THE SKIDMORE COLLEGE MAGAZINE SPRING 2013Scope

ALSO: LOCAL HISTORY PROJECT • GREEN CLEANING TIPS • LOG-ROLLING CONTEST

working to widen opportunity for

more students with financial need

ACCESS:

Saratoga’s spiritual history5

ADDY SHREFFLER ’13

CONTENTS

FEATURES:

11 OILING THE HINGESCover story: Can Skidmore financial aid keep opening the doors for more and more students?

ON THE COVER: Get an inside view of financial aid’s facts and figures—see page 11.(Illustration by Jon Reinfurt)

worlds of food

admission and aid

Bountyous research4

18

11

18 YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT?Roundtable: Faculty and alumni experts talk food, from cultural identity to ecology to nutrition

DEPARTMENTS

LETTERS & OBSERVATIONS 2

CAMPUS SCENE 4

ALUMNI NEWS 24

WHO, WHAT, WHEN 30

CLASS NOTES 31

SARATOGA SIDEBAR 64

Scope

zoo architect25

SPRING 2013Volume 43, Number 3

CO L LY E R V I C E P R ES I D E N T

F O R A DVA N C EM E N T

Michael Casey

E X EC U T I V E D I R E C TO R

O F C OMMUN I C AT I O N S

Dan Forbush

E D I TO R

Susan Rosenbergsrosenbe@skidmore.edu

A S S O C I AT E E D I TO R

Paul Dwyer ’83pdwyer@skidmore.edu

C L A S S N OT ES E D I TO R

Mary Moniganmmonigan@skidmore.edu

D ES I G N E R S

Michael MaloneMaryann Teale Snell

WR I T E R S

Kathryn GallienBob KimmerlePeter MacDonaldMaryann Teale Snell

Andrea Wise

E D I TO R I A L O F F I C E S

Office of CommunicationsSkidmore College815 North Broadway

Saratoga Springs, NY 12866518-580-5747

www.skidmore.edu/scope

S K I D M O R E C O L L E G E

Switchboard: 518-580-5000Alