
premier acting coaches. There he discovered his love for acting.
His television credits include roles on Law and Order: SVU, Blue
Bloods, and Damages.
Acting is Kansara’s newest passion, and he’s working hard to
share it with the world.
“An actor has such an opportunity to inspire and change the
world,” he says. “I’ve come to love it as much as basketball,
maybe a little bit more. We’ll see where it leads me.”
Nathaniel McClure
In one of Scientifically Proven
Entertainment’s first video
games, Rock of the Dead, the
player kills zombies and aliens
with guitars and drums.
PURCHASE | 9
Katz, who majored in
technical direction at
Purchase, began his career
at Showman Fabricators
in Long Island City, NY.
After eight years, he was
about to turn 34, and the
Atlas Scenic Studios in
Bridgeport, CT, was up for
sale. He took the leap and
bought it. As 2012 dawns,
Atlas has 55 employees
and has become one of
five major scene shops in
New York City. Katz’s
company built the sets for
two Broadway shows running in January 2012—Wit
and Follies—and fabricated substantial portions of
the scenes for How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
and Anything Goes. He also designs sets for fashion shows for
Victoria’s Secret, Tommy Hilfiger, and Sergio Rossi.
“I figured I needed to try it so I didn’t have regrets later in life,”
says Katz, 40, of Stratford, CT. “I needed to do it before I was
old and a curmudgeon, which I happen to be now.”
Flexibility to Find Opportunity in Obstacles
Entrepreneurs are good at reinventing themselves and their
products or services. Peter Fogel ’80, an actor and stand-up
comic, grew weary of show business by his late 30s. He moved to
Delray Beach, FL, and developed a freelance life that included
writing advertising copy, Internet marketing, corporate training,
and motivational speaking at corporations and associations.
Fogel also keeps in touch with his inner funnyman as the co-host
of the no.1 self-indulgent help program on Internet radio: “The
Boomer Humor Radio Show” ( www.boomerhumorradio.com and
www.reinventyourselfnow.com ). “Since the day I graduated
from Purchase, I’ve been on my own,” says Fogel. “I’m a martial
artist who, when defending myself, uses my hands,
arms, elbows, and the
environment—everything I
have. When reinventing
yourself, you need all
present and past skills you
have to overcome obstacles that might otherwise
get in your way.”
Peter Fogel
P U R C H A S E | 10
Purchase
Park2Fly
Takes Off!
Anna Finke
That reinvention can happen within an organization as well.
Anna Finke ’03, who studied dance at Purchase, met the legendary choreographer Merce Cunningham while serving as a production intern at Merce Cunningham Dance during the summer
after graduation.
The internship led to a job with the company in the fall of 2003,
working on its lighting crew. When the company’s costume
designer was unable to accompany the group on tour to Asia,
Finke, who’d grown up on a strawberry farm in Minnesota, mentioned that she could sew. She flew to Asia to work on
Cunningham costumes.
That trip led to more costume work and to getting hired as the
company’s wardrobe supervisor, which didn’t tap into her artistic proclivities. But she kept at it, looking for opportunities
within the company. She began taking photographs, and soon
became the company’s official photographer. By 2007, she’d
designed her first costume for the company, and later became
the group’s costume designer.
“I didn’t study photography or costume design at Purchase, but
being a dancer really helped,” she says. “I used to be in the
dancers’ shoes. I knew what they needed in a costume to be
comfortable. And it’s nice to know, when shooting, that I have
an eye for what the dance should look like.”
Even the greatest performances must come to an end. The
Cunningham company closed on New Year’s Eve with a huge
finale, for which Finke designed the costumes. She’ll be
working there for six months as the company’s costumes are
shipped to the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, MN, for its
permanent collection. It’s time for Finke to reinvent herself—
a 21st-century task that entrepreneurial Purchase alumni seem
well equipped to carry out. “At Purchase, the dance program
is very intense, and you don’t know how you are going to get
through, but you do,” she says. “I found my way by going to the
right places, meeting people, being open, and seeing where the
world brought me.”
Spearheaded by Bill Guerrero, adjunct professor
in the School of Liberal Studies & Continuing
Education, the Purchase Park2Fly enterprise
provides public access to discounted, on-campus
parking for travelers flying in and out of the nearby
Westchester County Airport. The initiative was
developed with help from undergraduate students
enrolled in Guerrero’s course “Entrepreneurship
Business Plan Writing.”
Park2Fly (www.pp2f.org) was launched in April 2011. The service offers a highly desirable alternative to onsite airport parking (which can cost as much as $30 a day, and is often packed to
capacity). For $10 a day, Park2Fly travelers can drop cars off to
be valet parked at the college’s W1 lot. A 24-hour shuttle service transports travelers to and from the terminal. The W1 lot is
one of two expansive parking areas located near the entrance to
The Performing Arts Center. While W2 (the other public space
for daily parking) has always been well used, the W1 space has
remained—until Park2Fly—an underused resource.
Guerrero, who is also executive director of the Purchase College
Association (PCA)—a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation registered
by the State of New York to provide Purchase College students,
faculty, and staff with high-quality, low-cost auxiliary services
that support the academic mission—has taught the entrepreneurship course for the past decade.
“I gave the business plan to a team of four students in the class,
so they could put their spin on it,” says Guerrero. “The students
responded, adding nice elements such as visual branding, the
taglines, and preferred services for Purchase students, faculty,
and staff, who pay just $1 a day.”
Airport parking is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week commitment.
The PCA invested $200,000 in three shuttle buses, a temporary
office, and minor site improvements. Purchase Park2Fly has a
staff of 21, including Phil Sanford ’11, marketing coordinator for
the Purchase College Association, and John Simmons ’11, one of
the valet drivers.
Sanford took Guerrero’s class in the fall of 2010, and was part of
the four-student group working on the business plan. The group
also included Joshua Spielberg ’12, Kevin McQuade ’12, and
Shomari Rollins ’12.
“We ran with it,” says Sanford. “It was amazing—all the details in
the business plan. Everything from who do we hire to what kinds
of shuttles we would get. Then there was the logistics of Lot
W1, and the marketing, media, and branding effort.”
Sanford developed the marketing and branding materials;
Rollins dealt with operations, while McQuade and Spielberg
worked with personnel and customer service. Profits from the
service will support the college. The service’s motto: Your Travel
Supports Their Journey.
Sanford became so involved in the venture that he interned for
the Purchase College Association during the spring of 2011, and
that experience led to a full-time job with the PCA in June.
The service fills a need at the airport, which has about 1,300
spaces. On some days, the garage fills up, so Purchase Park 2 Fly
provides essential capacity for the airport. It’s also a deal for
cost-conscious flyers, offering a fee approximately 64 percent
less than regular airport parking to Park2Fly travelers.
The parking fee started at $5 a day when the service was
launched in April 2011. Marketing was done through direct-mail
coupons sent to homes in Westchester and Fairfield Counties.
On June 1, the price rose to $10. Guerrero says it could rise
again, to ensure that the operation becomes profitable and provides an income stream for the college.
A rosy sign: the lot had 450 cars over the Thanksgiving and
Christmas holidays. As one Purchase staff member relates, “I
hate holiday travel to begin with. Park2Fly made the departure
part easy and nearly free of cost. But kudos go out to the company for my safe return home. My flight was delayed, and I ended
up landing at Westchester Airport at 2 a.m. I called Park2Fly,
collected my luggage, and the shuttle was already waiting for
me (and a few other Park2Fly customers) when I went outside. I
wouldn’t expect that quality of service from a private limousine
company. The driver, despite the late-night holiday weekend,
was more professional, courteous, and efficient than those for
‘high-end’ service shuttles I’d used in the past. A day or two
later, one of the crew called me to say my baggage tag had been
found on the ground of the lot, and asked how best to return it.”
New Leadership for
the Purchase College
Foundation
Emily Grant: Friend, Supporter,
and
Purchase Fan Forever
By Kristi McKee
L
ast fall, Lucille Werlinich, an esteemed donor and
board member since 2009, accepted the appointment
as chair of the board of the Purchase College Foundation
(PCF). Emily Grant, its leader for more than 15 years,
retired in 2011.
board member.” It came as quite a surprise when Emily Grant
approached her with news of her retirement and an invitation to
replace her as board chair.
Werlinich brings enormous fundraising experience and a keen eye
for identifying opportunities. “Lucille is a fantastic fundraiser who
is not afraid to ask for what she feels passionate about,” explains
Jeannine Starr, associate vice president for institutional advancement. Fortunately for Purchase College, a multitude of programs
and activities here fuel her passion.
While somewhat new to the PCF board, Lucille Werlinich has a long
association with Purchase College dating back to the late 1980s.
Attending concerts at The Performing Arts Center as a board member for the now-defunct Philharmonia Virtuosi led to her association with the Purchase College Affiliates, and then to what she
describes as “peripheral involvement” with the Conservatory
of Dance.
Although numerous students had been beneficiaries of the
Werlinich family’s largesse for some time—the Nancy Jo Abeles
Scholarship, founded by her mother, was Purchase College’s first
endowed scholarship—students would soon benefit from
Werlinich’s own generosity.
Her relationship with Purchase College grew when, following her
mother’s death in 2001, Werlinich assumed administration of the
family’s foundation, the Joseph and Sophia Abeles Foundation. “I
zoomed right in on the dance part of it because that’s what I knew
best,” she recalled recently. In addition to contributing to the
Adopt-a-Dancer program, she founded the Purchase College Toe
Shoe Endowment. “I know how hard it is for scholarship students
to buy toe shoes.” A growing interest in climate change led her to
grant money to the Environmental Science program; she’s also
funded student research projects in the School of Natural and
Social Sciences, six different faculty support grants, and the journalism program.
Already filling the vacancy on the Westchester Community College
Foundation board left by her mother’s passing, she also agreed to
join the Purchase College Foundation following the death of her
father in 2008, “not expecting to be anything other than just a
Any trepidation Werlinich may have felt when originally tapped for
the position has seemingly dissipated. While the workload and
challenges might seem daunting to some, she exudes a certain selfassurance as she outlines the goals for her tenure, undoubtedly the
result of years of successful fundraising. With the intention of leading the board in support of President Schwarz and the Purchase
College Strategic Plan, Werlinich proposes the formation of two
new board committees, Scholarships and Student Success.
The Scholarship Committee will see a group of board members sit
with faculty and staff as they review scholarship applications and
juggle the challenges of meeting the demand for financial assistance. In her experience as chair of the Scholarship Committee at
Westchester Community College (WCC), she found that “once
board members read those applications, they get involved. [At
WCC] there were people on the Scholarship Committee for ten, fifteen years and every time they’re asked to sit and review the applications, they show up, and then they come back to the board and
say, ‘We need to raise more money.’”
The graduation rate at Purchase College has risen to 52 percent
from a low of 27 percent ten years ago. To help meet the president’s goal of increasing the rate to 60 percent for the class of
2015, the Student Success Committee will focus on those matters
preventing students from persisting.
While anxious to begin her new endeavors at Purchase, she
acknowledges that it will take time to implement fully the structure to support these activities. “It’s going to be slow, but I think
it’s very worthwhile.”
A lifelong resident of Westchester County, Werlinich believes the
distinctive blend of conservatories and liberal arts inspires her
most about Purchase. “Also, I love that it is local.” Jeannine Starr
observed how both Lucille Werlinich and Emily Grant adopted
Purchase as their hometown college, “supporting it with the same
affection as if it were their own alma mater.”
“The impact both women have made here is immeasurable;
Purchase College is proud and grateful to remain the recipient
of their generosity as the PCF leadership transitions from one
extraordinarily capable chair to the next,” acknowledges
President Schwarz.
(L to R) Emily Grant, Al Osman, and Dr. Betty Osman
In November, fifty people gathered for dinner at La
Panetière in Rye, NY, to honor Emily Grant.
The land on which Purchase College sits was once home
to meadows and fields where Mamaroneck residents
Emily Grant and her daughters would hike, picnic, and
ride horses. She introduced herself to Purchase College
when the first buildings were constructed, and as the
college grew, so did her involvement here.
Emily Grant joined the board of the Purchase College
Foundation (PCF) in 1969. She supported the college at a time
when there were no alumni to fill the role of benefactor.
Her leadership of the PCF board began in 1995 and the legacy
she leaves behind is profound.
Countless faculty members have had their research funded,
the many Friends organizations on campus have received generous donations, and the entire campus community benefited
greatly from her participation as chair of the last capital campaign, which raised $24 million. She helped launch the Piano
Fund, enabling the college to purchase its first new Steinway
in years, and served as trustee on both Friends boards of the
Neuberger Museum of Art and The Performing Arts Center.
Her greatest impact is felt, however, by the generations of
students who have received Grant scholarships. Recognizing
their vested interest in maintaining the quality of public higher education in their community, Emily Grant and her husband
Eugene are charter and lifetime members of the President’s
Club, founded in 1982 to encourage unrestricted support for
the college to provide direct aid to students through scholarships. Scholarships make it possible to recruit top-notch students for their talents, abilities, and scholastic achievement
rather than focusing on their ability to pay. Ninety students
each year receive Emily and Eugene Grant Merit Scholarships,
Music Scholarships, or Vocal Studies Scholarships.
Grant once said, “We are inspired by the talent and quality of
our superb faculty and the ambition and determination of the
student body. The dynamics are palpable and impressive.
Sharing our time and resources has been our privilege and
pleasure.” While space does not permit an entire list of exactly how Purchase College has benefited and continues to benefit from her earnest and distinguished generosity, we can say
with pride and humility how grateful the college is to have
been the recipient of her tireless dedication for so many years.
On Wednesday, November 30, fifty people gathered for
dinner at La Panetière in Rye, NY, to honor Mrs. Grant.
Among those in attendance were her husband Eugene, two
of Mr. and Mrs. Grant’s three daughters, their lifelong friends
Monty and Marilyn Hall, and President Schwarz, in addition
to several Purchase College Foundation trustees and
supporters. Joshua Benevento, a Purchase Conservatory of
Music alumnus and visiting professor of voice, performed
a trio of arias in her honor.
Emily Grant remains an active member of the board of the
Purchase College Foundation. —Kristi McKee
Ring any bells?
Circa 1996. Before 1997,
how did you know where you
parked your car in
W1 and W2?
Post on Facebook (facebook.com/SUNYPurchaseCollege)
Twitter (twitter.com/SUNY_ Purchase)
or e-mail [email protected]
r
Let us know what you know.
Circa ? The beachwood tree
behind the administration
building. What are the stories
behind these carvings?
28p5.9
WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!
g
9
Circa 2003. What inspired
this design? Who came up
with the idea?
e
b
@PURCHASE
Photography by Jim Frank
Circa 1984. A mural in the
tunnels. Do you know the
artists? Do you know what
went on in the space?
Circa 1970. One of a hundred
bolts collected from the
Neuberger Museum of Art
contruction site, silverplated, and distributed to
Purchase faculty, staff, and
administrators. Who has
one of these?
Creating a Gateway
to the Burgeoning
Biotech Field
Purchase College President Thomas J. Schwarz presents
Dr. Andrew Murphy (top) and Dr. David Venezuela with the
2011 Purchase College Science Entrepreneurship Award.
By David McKay Wilson
The facilities will allow students to deepen their work in areas such
as DNA sequencing, in which students can read the DNA code
embedded within an organism, and electrophoresis, a process that
allows students to analyze molecules and compare samples.
P
“Our facility is more than 30 years old, and it’s important to modernize it,” says Factor. “Bringing all this modern equipment together makes more sense and will help students better carry out their
research programs.”
atience, says Peter Powchik, M.D. ’79, is important in the
field of biotechnology when you’re developing drugs to cure human illness.
Powchik, who heads up the clinical development group at Regeneron, Inc.,
in Tarrytown, NY, is now leading studies on a cholesterol-lowering
drug that was synthesized a few years ago and won’t be on the market
for several more years.
Peter Powchik
“It will end up being a seven- or eight-year run, and that’s quick,” says Powchik, who majored in chemistry at Purchase and has worked in the pharmaceutical industry since 1996. “Some compounds could
take up to 50 years to get to market.”
Powchik is among a growing number of Purchase alumni working in biotechnology. That’s the burgeoning field of applied biology that holds great promise in developing products for a host of global problems—in medicine, agriculture, and energy.
The first laboratory he used at Purchase, in the mid-1970s, was housed in a temporary trailer while the
Natural Sciences Building was under construction. Powchik remembers experiencing a sense of awe
the day the new laboratories opened during his second year on campus.
Decades later, Purchase College celebrates an opportunity to renovate its second-floor laboratories in
the Natural Science Building to create a campus center for research in cellular and molecular biology as
well as biotechnology. Work in these laboratories can prepare science majors for graduate studies in
medicine, dentistry, and veterinary science. The lab will also help prepare Purchase graduates for work
at biotechnology companies such as Regeneron, which has added 1,100 jobs since 2006.
“The new labs will help us better serve the downstate community with graduates for careers in the sciences,” says Jan Factor, professor of biology and coordinator of the college’s biology program.
The renovations, financed with a $378,489 grant from the National Science Foundation obtained by
James Daly, associate professor of biology, were being designed this winter and are expected to begin
this summer. The project includes renovation of a large laboratory space for cellular, molecular, and
biotech instruction and research; installation of a new autoclave; the provision of new and specialized
bench space; and a renovation of the college’s microscopy laboratory, which houses the school’s
transmission electron microscope and scanning electron microscope.
After Purchase, Powchik went on to study medicine at NYU Medical
School, did his medical and psychiatry residency at Mount Sinai
Hospital in New York City, and later held a fellowship at Columbia
University in molecular genetics and developmental psychobiology.
He ran a research group at Mount Sinai and spent a year at North
Shore University Hospital on Long Island before holding various
clinical development positions at Sepracor, Inc., and Pfizer, Inc.,
from 1996 to 2001. He worked at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.
from 2001 to 2005, rising to become the drug giant’s vice president
of U.S. clinical development and medical affairs for neuroscience.
After a year serving as chief medical officer at Chugai Pharma USA,
he joined Regeneron.
When he arrived, he found spanking-new laboratories, reminding
him of his days discovering the mysteries of organic chemistry in
the Natural Sciences Building at Purchase.
“It wasn’t until I came to Regeneron that I moved into a new lab
again,” says Powchik, who lives in Croton-on-Hudson with his wife,
Olivia Sklar ’77, and their two children. “It’s nice when they are
brand new,” he said.
Location, Location, Location:
Westchester County
The college’s relationship with the Westchester biotechnology
company is developing. Two scientists at Regeneron—Dr. Andrew
Murphy and Dr. David Venezuela, vice president of functional
genomics—received the 2011 Purchase College Science
Entrepreneurship Award. Powchik returned to the Purchase
campus in late January when Regeneron rented The Performing
Arts Center for a company-wide meeting.
Powchik says Westchester is well situated for growth in the biotech
industry, with its proximity to several metropolitan New York uni-
John Ambroseo ’83, president and chief executive officer of
Coherent, Inc., in Los Altos, CA.
versities and day trips to the Boston area or to Washington, DC, to
confer with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“We’re relatively centrally located and there are good medical
resources nearby,” he says.
Regeneron’s proximity to Purchase College has proved beneficial to
Kieran Feeley, 27, of Chappaqua, a research associate at Regeneron
since 2007, who has his sights set on medical school. Since 2009,
he has enrolled in science courses at Purchase to burnish his background in the natural sciences. This fall, he took courses in cell biology and anatomy.
Feeley discovered Regeneron’s research laboratories while an
undergraduate at Hamilton College. He worked there as an intern
for three summers; last summer, he helped train some of the 70 college interns who arrive to learn about biotech research.
He’s now working in Regeneron’s Genome Engineering
Technologies Group, doing molecular biology research into various
systems of gene expression.
“I like scientific research, and finding out things we don’t know,”
he says. “Those findings can be useful in terms of human health and
developing knowledge out on the scientific frontier.”
Biotechnology Skills are In Demand
The growth in biotechnology in metropolitan New York has sparked
a demand for employees knowledgeable about science research
and the protocols involved in carrying it out in the laboratory setting, and Purchase College is well situated to prepare students for
this career.
The Purchase science faculty and administration are currently
discussing the possibility of developing a concentration in biotechnology within the college’s biology major. This year there are 170
students majoring in biology, the largest major among the college’s
laboratory sciences.
Suzanne Kessler, dean of the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences, says
the biotechnology concentration would provide a solid foundation
for biology majors interested in landing jobs right out of school
rather than considering further scientific studies in graduate or
medical school, which has been a traditional career path for those
who major in the natural sciences.
Professor Ronnie Halperin, chair of Purchase College’s School of
Natural and Social Sciences, says such a concentration would be a
good fit for the school’s science faculty, which has considerable
expertise in the fields of cellular and molecular biology.
“It could serve a sizable group of students at Purchase,” Halperin
says. “Biotechnology is a great career these days.”
Biotechnology: a part of future healthcare
“It would provide them with the kind of hands-on skills that would
be useful for an entry-level position in the biotech industry,” says
Kessler. “We pride ourselves on our science students who go on to
medical and graduate schools. But there are many students who are
either not ready for or not interested in professional training.”
John Ambroseo ’83, president and chief executive officer of
Coherent, Inc., in Los Altos, CA, wasn’t planning on a career
in biotechnology when he graduated with a bachelor’s degree
in chemistry from Purchase College in the early 1980s. But
after earning his doctorate in chemistry at the University of
Pennsylvania, he headed west, finding a position at Coherent,
a California-based company specializing in lasers and laserbased technologies.
Coherent’s products use laser technologies in nontherapeutic
biomedical applications and diagnostics, including DNA sequencing and retinal scanning. Coherent has been a pioneer in develop-
Scholarship Grant Supports Students
in Science & Technology
Carlos Romano ’12 first came to
Purchase College as a Port Chester
High School freshman to participate in
a science enrichment program. Now a
Purchase senior majoring in biology,
Romano has served as a mentor in that
program; he is also vice president of
the Purchase College Pre-Medical
Club, and is preparing to apply for
medical school. This spring he will
complete his senior project—an analysis of the structure and function of
lobster mouthparts. He is conducting
the inquiry using the college’s scanning electron microscope, at
magnifications of up to 10,000 times.
Romano is among 10 Purchase students majoring in scientific fields
in 2011–12 who have received significant tuition assistance through
the program, which includes funding from the NSF and Purchase
College, according to Stephanie McCaine, director of admissions.
The NSF program is designed to support students majoring in biology, chemistry, and biochemistry as part of a national effort to aid
scholars interested in the STEM fields. About 170 of Purchase’s
4,200 undergraduates major in those fields.
Freshman Yoong Jeong Choi ’15, of Rye, NY, says
she first became enthralled by chemistry in a Rye
High School baking class, in which she saw how
combining ingredients in precise but varying
amounts resulted in different chemical reactions.
A grant awarded last summer by the National Science Foundation
(NSF) through its Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
(STEM) scholarship program is making it all possible. A first for
the college, the grant totals nearly $600,000, and will provide
annual scholarships to freshmen, transfer, and continuing students over its five-year period. The program will support academically talented and financially needy biochemistry, biology, and
chemistry students.
“I’m not a perfectionist, yet. I want to be, especially in chemistry,” says Choi, the child of South
Korean immigrants, who is majoring in biochemistry and says she’d like to become a pharmacist.
”I have to know everything before I take a test, because I really
don’t like making mistakes. At the same time, I know I’m learning
when I get it right the second time. In chemistry, you can’t make
mistakes, so it’s a field that suits my nature.”
“I like to learn about how things in the body work together, and
how the breakdown of one little thing can hurt the whole system,”
says Romano, the child of immigrant parents from South America,
and the first in his family to attend college. “In the future, I think it
would be rewarding to help fix a part of that.”
The NSF grant is expected in 2012–13 to serve 18 incoming
students, including 10 transfer students, McCaine says. To qualify,
high school seniors need a grade point average (GPA) of 90 and
SAT scores of at least 1,200. Transfers need to have a 3.25 GPA
in college.
ing laser medicine, providing technologies for dermatology,
and hair and tattoo removal, as well as dental and surgical
procedures.
Ambroseo worked his way up in the company—as sales engineer,
product marketing manager, and national sales manager. After
serving as president and general manager of the Coherent Laser
Group, and then president of the Coherent Photonics Group, he
became president and CEO of the company in 2002.
He says biotechnology will play a central role in the development
of the healthcare industry in the United States and around the
world. He notes that healthcare reform in the United States could
expand the market for health services for more than 30 million
Americans. The growing middle classes in countries such as India
and China want better healthcare as well, which Ambroseo says
will further expand the market.
“How are we going to provide healthcare for all these people without decreasing the quality of care?” he asks.
Part of the solution is increasing the supply of healthcare professionals and developing new drugs. Another part, says Ambroseo,
ENCOURAGING AND SUPPORTING SUCCESS
IN SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
The NSF program builds on the College’s Bridges to Baccalaureate
program, which since 2000 has assisted minority students enrolled
in community colleges in the Hudson Valley region seeking fouryear degrees in the sciences at Purchase. That program, which
runs through 2014, provides support for summer research to 18
community college science majors a year, said Joseph Skrivanek,
the professor of chemistry who originally spearheaded the Bridges
program. Students each receive a stipend of $2,700.
Many of the summer students enroll at Purchase. A number of
them have continued their scientific studies on the graduate level.
Luis Jusino ’07 of Hyde Park, NY, for instance, is seeking his master’s degree in public health at New York Medical College in
Valhalla while working as a case manager at Putnam Hospital
Center in Carmel.
Two other former Bridges students, Jonathan Mathis ’10 and John
Vega ’08, are in medical school—Vega in his third year at Downstate
Medical School in Brooklyn and Mathis in his first year at
Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.
Mathis, 26, who grew up in New Windsor, NY, learned about the
Purchase program while earning his associate degree at Orange
Community College. He participated in the summer research program, and then transferred to Purchase. He subsequently was
accepted to highly competitive summer research programs at Johns
Hopkins University and the University of Michigan.
“These programs opened my eyes to research. There are so many
questions to be answered,” says Mathis.
“At one point, I had a couple of jobs, but I wasn’t faring so well in
class,” he recalls. “But I had to put money in my pocket. The scholarship gave me the time I needed to really focus.”
involves developing better tests for diagnosing illness, which
Coherent has done.
“Biotech plays a big role in figuring out ways to improve the sensitivity and accuracy of tests,” says Ambroseo. “And if you improve
the sensitivity and accuracy of tests, you can better identify, monitor, and track the progression of a disease at much earlier stages.”
His California-based company employs about 2,400 people worldwide. Coherent is among a minority of Silicon Valley companies
with substantial manufacturing operations remaining in California.
Ambroseo says there remains a need for skilled workers with
strong training in the sciences. His company needs people who are
skilled in biochemistry to develop the reagents for the medical
tests. Those with experience in biophysics can help build Coherent
devices. Coherent also seeks employees with backgrounds in optics,
software design, and electrical engineering.
“We are at a point in our history where there’s a real jobs crisis in
our country,” he says. “We have to rely on innovation to remain
competitive, and that means developing products that do things
better, and smarter.”
Vega, who comes from Poughkeepsie and transferred from
Dutchess Community College, participated in the research program
for two summers. He says those days in the laboratory provided a
chance for him to delve deeply into research. One summer, he
worked on a study that determined the effect of fatty acids on
breast cancer cells in rats.
He got to know professors, and they were there for him throughout his time at Purchase.
“It’s a small program, which is good,” says Vega. “If you have questions, you have a 100 percent chance to ask your professor. You
can take your education as far as you want to take it.”
Skrivanek’s successful program in the lower Hudson Valley may
go statewide. He’s now working with the State University of New
York to replicate the Purchase science program with community
college graduates at 32 of SUNY’s 64 campuses. And that
includes having the proper support for the science majors once
they enroll. Over the last 12 years, the program has evolved and
expanded to become a national model for increasing retention
and graduation rates, particularly among minority students. Thanks to significant funding from the National Science
Foundation, the PepsiCo Foundation, Morgan Stanley, and
Purchase College Trustees Phyllis Hyacinthe and Deborah Larkin,
the program has served over 300 students, of whom 60 percent
are underrepresented minorities and over 70 percent of whom
have graduated with a four-year degree.
“The most important thing is to keep the students,” says
Skrivanek. “We have enough things in place now at Purchase, with
tutoring and mentoring programs as well as career development.
So far, our NSF students this year are doing quite well.”
The project director for the NSF STEM scholarship grant is Joseph Skrivanek,
coordinator, Purchase College chemistry and biochemistry programs.
Co–project directors are Dennis Craig, vice president for enrollment and integrated marketing; Wendy Morosoff, director of the Career Development Center;
Joanne Tillotson, associate professor of biology; and Mark Condon, associate
professor of biology and allied health services at Dutchess Community College.
NewsBriefs
NewsBriefs
PURCHA
SE COLLEGE HOSTS UNITED
ACADEMIA CONCERt
In November, the Purchase Symphony Orchestra and other students from the School of Arts Conservatory of Music performed
with internationally acclaimed artists at the United Academia
concert at The Performing Arts Center.
The United Academia concert was a celebration of the first anniversary of the United Nations’ Academic Impact global initiative,
which aligns institutions of higher education with the United
Nations to support the highest principles in human rights, literacy,
sustainability, and conflict resolution.
Purchase performed under guest conductor George Manahan,
music director of the American Composers Orchestra and former
conductor of the New York City Opera for 14 years.
“This was an exciting and unique opportunity for our students to
perform with internationally acclaimed artists,” said Thomas J.
Schwarz, president of Purchase College. “The concert brings to the
attention of the public our highly accomplished students, who will
become the next generation of professional musicians to perform
around the country and the world.” President Schwarz is a member
of the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP), an
Academic Impact partner organization of university chief executives from higher-education institutions around the world.
The concert was sponsored by the Puglia Center of America, in collaboration with Purchase College, and under the patronage of the
Commissione Nazionale Italiana per l’UNESCO; the Commissioner’s
Office for Culture, Tourism, Peace and the Mediterranean Area of
the Region of Puglia; and the Province of Bari.
Caught off guard by the anxiety of releasing a book, coupled
with the fear of unfavorable reviews or lack of attention, Roche
eventually concludes, “I realize it hardly matters. It’s been my
experience that projects have a way of seeping into the world
and finding their audience.”
On behalf of the Dr. E. Lawrence Deckinger Family Foundation,
Executive Director Nancy Deckinger recently extended a significant
gift to the journalism program at Purchase College. The purpose of
the non-endowed fund is to provide support for the study of investigative journalism.
The Deckinger donation is the first to specifically target journalism
at Purchase, and may be used to grant student research awards,
faculty stipends, and program costs associated with the implementation of investigative journalism curricula and initiatives, with an
emphasis on government spending and accountability.
This is the second big boost this year for investigative journalism at
the college. Over the summer, Purchase established a partnership
with InvestigateNY (INY), the New York Center for Investigative
Reporting. Administered on campus by Journalism Professor Mary
Alice Williams, president of the INY Board, and a broadcast news
veteran, the program provides students opportunities to contribute to investigative reporting in the New York region.
INY is managed and its stories and content are reported and
produced by experienced, professional investigative journalists.
As befits its journalistic mission, INY operates as a separate and
independent journalistic entity within Purchase College.
Suzzy Roche, best known as a founding member of the folk-rock
group The Roches, recently published her first novel, Wayward
Saints, which is garnering critical acclaim.
Returning to Purchase College
after a 30-year break, she
received her B.F.A. in acting in
2005. “I loved SUNY Purchase....
I always felt bad about not finishing the degree—or really, what I
felt bad about was not getting
educated.”
In addition to her formal studies,
the education she received from a
life lived in pursuit of creative
Suzzy Roche
opportunity resulted in a novel
described as “funny, smart, poignant, the prose so clear, so direct, so true. This book is a joy,” by
Jane Hamilton, author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World.
Half a Heart and Before and After author Rosellen Brown enthuses,
“Wayward Saints is the best and most surprising debut novel I’ve
read since I can’t remember when.”
PURCHASE | 20
Purchase College received a $15,000 federal grant to buy electric vehicle –charging stations, which are rare (if not completely
absent) in Westchester County. The stations, located near the
entrance of the Purchase Park2Fly airport shuttle operation,
are now up and running.
New donation boosts journalism program
a
lum suzzy roche releases first novel
Suzzy Roche attended Purchase in the 1970s, but failed then to
finish her degree. She instead formed a band in 1979 with her
two sisters, whose debut album the New York Times proclaimed
“recording of the year.” The Roches recorded 11 albums together
and spent more than 30 years performing live, collaborating with
other musicians, writers, actors, and dancers along the way.
lectric car-charging stations
e
installed on campus
F ocus on french cinema 2012
Regional audiences experienced the best contemporary
French-language films from France, Belgium, Quebec, and
Africa during Focus on French Cinema 2012, held March
23–25 at The Performing Arts Center.
The rigorous two-week training residency will take place on campus
at Purchase College. The NYO-USA initiative marks the beginning
of an ongoing partnership between Carnegie Hall and Purchase
College, in which the two organizations will share resources and
explore collaborations in support of their missions and advancing
shared educational goals. Thomas J. Schwarz, president of
Purchase College, is a member of the Advisory Council of Carnegie
Hall’s Weill Music Institute.
Following the residency program at Purchase, the NYO-USA,
conducted by Maestro Gergiev, will hold debut performances at
the college’s Performing Arts Center and the Kennedy Center in
Washington, DC. An international tour will follow, spanning
Moscow, St. Petersburg, and London, with Maesto Gergiev at
the podium.
Alumnus Wins Academy
Award Nomination
(L to R) Jeannine Starr, associate vice president of Institutional Advancement,
Nancy Deckinger, and Suzanne Kessler, dean of the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences
PurchasE to house training program for
carnegie hall national youth orchestra
Carnegie Hall announced in January the launch of the first National
Youth Orchestra of the United States of America, a major new initiative that, beginning in summer 2013, will bring together the
most talented young orchestral players from across the nation.
Created by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, the NYO-USA provides an opportunity for 120 exceptional young musicians (ages 16
to19) to come together with their peers, supported by a faculty of
leading professional orchestra musicians and a different celebrated
conductor each year, for a two-week intensive musical residency on
campus at Purchase, followed by an international tour to top music
capitals around the world. Renowned conductor Valery Gergiev will
lead the orchestra in its inaugural year.
James Spione ‘85, an independent
filmmaker based in Katonah, NY,
received an Oscar nomination for
Documentary Short Subject, for his
film Incident in New Baghdad.
Although a different film ultimately
received the award, Incident in New
Baghdad remains highly acclaimed,
James Spione
recognized as the 2011 Tribeca Film
Festival’s Best Documentary Short.
The film recounts the July 2007 killing of two Reuters journalists
and a number of unarmed civilians by U.S. attack helicopters. U.S.
Army Specialist Ethan McCord, who witnessed the attack and rescued two children caught in the crossfire, was denied psychological
treatment in Iraq for his PTSD. McCord, who turned against the war
as a result of his experiences, began traveling the country, speaking out for the rights of PTSD sufferers and against the American
wars in the Middle East, as a result of the WikiLeaks release of the
cockpit video of the incident.
Presented by the Alliance Francaise of Greenwich in partnership with Purchase’s School of Film and Media Studies, the
Avon Theatre, and the Greenwich Arts Council, the festival
included an exclusive screening of Angele et Tony. Directed
by Alix Delaporte, Angele et Tony has taken the French cinema
community by storm with both leading actors, Clotilde Hesme
(Angele) and Gregory Gadebois (Tony), winning France’s most
coveted national film award, the Cesar. The festival also featured continuous screenings of ten other critically-acclaimed
feature films and shorts.
According to Renee Amory Ketcham, president of the
Alliance Francaise of Greenwich, “The festival was an extraordinary opportunity for people in this region to experience
the best of the best right in their own backyard.”
The Opening Night Gala featured a buffet with fine French
cuisine, courtesy of Les Maitres Cuisiniers de France and the
Academie Culinaire de France, and champagne donated by
Perrier Joet.
According to
Michelle Stewart,
chair of the School of
Film and Media Studies,
students were invited
to produce a documentary film of the entire
festival. “It was total
immersion for them,”
she said.
Filmmaker magazine described Incident in New Baghdad as “one
powerful and disturbing film.”
Spione’s films include Inauguration: Spirit of the Crowd (2009), Our
Island Home (2008), American Farm (2005), and others. He has
worked as a director, writer, and producer in film and television.
NewsBriefs
STUDENTS ADD COLOR AND
FLAIR TO PURCHASE LIFE
usic alum dan romer
M
scored top film at
sundance
Dan Romer ’04, a graduate of the
Conservatory of Music’s studio production program, wrote the score for a film
that won the top prize at the 2012
Sundance Film Festival.
Dan Romer
Beasts of the Southern Wild, the debut film by Benh Zeitlin, received
both the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic and the Excellence in
Cinematography Award: US Dramatic.
Manohla Dargis ’84 hailed the film in the New York Times as “the
standout of this year’s Sundance and among the best films to play
at the festival in two decades,” while the score drew praise by
others as “magnificent” and “outstanding.”
S
tudents Pitch in to Clean up
Long Island Sound
More than 70 Purchase students turned out at a Long Island Sound
beach in Rye, NY, last fall for the 26th annual Ocean Conservancy’s
International Coastal Cleanup. The students, along with environmental sciences faculty members Susan Letcher and Jeff Main,
spent the day not only hunting for and picking up trash and debris,
but also recording everything they found and where they found it.
Over the past 25 years, the International Coastal Cleanup has
become the world’s largest volunteer effort for ocean health.
Nearly nine million volunteers from 152 countries and locations
have cleaned 145 million pounds of trash from the shores of lakes,
streams, rivers, and the ocean on just one day each year. They
have recorded every item found, providing a clear picture of the
manufactured items affecting the health of humans, wildlife,
and economies.
Dan Romer is a record producer, mixer, songwriter, and arranger
based in Brooklyn, NY. His past credits include scoring two awardwinning short films, Death to the Tinman and Glory at Sea, as well
as a Google Chrome commercial and a series of official Obama
presidential campaign commercials. He’s also produced albums for
several new artists such as Jenny Owen Youngs ’04 and Ian Axel,
He Is We, April Smith, Lelia Broussard, Cara Salimando, and
Jukebox the Ghost. He is quickly establishing a name for himself as
an in-demand producer/co-writer and one of the leading up-andcoming production talents in New York.
Fox Searchlight has acquired the film, so look for it in theaters later
this year.
F
irst Contact: The Search for Life in
the Universe
In March, the School of Natural and Social Sciences presented its
Science in the Modern World spring 2012 lecture series, featuring
Washington Post columnist Marc Kaufman.
Kaufman has spent the last several years shadowing scientists
as they research the question “Are we in the world?” During this
project he has accompanied researchers to the deepest mines on
the earth looking for extreme life and to high arctic locations that
mimic the conditions on Mars; flown through the plume of an
erupting volcano; listened to signals from space; and spent time
with scientists in their labs. The result was his book, First Contact:
Scientific Breakthroughs in the Hunt for Life Beyond Earth, which
chronicles current work looking at the origin of life on Earth,
and the search for life in our solar system and beyond. His lecture
at Purchase provided an understanding of what is really known
about life “out there.”
PURCHASE | 22
From Anime to Zumba: Fun at
Purchase Is Student-Run
By Kris DiLorenzo
Zombies parading through
campus en route to their prom;
students starring in their own TV
show, contemplating mandalas
in Tibet, spreading Culture
Shock—these are examples of
Purchase College’s nationally
renowned creativity.
Creativity Is Everywhere
Creativity at Purchase isn’t confined to the visual and performing
arts. Students put their unique stamp on even traditional extracurricular activities such as athletics and student clubs. From silly to
serious, their range of interests and activities is kaleidoscopic—and
if something doesn’t exist, they’ll invent it.
Beyond Baseball
Take, for example, the Ultimate Frisbee team. Expanding the menu
of varsity and intramural sports, co-captains Nicholas Springer and
Cole Rice revived the sport and named the team in homage to its
1990s predecessor, the Atomic Dogs; now the Sub-Atomic Puppies
travel regionally to participate in college tournaments.
Why Frisbee? “It’s exercise, but also a way of life,” explains literature
major Springer, a junior. “It’s a no-contact, self-officiated sport; it’s
about the spirit of the game, and the sense of community. Wherever
we play, I meet people and make friends from other colleges.”
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Stephen Ferri, a Purchase
College junior in the School of
the Arts’ Conservatory of Theatre
Arts Design/Technology program, is paving his way toward
success. Having founded two of
his own theatre companies—the
Harrison Summer Theatre and the
New Musical Theatre Series—the
21-year-old was named one of
“Twenty-Two People to Watch”
by Westchester magazine in
January.
The Nerf Guild is another example of a quirky hobby going mainstream. A small group of friends with toy guns, playing games such
as Capture the Flag and King of the Hill in the residential basement
tunnels, morphed into a club, then a subsect of the Role-Playing
Game Association. Now the Nerf Guild is an independent intramural
sport and recreational club.
A new, atypical fitness program is the Stage Combat Club, which
appeared thanks to the efforts of sophomore Jennifer Brent, a
graphic design major. A martial arts student for three years and
member of the Fencing Club, Jennifer wanted to study stage combat, but that discipline was limited to Theatre Arts students. Last
year she started a club open to all students, taught by Jared Kirby,
the college’s fencing and stage combat instructor. “I wanted a physical outlet; to have something physical to do so I’m not lying on my
bed gaining weight,” jokes Jennifer. She explains the connection
with her career path: “I want to go into character design, so seeing
how the body moves is important for my own benefit.”
PURCHASE | 23
Purchase College Student Government President Brittany Mayes
Unique Traditions
Uniqueness is a Purchase hallmark. “Our most popular events are
Culture Shock, FallFest, the Zombie Prom, Fall Ball, and any Latinos
Unidos or SOCA (Students of Caribbean Ancestry) event,” says
Brittany Mayes, PSGA (Purchase Student Government Association)
president and one of Purchase’s busiest students. “Students create
new events every year.”
Culture Shock, an annual two-day music festival in April, presents
unorthodox musical acts and performance artists, who have included electronic music wiz Dan Deacon, singer Regina Spektor, Animal
Collective, Cat Power, Biz Markie, and Destiny’s Child, among other
well-known names.
The colorful Fall Ball celebrates the college‘s strong LGBT culture.
Sponsored by the LGBTQU (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender,
Queer Union), Purchase’s oldest and largest student organization,
the event features a dance and a drag queen and king competition;
its previous themes have been Moulin Rouge and Candy Land.
Board member and co-president (with Chloe Lubin) Lauren Doty, a
political science major, explains why the ball is so successful, with
nearly 400 attendees. “This is a vibrant, creative, growing community. To be able to go to a school where it’s so visible and well
known is a great testament to how open Purchase is.”
The Purchase approach to impending final exams isn’t exactly what
people expect, either. Before they hit the books, students have one
last hurrah: Pancake Madness, a 9 p.m. to midnight fever-pitch
breakfast served by faculty and staff, where more than a thousand
dancing students are packed shoulder to shoulder, and the number
of pancakes consumed has yet to be counted.
Something for Everyone
Many signature events, student-run services, club events, and a
smorgasbord of other activities take place in the Student Center. The
“Stood” is the college’s heartbeat, home to two concert venues, the
Student-Run Art Gallery, film screenings, laser tag, Night of a
Thousand Pizzas, Roller Derby night, the Art Co-Op, FallFest, and yes,
the Zombie Prom, among other experiences…with more to come.
Student Senate President Matt Sekellick (center)
exercising great autonomy as well as broad responsibility. Brittany
is the student body’s main representative to the college administration, meets with faculty and staff members, sits on the College
Council, and gives a State of the Union address to the campus.
She’s also busy off campus. “This winter I also was a site leader for
a student-planned Purchase Alternative Service Trip to New
Orleans,” Brittany says. “We went to work with Project Lazarus, an
organization that provides services to people living with HIV/AIDS
who are unable to take care of themselves.”
College publications, radio stations, and even television stations
are nothing new, but they work the Purchase way: student founded
and student-run. The Brick, a digital newspaper with its own show,
Brick TV, airing weekly on Purchase Television, has just launched a
radio show on WPSR. Students also produce The Submission, an
interdisciplinary journal of creativity, whose covers feature extraordinary artwork, and recently the weekly print and electronic newspaper, The Purchase Independent, known as the Indy, celebrated its
10th anniversary.
Roisin McCarty, the Indy’s editor-in-chief, says she “fell in love
with” her work. “The Indy really helped me acclimate to the campus
during my first semester, and because of that I decided to start
attending meetings.” The sophomore literature major doesn’t mind
the scheduling challenges of coordinating a staff of students. Says
Roisin, “Nothing beats the feeling of seeing the first copy come out
of the printer when we’re done putting an issue together.”
YouTube and video blogs are part of Purchase culture, and “digital
ambassadors” Sophie Bernbaum and Eric Desorta are highly visible
with their Vlog Blog: http://sophieanderictalkpurch.tumblr.com/.
They offer their particular take on ordinary life incidents, answer
questions, comment on just about anything Purchase-related, and
seem to have their fingers on the pulse of the student body.
Psychology major Eric explains succinctly what’s different about
Purchase from other strongly arts-oriented schools: “The dancers
don’t just hang out with the other dancers. I know at least four
people from every social group!”
It would be hard to find an area of interest that student clubs and
organizations don’t cover. A random sampling includes the HipHop
Club, the Cheese Club, Feminists Organizing Real Transformation
Here (FORTH), Comics United, the Organization of African Peoples
in the Americas (OAPIA), the New York Public Interest Research
Group (NYPIRG), the Pacific Asian Organization (PAO), Hillel, and
clubs in nearly every academic discipline. Joining that roster is the
student-run Emergency Medical Service (EMS), and a bicycle repair
shop, Broken Spokes, is under consideration.
Academic work generates creativity of a different sort. A senior
project can metamorphose into a permanent fixture, a career
launching pad (see “Entrepreneurs” on page 5), or a foot in the
door to graduate school. Says Student Senate president and drama
major Matt Sekellick, whose own project was a production of
Beowulf//Grendel, “There are senior projects in the Humanities
Theatre almost every week in the spring: dance B.F.A. concerts,
visual arts gallery shows, and theater B.A. projects. There are also
events like the Natural Science Symposium—a tremendous
opportunity for students to present their own research studies in a
professional environment.”
Most clubs and organizations are financed with grants distributed
by the PSGA, one of the rare student government associations
Thanks to free admission to the Neuberger Museum of Art and $5
tickets to Performing Arts Center events, students have easy access
PURCHASE | 24
to a spectrum of performances and exhibitions. And lecture series,
sponsored by many academic programs, provide a yearlong stream
of opportunities for all students to hear from esteemed authors,
artists, researchers, and social scientists.
Internships, both on campus and off, range far beyond office
gopher jobs. Arts management major Keila Mera held simultaneous
internships at Comedy Central and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and
currently is an intern at both Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show
with Jon Stewart. “I made some great connections,” she says of her
fast-paced television experience. “Not only that, but the people I
met, including interns and heads of departments, also have become
friends.”
A semester abroad or exchange program can send students to
exotic locales. In January, students fulfilling their natural science
requirement studied coral reef biology and ecology at the Roatan
Institute for Maritime Science on one of the Bay Islands of
Honduras. This summer, students can study philosophy, art, and
culture at the Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala, India, home of
the exiled Tibetan government and the Dalai Lama.
During her summer stay in Pisciotta, Italy, to study language and
culture, senior graphic design student Stephanie Cuenca lived in a
town with one main street, no TV, radio, or phones, and a flight of
70 stairs leading from the local piazza to her apartment. “Because I
had no access to the outside world, I took a lot of photos and put
them on my blog,” says the Brooklyn native. “I wanted to be
immersed in a place completely different from where I’m from,
where I got the experience of the culture in its true form, and this
program was it.”
Serving the Community
Closer to home, Amanda Zambrana, a drama major and president of
Latinos Unidos, one of the oldest campus organizations, demonstrates the meaning of civic engagement. She created her own
event, “It’s a Baby Shower.” Now in its second year, the “shower”
collects donations of clothes and other basic goods for centers
serving new mothers from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“Think globally, act locally” is another way students get involved
with important issues. The Green Team focuses on environmental
sustainability: it initiates campus cleanups, raises awareness about
reducing energy use, and has held a Green Expo, inviting corporations to campus to show how they promote sustainability.
Now, about the Zombie Prom: after years of the usual homecoming
celebrations and formal proms, students decided to think outside
the box, and came up with this event. Every year, costumed and
made up as zombies, several hundred of them march through
campus to the Stood for their special kind of prom. Dancing to live
bands is a must; formal wear is optional.
CLUBS &
ORGANIzations
Active Minds
The Alternative Clinic
Anime Club
Anthropology Club
Aperture (Photography
Club)
The Art Co-Op
Arts Management Club
ASA (Asian Students
Association)
OAPIA (Organization of
African Peoples in
the Americas)
intramurals,
recreation, leagues
& tournaments
PAO (Pacific Asian
Organization)
Indoor Soccer
Flag Football
Philosophy Society
Basketball
Pre-Med
Psychology Club
Racquetball
PTV (Purchase
Television)
Dodgeball
Purchase Environmental
Activists
Tennis
Badminton
Volleyball
Purchase Garden
Bible Talk
PUSH Ideas into Action
Sports Clubs
The Brick
RPGA-P (Role Playing
Game Association—
Purchase)
Ultimate Frisbee
CANDIES
Cheese Club
Chess Club
Comics United
Critique Club (Visual Art)
SOCA (Students of
Caribbean Ancestry)
Sociology Club
Stage Combat
DDR (Dance Dance
Revolution) Club
Student Art Gallery
Film Society
The Submission
Food Co-Op
Tech Services
FORTH (Feminists
Organizing Real
Transformation Here)
WPSR Radio
Fusion Christian
Fellowship
ATHLETICS AND sports
Fall Varsity Sports
Men’s Golf
Gamers United
Men’s Soccer
The Green Team
Hip-Hop Club
Men’s & Women’s
Cross Country
Capoeira
Fencing
Men’s and Women’s
Lacrosse
Nerf Guild
Rugby
SOL (Step Out Loud)
Stage Combat
Tae Kwon Do
RECREATIONAL and
FITNESS CLASSES
Zumba
Mat Pilates
Martial Arts
Aqua Zumba
Hillel
Women’s Soccer
Capoeira
History Club
Women’s Tennis
Rock Wall
The Independent (Indy)
Women’s Volleyball
Off-Campus Trips
Japan Club
Latinos Unidos
Winter Varsity Sports
LGBTQU (Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transgender,
Queer Union)
Men’s Basketball
Women’s Basketball
Literature Society
Women’s Swim & Dive
Mount Olympus,
the Print Shop
MSA (Media, Society
and the Arts) Club
NYPIRG (New York Public
Interest Research Group)
Men’s Swim & Dive
Spring Varsity Sports
Baseball
Men’s Tennis
Men’s Volleyball
Professional Sports
Games (Yankees, Mets,
Knicks, Nets, Devils,
Rangers) Outings
Paintball
Ski/Snowboarding Trips
Skateboard Park
Museum Trips (MOMA,
Natural History)
Broadway Shows
and Concerts
Softball
PURCHASE | 25
Purchase College continues to grow, rebuild, and thrive. For
those who have visited campus recently, you will notice a new
campus mall, which focuses more on green than brick. But with
all the change, much still remains the same, and Purchase is still
the strong, independent institution it always has been.
Take some time this spring to visit Purchase, attend one of
the Alumni Association’s events, including an alumni Pancake
Madness, or the Purchase +30 reunion, or visit us during the
annual Culture Shock festival. Join us on Facebook, Twitter
( @purchasealumni ), or LinkedIn. There are so many ways to
get reconnected and network with your fellow alumni. Help us
to grow our online communities and share in our common
experiences as Purchase alumni.
Many of our initiatives, and the important initiatives of student
scholarships and faculty development, are supported with the
generosity of fellow alumni through the Purchase College
Annual Fund. If you have already given a gift to this year’s
Annual Fund, I thank you for your contribution. If you have
never given, I encourage you to join me as a donor to the
Annual Fund. Every little bit counts. To find out more about
the Annual Fund, go to http://www.purchase.edu/giving/ and
click on “Annual Fund”. You can even give online.
As alumni and friends of Purchase, you have a place on the
team as we join with the administration, faculty, staff, and
current students of Purchase to continue the efforts to build a
better college. Help lead the charge as a donor, or become a
part of our team through scholarship support, volunteerism,
and active participation in campus and alumni life. Please stay
in touch by sending professional and personal news for Class
Notes, as well as updated addresses, phone numbers, and
email addresses, to [email protected].
Do you have any suggestions for how we can better connect
with your fellow alumni? Let us know. I look forward to hearing
from you and am honored to serve as your President.
Jeffrey S. Putman, Ed.D. ’96
President, Purchase College Alumni Association, Inc.
[email protected]
Dr. Jeffrey S. Putman ’96 was elected president of the
Purchase College Alumni Association in December 2007.
He is currently assistant dean for student affairs at SUNY
Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY.
PURCHASE | 26
ALUMNI
in Action
1976
Lauren Wood-Radcliffe (language and culture) teaches
French and Latin at John Jay High School in the KatonahLewisboro school district in New York. She travels frequently with her French classes to Quebec City,
Montreal, and France, and has taken students to Italy.
She and her husband Clifford live in Yorktown Heights;
they have four children. ages 21 to 30, and three spirited
Weimaraners.
1977
Lisa Levart (dance) recently published her first book of photography, Goddess on Earth:
Portraits of the Divine Feminine.
The book is the culmination of
more than eight years of work in
which women of all ages and
backgrounds were each photographed exploring and celebrating their power, strength, and beauty by embodying a
goddess or sacred myth. Some of the “goddesses on
earth” include actors Olympia Dukakis, Shirley Knight,
Lisa Gay Hamilton, and Karen Allen; best-selling authors
Isabel Allende, Madhur Jaffrey, and Rose Styron; and
fellow Purchase alum singer Suzzy Roche. The project
has evolved to include a multimedia installation that
celebrates the strength, wholeness, and self-esteem of
contemporary women and girls. Viewers of all ages are
inspired to embrace their own identity as they experience this empowering, feminist sanctuary.
See goddessonearth.com.
1978
Mark Patnode (visual arts) enjoyed
designing new logos for the U.S. Navy
commander submarine Atlanta. They
can be seen at sublant.navy.mil.
Michael Rabinowitz (music performance) continues to
play with the Charles Mingus Orchestra and performed
at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival last fall. He participated
in the Gil Evans Centennial project, realized by Ryan
Truesdale, which will release newly discovered, previously unrecorded pieces by Gil. Live performances of
these works are scheduled for May. Michael has been
invited to Mexico this spring for a weeklong festival of
improvised performances and teaching by Omar Tamez.
1980
Carol Dallinga (sociology), L.C.S.W., C.G.P., E.M.D.R.,
was the featured speaker at the fall 2011 conference of
the Illinois Group Psychotherapy Society in Chicago at
the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. Her
topic for mental health professionals was “Marketing
Your Practice: Thriving in a Changing World.”
Robyn Tanzman Ochs (language and culture), after 27
years as an administrator at Harvard University, is stepping away to focus fulltime on speaking, writing, and
activism. She travels around the United States (and
beyond) speaking about gender, sexuality, and identity,
with the goal of increasing awareness and understanding of complex identities and mobilizing people to be
powerful allies within and across identities and social
movements. She lives in Massachusetts with her wife,
Photo: Laurie Swope.
Dear Alumni and Friends:
Peg and Robyn on their wedding day
Peg Preble, and has spoken at Purchase several
times. She can be found online on Facebook
and at robynochs.com.
1981
Curtis Kasefang (design/tech) is celebrating
eight years with Theatre Consultants
Collaborative, L.L.C. (TCC). TCC was founded
by Curtis and two colleagues, and has grown
to include nine other members. In 2011, they
completed theaters for Austin City Limits,
Louisiana State University, Florida State
University, Thalian Hall, and 12 other municipalities and schools. Since graduation, Curtis
has worked as a technical director, production
manager, and theater consultant, with a short
stint as the vice president of a behavioral
healthcare practice. Henia (Shatz) Stein (sociology) is a freelance
writer working on her second and third books.
She recently published her father’s Holocaust
memoir, Why My Father Ran, and says “Research
was a lifelong project, but writing began five
years ago.” See: http://www.amazon.com/
Why-Father-Ran-Henia-Stein/dp/1463796331.
1983
Leslie Kincaid Burby (acting) received a 2011
New York Innovative Theatre Award for
Outstanding Director for her work on Eddie
Antar’s The Navigator, which was produced by
the WorkShop Theater Company. In February, a
four-week revival of The Navigator was staged
at the WorkShop Theater Company’s Main
Stage Theater. The Navigator
Nora (Baskin) Raleigh (literature) won the 2010
ALA Schneider Family Award for Anything But
Typical. She has published short stories, and her
personal-narrative essays have appeared in the
Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and The Writer.
She teaches creative writing at the Gotham
Writers’ Workshop and the Writers’ Center in
Sleepy Hollow, NY. Her eighth young-adult
novel, The Summer Before Boys, was released by
Simon & Schuster this spring and received a
starred review from Kirkus. Another young-adult
novel, Surfacing, will be published in 2013. Kevin Sutton (visual
arts) had an exhibit,
“Kevin Sutton:
Paintings on Paper,”
from December 3 to
22, 2011, in New York.
1984
Mark London (design/
tech) is vice president
of the Lighting Design
Kevin Sutton
Group, an Emmy
Award–winning lighting production services company. The group has
designed and worked on installations in Istanbul
and New Delhi. Currently Mark and others are
working on new projects in Abu Dhabi and
Beijing. The Lighting Design Group employs
many Purchase alums, including Mike Grabowski,
Mark Janesczko, Adam Gabel, Paul Morrill, Nic
Harris, and Sean McLoughlin, who have been
lighting all the political debates for Fox, NBC
(MSNBC, CNBC), and ABC. The group will be
lighting the United Kingdom Olympics and the
fall conventions and elections.
Maria Reina (dance) is now a chef and has been
doing demos at the PepsiCo Farmers’ Market in
Purchase during the summer. Other alums at the
market are farmers and soapmakers. The market
is open every Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
until November. See www.bellacucinamaria.com.
1985
Larry Gomez (photography/visual arts) taught
elementary school in Brooklyn for several years
before attending Brooklyn College and receiving an M.F.A. in 1992. Since then, he has
enjoyed success as a commercial and fine artist,
with his work in solo and group exhibitions in
and around New York City. El Museo del Barrio
(Brooklyn) acquired one of his paintings for its
permanent collection in 2000. Commercially,
Larry worked as a graphic designer in 1995 for
the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour and at Fox5 for a
decade before moving to NBC Universal in
2005, where his most recent work included the
Martin Bashir Show. Larry is married and has
two daughters, and lives in central New Jersey.
To view his portfolio or get in touch, see
behance.net/lgomez222, facebook.com/larry.
gomez1, vimeo.com/user5654487, or
larrygomez.net.
1986
James Cruickshank (political science) is director
of research and development at the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), Real Estate Assessment
Center, Washington, DC, where he conducts
statistical modeling and prototypes and builds
innovative analytical tools to improve the
effectiveness and operations of public and
assisted housing. James leads a team of analysts in a “think tank” laboratory-type environment of innovation. He also served as the HUD
disaster recovery chief in New Orleans in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, helping resettle hundreds of displaced families until their
housing units could be repaired. He’s been
accepted as a local New Orleanian because of
his efforts. James lives in the Dupont Circle
neighborhood of Washington and enjoys traveling the world with his twin brother John in his
free time. John S. Cruickshank (political science) is a senior
analyst at the National Science Foundation in
Washington, DC, and has been with the U.S.
government for more than 25 years. He is the
Micronesia and South Pacific desk officer
responsible for building research and education
in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands,
American Samoa, the Republic of the Marshall
Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and
the Republic of Palau. He has briefed heads of
state and governors and has been a featured
expert source for national print and broadcast
media. He was selected to give the commencement address at Guam Community College in
May 2012. He is the twin brother of James
Cruickshank, also class of 1986.
Janice L. Minor
(music) is the clarinet professor at
James Madison
University in
Harrisonburg, VA,
and the Saarburger
Serenaden
International Music
Festival and School
in Saarburg,
Janice L. Minor
Germany. Active as
an orchestral player, solo recitalist, chamber musician, clinician,
and music educator, Janice has performed and
appeared in a wide variety of venues throughout the United States and Europe. She has been
a soloist with, among others, the United States
Army Europe Band in Heidelberg, the United
States Army Band (“Pershing’s Own”), the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the
Aspen and Staunton Music Festivals, and the
Lucca Music Festival in Lucca, Italy. She has
also performed on soundtracks for the
Discovery Channel and National Geographic.
Janice is a Buffet Crampon U.S.A. performing
artist-clinician and music reviewer for The
PURCHASE | 27
ALUMNI
in Action
Clarinet, the official journal of the International
Clarinet Association.
Inspiration
behind the
film VITO,
gay activist
and author
of The
Celluloid
Closet Vito
Russo.
1988
Heather Rolland (social science/visual arts) has
organized a Catskill Mountain hiking group
called Gowns for Greenbacks. This group bushwhacks and climbs the Catskills and
Shawangunks in long formal gowns (men wear
either gowns or tuxedos) to raise money for
preservation of the Catskill Mountains and,
more recently, to raise money to assist the
farmers in the Catskill region who were devastated by Hurricane Irene. Her daughter, Maya,
is currently studying in Germany for a year.
Heather can be reached via her Facebook page
or by contacting [email protected].
2012. Look for it on the film-festival circuit in
various cities around the world next year.
1994
Joshua Mehigan (philosophy) is the recipient of
a 2011–12 creative writing fellowship in poetry
from the National Endowment for the Arts. In
addition, this fall Poetry magazine awarded
him the 2011 Editors’ Prize for best feature
article published in the past year. The article,
“I Thought You Were a Poet,” takes up the subject of poets and madness. It’s available online
at www.poetryfoundation.org.
Dannielle Tegeder (visual arts) is headed this
spring to the Yaddo Foundation residency—an
artists’ community located on a 400-acre
estate in Saratoga Springs, NY. Dannielle’s
work is shown in galleries nationally and internationally and her studio is in midtown
Manhattan at the Elizabeth Foundation. See
DannielleTegeder.com for details of upcoming
projects and shows. She is also an assistant
professor of art at the City University of New
York at Lehman College. She can be reached at
[email protected].
1992
1995
1991
Gayle Gibbons
Madeira (dance)
won the 2011 U.S.
Tango
Championship in
the salon (improvisation) category.
(She won the same
competition in the
stage category in
2008.) The competition is for the
Argentine tango,
not the ballroom
version. Gayle
recently created
choreography for
an independent
Gayle Madeira and Sid
film, Cut to Black,
Grant, 2011 U.S. Tango
by filmmaker
Championship
Daniel Eberle, to be
released later this
year. Last year her artwork was featured in
another of Eberle’s films, Prayer to a Vengeful
God. Gayle is also the
manager of a software testing team in a financial institution. Her website is www.gaylemadeira.com.
Jeffrey Schwarz (film) had the world premiere
of his film VITO, a documentary about beloved
gay activist and author of The Celluloid Closet
Vito Russo, at the prestigious New York Film
Festival in October 2011. VITO, which is an
HBO Documentary Films presentation, will
have its world premiere on the network in June
PURCHASE | 28
Nicholas (Nick) McCarthy
(film) had his feature film,
The Pact, selected for the
Sundance Film Festival
this year. Writer/director
Nick has had short films
at Sundance before, but
this is his first featurelength effort. The festival had a record number
of submissions this year (around 9,000), and
Nick was one of only 120 or so selected. His
film was covered by the New York Times: carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com.
1998
Iris Bodre (literature), who publishes under the
name Abigail Suzahns, had a book signing in
January at BooksAMillion in Brandon, FL, for
her first published work, Living a Lifetime in
625 Days.
1999
Farah (Barzai) Jan (political science), after
graduating from Purchase, earned a master’s
degree and is now working on her Ph.D. at
Rutgers. She is not at the dissertation-writing
stage yet (she is in her second year) but just
published an article in a refereed journal. Michael Meyer (art history) campaigned to
represent the Third District on the Yonkers
City Council in 2011. Michael is a lifelong city
resident; he is married and has three children,
and now owns a fine-art company with his
wife. The 44-year-old Republican beat Jay
Bryant, the former GOP pick, in their party’s
two-way primary in September, but lost the
council race.
2001
Gregory MacAvoy (visual arts), Noah Post
(visual arts), and Phil Moffa (’02 and M.M. ’10,
studio composition) are cofounders of
Glasschord Art and Culture magazine, which was
launched in January 2011. The online publication features works from many media, including painting, photography, music, film, poetry,
and prose. In its first year, Glasschord was
viewed by more than 50,000 people in over a
hundred countries and is steadily growing.
Glasschord has featured the work of several
Purchase faculty members and alumni alongside many other notable artists and composers. See glasschord.com.
2002
Bianca LaVerne Jones (acting) played the lead
in the B.E.T. film Burned, costarring Eric
Roberts. The film has been shown nationally at
more than ten film festivals, including the
Urban World Film Festival in New York, at
which Bianca shared the red carpet “with the
likes of 50 Cent, Spike Lee, and Chris Rock.”
2003
Jason Hanasik (visual arts) has had his work
reviewed on PBS’s “Art 21” blog. His work has
been critically acclaimed and featured in such
renowned publications as Aperture. See www.
jasonhanasik.com.
Tiffany Rea-Fisher (dance), after graduation,
performed with Compania de Dance, Spain; the
Kevin Wynn Collection, NYC; Dance
Anonymous, Cyprus; Abraham.in.Motion,
NYC; and the Brett Howard Dance Company,
NYC. She joined Elisa Monte Dance in 2004,
and was named Dance Magazine’s “On the Rise”
person for its August 2007 issue. Tiffany began
her administrative work for Elisa Monte Dance
in 2007. In 2009, she was promoted to associate artistic director, and has now added the
title of director of operations.
Christina (Chrissy) Reilly (visual arts) is the vice
president and creative and operations director
of WIN-Initiative (win-initiative.com), a boutique stock photography agency. She manages
and interacts with a group of 800 photogra-
Send your news,
updates, and photos to:
purchase.edu/alumni
Remember to include
your class year and major.
phers in 22 countries. Chrissy is also responsible for organizing WIN’s special events, including the “Take 5ive” lecture series; managing its
international photography competition, 10
BEST 10; and acting as creative director of
WIN’s magazine, WINk (wink-mag.com). She
holds a master’s degree in fine art from the
City College of New York. In 2011 she was on
the jury for Photolucida’s prestigious photography competition, Critical Mass. In her spare
time, she also designs and creates a jewelry line
focused on beadwork and found objets d’art
called WAXTHEDUCK.
Peter Sloan (graphic design and new media) has
a book deal with Amazon and Barnes and
Noble. See SloansBookPress.com. After graduating from Purchase, he attended the SUNY
New Horizons graduate learning center and got
a 2.5-year certificate in the summer of 2009.
He did a one-year medical residency within the
department of health radiology, which counts
toward an M.D. or nursing degree. His first
book listed on www.bn.com is Peter Sloan
Teaches How to Troubleshoot PCs.
2004
Delia Kelly (drama studies) is a television editor
and producer for NBC’s New York Live, as well
as a segment editor for ABC’s The Chew. Her
previous credits include writing and editing for
the Howard Stern Show on Demand and editing
for Psychic Detective, Cosmopolitan, and
Seventeen magazines, as well as the award-winning documentaries Jack Smith and the
Destruction of Atlantis and Blood of My Brother
and the feature film Perception. See www.
deliakelly.com.
Glen Parker (philosophy) received an LL.M.
degree in 2011 from Benjamin N. Cardozo
School of Law, Yeshiva University, where he
currently works as a fellow with the Kukin
Program for Conflict Resolution. This winter,
Glen (who served as PSGA president while
at Purchase) and a partner started a private
conflict-resolution company, Parker Murphy
Mediation, based in New York City. He and his
partner offer mediation services, specializing in
divorce and housing matters. One of the founders of the Purchase College student-run newspaper The Independent (affectionately known as
the Indy), Glen recently contributed an article
for its 10 th-anniversary edition.
2005
Matthew Albanese (photography) had work
displayed in the “Otherworldly: Optical
Delusions and Small Realities” exhibit at the
Museum of Art and Design. He was in good
company; Matthew’s photography appeared
along with works by James Casebere, Lori Nix,
Walter Martin, and Paloma Munoz.
2006
Cashel Sapphire Campbell (liberal studies) has
been working as a freelance artist since gradua-
tion. An actor and dancer, Cashel is particularly
dedicated to the art of belly dancing and is
currently training with Arianna Al Tiye at the
Mark Morris Dance Studio. She has taken classes and workshops with renowned performers
and instructors, including Alanah, Allisyn
“Oya” Swift, Djhari Clarke of Desert Sin Dance
Company, Dr. Sunyatta Amen, Elisheva of
Bellyqueen, Hanan, Jeniviva, Ranya Renee, and
Shoshanna. She has starred in a number of OffBroadway and Off-Off-Broadway productions
as a featured belly dancer. She intends to pursue a master’s degree in dance movement therapy. For bookings, workshops, and classes, call
Cashel at (516) 587-7013, or email her at
[email protected].
Amber Galeo (women’s studies) just finished
her master’s degree at Columbia in human
rights, and the field of women’s rights is still
the cornerstone of her research.
Joshua Pramis (journalism) started with
Travel+Leisure magazine’s digital team in
August 2006 and is still with the company. He
was recently named the social media editor. He
also edits the monthly “Digital Traveler” page
and writes feature articles and blog posts for
the website. See www.joshuapramis.com,
www.travelandleisure.com/authors/681, www.
facebook.com/joshuapramis, and twitter.com/
joshuapramispinterest.com/joshuapramis.
2008
Zak Block (cinema studies) is the founder and
editor-in-chief of Squawk Back (www.
thesquawkback.com), an online literary publication specializing in outsider and transgressive
literature.
Meredith Burns (acting) is the managing director of Glass Bandits Theater Company. Since it
was formed in 2008 by a group of Purchase
College acting alumni, Glass Bandits has
remained committed to producing “alive and
accessible theatrical events” aimed at a “misfit
audience of twenty-somethings and nontraditional patrons.” Whether it’s Anton
Chekhov’s Three Sisters, boldly staged in an
intimate Bushwick loft, or The Boogyman
Thumbs A-1-A, an original saga about the love
between a serial killer and a court journalist
played out against the wild backdrop of an
Oz-like north Florida, Meredith says that the
Glass Bandits “are sure to deliver experiences
you’ll never forget. See www.gbtheater.com.
2007
Jared Albert (journalism) was promoted to publicist at Animal Planet. He was previously a
junior publicist. See jared _ albert@discovery.
com and http://press.discovery.com/us/apl.
Elizabeth Maeve Hartley (psychology) pursued
a joint J.D./M.B.A. program and graduated
from the University of Massachusetts at
Dartmouth in the spring of 2011 with a master’s
degree in business administration. She then
transferred to the Roger Williams School of
Law, from which she expects to graduate with a
law degree in the spring of 2013; she plans to
sit for both the New York and Connecticut bar
exams. Elizabeth says she attributes much of
the success she has enjoyed in both graduate
programs to the rigorous educational experience offered by the psychology department at
Purchase College.
Samantha Rattner (design/tech) is living in
New York and working as the assistant costume
designer for the popular TV series Gossip Girl.
She has also designed for Nicholas Andre
Dance and “Sewing Hope” (a project of the
Fount of Mercy Vocational Development
Program). Her work has been featured in
Portfolio Fusion magazine.
Sophia Soloway (literature) just finished her
first year as a journalism graduate student at
NYU and says she “loved it!” To see her latest
video on shopping for spring in the bad economy, go to: sophiemae333.blogspot.com
Glass Bandits Theater Company
Hunter Canning (acting) is making his Broadway
debut in War Horse at Lincoln Center. In New
York his credits include The Late Christopher
Bean at TACT, ’68 at LAByrinth, Reconstruction
at the Ohio Theater, and John MacDonald’s
Dust at the Incubator/
Tenement St. Workshop.
He appears in the upcoming film Porcupine
Hugs and also in The
Exploding Girl, and did
voiceover work for Dead
Red Redemption.
Hunter’s photography
Hunter Canning
portfolio can be seen at
huntercanningphoto.com.
Meryl Cates (journalism and dance) was a 2010
fellow in the NEA Arts Journalism Institute in
Dance Criticism held at the American Dance
Festival in North Carolina. The competition was
highly selective and there were only about a
dozen people chosen from a worldwide pool of
applicants. The three-week intensive program
convened at Duke University, where the fellows
met with top dance critics and others to study
the changing face of arts journalism in the
United States. They interviewed visiting choreographers and dance artists, attended nightly
performances at the festival, and engaged in
PURCHASE | 29
ALUMNI
in Action
intensive writing workshops. Meryl can be
reached at [email protected].
Zach Blane (design/tech)
was recently chosen to be
one of Live Design
Magazine’s “Young
Designers to Watch.” See
http://livedesignonline.
com/theatre/0106 _
Zach Blane
young _ designer _
zach _ blaine/.
Currently living in New York, Zach is the lighting designer for the Roundabout Theatre
Company’s new play Suicide, Incorporated, as
well as for the New York Musical Theatre
Festival’s Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: A
Musical. Zach designed the workshop of YANK!
for the Roundabout Theatre Company and Zero
Hour for the Barrington Stage Company. He
was an assistant to Brian MacDevitt on 13,
Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome, America, and Joe
Turner’s Come and Gone, and spent two summers at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.
See www.zachblane.com/.
Christa DeFaber (history) was just appointed
digital services librarian for the College of
Westchester in White Plains. This new position
was created to support online education. She
will be working with both the online division
and the library. Christa can be reached at
[email protected].
Tomomi Fujita (sociology) attended a scholarship award ceremony at the Harvard Club and
was the second winner to receive a $5,000
scholarship. Only five graduate students were
chosen from New York. She took a course for
Japanese language teachers at the Japan
Society in New York this semester; she was one
of four students (out of forty) selected to be
a teaching assistant and will give Japanese
lessons this summer.
PURCHASE | 30
Ryan Ekey
Ekey made his mark at Purchase when he shot
a 9 over par 80 at the 2009 Sage spring invitational, rendering him the first Panther ever to
win a tournament as an individual. At first he
was ambivalent about turning pro, but a move
to Florida last fall propelled the 24-year-old
into golf as a career. He remarked recently,
“I love the game of golf and hopefully there’s
a place for me in it as a professional.”
2010
Benjamin Potter (dramatic writing) has been
commissioned by a European network to write
and direct six episodes of a major new sports
series that will air in 2012 on the Travel
Channel. At 24, he is the youngest director
ever to be commissioned by the network. The
show will reach 100 million homes. Benjamin is
now eligible to join both the Directors’ Guild of
America and the Writers’ Guild of Great
Britain. A commercial that he produced for
European shoe manufacturer Hi-Tec has also
just been released in more than 30 countries.
His nationwide commercials have been seen on
major British networks, including Sky and ITV.
Details about his upcoming series can be found
at www.channel2020.co.uk or www.shouttv.
co.uk, and he can be reached at ben.potter@
channel2020.co.uk. 2003
Michael Mancini
(history) married
David Kachermeyer
last September in
Cazenovia, NY.
They spent their
honeymoon in
Aruba.
2004
Stephanie Scavelli (environmental studies)
spoke on September 1, 2011, at the Purchase
Quaker Meeting House on “Appreciating
Relationships: Mushroom-Tree Associations”;
Stephanie, a member of COMA, the
Connecticut-Westchester Mycological
Association, shared the story of how she
discovered mycology and the appreciation
of mushrooms.
CORREC TION
PURCHASE magazine inaccurately referred to
David Recca ’05 (music) as David Dalrymple in a
wedding announcement last issue. David Recca
and Sarah Dalrymple Recca ’08 (music) were
married in April 2011. We apologize for the
error.
In Memoriam
1987
John Carey, Jr. (philosophy) passed away
on September 12, 2011.
2004
Laurie Minsky and Stephen Sage
Michael Mancini
& David Kachermeyer
Seth Wilson Orlofsky (music) and
Victoria Worthington Ludas were married
last September under a 150-year-old white
oak tree in Anderson Park, Montclair, NJ.
Erica Abbott (dance), a 29-year-old
Brooklyn-based dancer, was killed when
she fell off her bike and was fatally run
over by a passing vehicle. Erica lived in
East Williamsburg and grew up in
Rochester. She was a part of AFCDance,
a now-defunct modern-dance company,
where she danced and did costume
design.
2011
College Dance Team and a peer educator in
the Office of Health and Peer Education at
Purchase. She now works in digital marketing
for HIP Genius in New York City.
Kristen Kamsler (women’s studies), after graduating this past May, got a job as an associate
producer for a show called Teen Kids News. It’s
a nationally syndicated program for teens and
is seen in over 200 cities and 10,000 schools,
and also on the American Forces Network. In
the New York area it’s on channel 5 at 9:30 on
Saturday mornings. For additional information,
visit the website at www.teenkidsnews.com.
Rachelle Pean (psychology) just started in the
master’s in social work program at Hunter
College.
M’Balula, Mangochi District
MARRIAGE ANNOUNCEMENTS
Ryan Ekey, ’11 (major), officially turned
professional when he entered the Special
Olympics Fundraiser Pro-Am tournament
at the Fountains Golf Club in Lake Worth,
FL, in 2011.
C A LY P S O R A E PHOTO G R A PH Y
2009
Ben Pfannl (new media
studies) traveled to
Africa last summer. His
first impression of
Malawi was that it
reminded him of the
countryside of
Paraguay, where he
comes from. Ben went
to visit his friend
Carolyn Murphy ’09,
who is a Peace Corps
volunteer in the village
of M’Balula in the Mangochi District. He recently
exhibited his photos from this trip in Rome, Italy.
2011
PHOTO: OREN VOURMAN / SPORTS INFORMATION
Ian Cofino (graphic design) created the documentary, I Got Next, recently released by the
website Hulu.com, which offers streaming ondemand video content. The film focuses on the
Street Fighter video gaming community and
follows a year in the life of four prominent
players, chronicling their experiences. Having
created a motion graphics trailer about the
street-fighting community for his senior project in graphic design at Purchase, Ian was
inspired to continue working on it after graduation. He spent more than a year writing,
directing, filming, creating the motion graphics for, and producing a full-length feature
film. He credits his advisor, Robin Lynch, for
her generous support and encouragement.
The documentary can be seen at www.hulu.
com/watch/297036/i-got-next, and Ian can
be reached at [email protected].
Derek Greten-Harrison (M.M., music) is an
adjunct faculty member in the opera department at the Conservatory of Music. He produced the debut album of Etherea Vocal
Ensemble, the all-treble classical chamber
group he founded and directs. The CD,
Ceremony of Carols, was released on the Delos
label in November 2011 to critical acclaim and
commercial success, earning a rave review
from Opera News magazine, debuting at number 3 on the iTunes classical chart, and placing
near the top of the Billboard traditional classical chart for six straight weeks. A second
album is already in the works, to be released
later in 2012.
2005
Michelle MacNaught died on November
20, 2011, in Delhi, NY, after a multiyear
battle with stage IV ovarian cancer. Born
on September 22, 1990, Michelle was a
gifted student whose dedication to her
studio work in the midst of illness was a
great inspiration to all who knew her.
Over the last months of her life, Michelle
poured her energy into mature, hauntingly
beautiful, and emotionally evocative
woodblock prints, etchings, and drawings
that chronicled her difficulty with the
disease.
Lindsay Burdick (B.A.L.A., history and
photography) and Gregory Witts ’09 (liberal
arts) celebrated their first wedding
anniversary in 2011.
Seth Wilson Orlofsky
Seth is a music producer and freelance writer,
and is an administrator at SOMA, Inc., in New
York City. He and his wife took a wedding trip
to Mohonk Mountain House. They reside in
Brooklyn.
Stephen Sage (economics) wed his Purchase
College sweetheart, Laurie Minsky ’05
(journalism), last September. Purchase holds a
special space in their hearts; they even had
their engagement photo shoot at the college.
Stephen was an RA; he received the
Paraprofessional of the Year award in 2004,
was the varsity basketball captain and the
volleyball captain, and played soccer. He also
received several sports awards, including the
Purchase College Male Athlete of the Year
(2004) and HVMAC Athlete of the Year
(2004), and co-hosted a television show on
PTV. Laura was a captain of the Purchase
2007
Tiffany Charles (music) and Donelle Charles
(liberal arts) were married in June 2011
in Mahopac, NY. Tiffany is now the
manager of the Purchase College Bookstore.
Donelle is a Purchase College University
Police officer.
Michelle MacNaught
Her work was displayed in a solo exhibition, attended by numerous Purchase
friends and more than 300 others, at the
Leo Koenig Gallery in New York City on
November 15, 2011. A catalog of her work,
with a forward by New Yorker critic Peter
Schjeldahl, which was put together by
fashion photographer Tom Munro and
designer Pascal Dangin, is available from
D.A.P. (Distributed Art Publishers).
Tiffany and Donelle Charles
All of the proceeds from the sale of the
book will be donated to the Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for ovarian
cancer research.
12
Senior economics major Jamie Claus
brings an entrepreneurial spirit to
her role as fundraiser in charge of the
senior class gift.
Historically, the senior class gift has
tended to be small and used strictly
for scholarships. Jamie wants to
change that. Diligent research on
trends in student giving at other colleges inspired her to donate a portion of this year’s funds to something
tangible that students could see and
appreciate.
Although she still intends to continue the tradition of funding scholarships, she hopes to collect enough
money to convert a seldom-used
staff lounge in the library into one
for general use, complete with new
furniture and decor and vending
machines. Having served as a resident assistant for two years, Jamie
describes herself as very freshman-
Class of 2012,
Have You Given
Your 12?
oriented; “I think a lot about what
would make it easier for freshmen
coming in.”
Fueled by her enthusiastic presentation to the Purchase College
Foundation board, two board members have agreed to match dollar for
dollar the funds raised, while a third
has offered a challenge grant, promising a match as long as she hits her
mark of $3,000 from the senior class.
Jamie believes that the key to success lies in increased awareness.
“Students don’t give because they
don’t understand why they are giving.” Hoping to inspire a majority of
seniors to give a $12 gift, she coined
the slogan “Class of 2012, Have You
Given Your 12?” Students receive
wristbands in exchange for their
donations, a tactic designed to create buzz about the program.
Alumni Association Benefits
Alumni, Parents, and Friends:
Purchase alumni are among the college’s greatest assets. The college gains strength from your active involvement. Your Purchase
College Alumni Association Membership Card provides the following benefits and services.
One of the most effective ways you can support the
foundation and the college is through the Purchase College
Annual Fund. The Annual Fund provides the unrestricted
dollars necessary to support areas of greatest need at the
college. Every dollar helps and does make a difference!
Won’t you consider a gift of $50, $100, or $500? You can
become a member of our prestigious President’s Club
with a gift of $1,000!
By Kristi McKee
To generate further excitement,
plans for seniors-only events, restaurant promotions, and a highly visible
countdown clock to graduation are
in the works.
Concerned not only about raising
money but about giving back, she
recently said enthusiastically, “The
things I’ve gained outside of academics at Purchase College are
immeasurable.” She hopes her classmates understand that “it doesn’t
matter that you’re graduating; you
can still have an impact on the
college.”
In her eyes, failure will be measured
by students using the excuse “I
didn’t know it was happening” for
not giving. That doesn’t seem likely
this year.
YOU can help the class of 2012 reach
its goal with a gift today.
Use the card as identification for:
»A 20% discount on current membership fees for use of the pool
and fitness facilities at the gymnasium; use of facilities is
$10 per day
»A 15% discount on all professional programs at The Performing
Arts Center
Give what you can. Every dollar helps us to retain students
and augment the quality of education for our students.
»A 10% discount on membership to the Neuberger Museum of Art,
a 10% discount at the Museum Shop, and 2-for-1 admission
And remember, our student-run phonathon program will be
calling you soon for support. Pick up the phone, and take the
opportunity to speak with a student from Purchase. They
enjoy the conversations they have with alumni, parents,
and friends of the college.
»Full use of the library for the discounted fee of $75 per year
» Lifetime access to Career Services, (914) 251-6372
»A 25% discount on tuition to Long Island University’s
Graduate Program
You can always contribute online at www.purchase.edu/
giving, call (914) 251-6046 with a credit card, or mail your
check (made payable to The PCF/Annual Fund) using the
form below.
Alumni are also Eligible for:
»A substantial diccount is offered for alumni using the Purchase
Park2Fly with service to the Westchester County Airport
Thank you for your ongoing support of Purchase College
students.
(Visit: www. pp2f.org/purchase and click on “discounts” to make your reservation using the special alumni link)
»A free subscription to the alumni magazine
»Opportunities to represent alumni on various campus committees
and projects, to speak with students on campus, and to serve
on the Alumni Association board of directors
Alumni, Friends & Parents: Remember to help reduce paper
consumption. Please subscribe to our new electronic version of
PURCHASE magazine. Send your e-mail address to:
[email protected]
»The opportunity to become a Career Mentor to a student, and
to offer internships or jobs
»Invitations to all alumni-sponsored activities
For other current alumni news, updates, and events, visit:
facebook.com/PurchaseAlumni
twitter.com/PurchaseAlumni
For a free Alumni Association card please call, write,
or email: [email protected]
T e a r o ff :
Your Support Makes a Difference
Name
Because of your support, Purchase thrives.
Email
I wish to reinvest in Purchase. Here is my tax-deductible gift of
Address, if changed:
$
to the Purchase College Annual Fund:
Online giving at www.purchase.edu/giving
November 19
School of the Arts
Gala 2012
PURCHASE | 32
Gotham Hall, New York City
Join the Gala Committee. Now is
the perfect time to get involved.
Contact Jeannine Starr at
(914) 251-6040 for information.
Phone (home/cell/business)
lease send me a free alumni card so I can take advantage
P
of my alumni benefits.
By check to:
By credit card (Visa, MasterCard, or American Express)
by calling (914) 251-6046
I am interested in working with the Alumni Association, with
students, and/or on campus committees. Please call me.
I would like to be a voting member of the Alumni Association.
Please sign here:
(There is no cost associated with this privilege.)
We welcome your news. If you wish your performances, exhibits,
services, or businesses to be listed on the Purchase College
website, please email [email protected] or call (914) 251-6054.
PCF/Annual Fund, Purchase College
Or listing your account # here:
Expiration date:
Signature:
I have included Purchase in my will.
Please call me about estate planning.

Winter-Spring 2012

Transcription

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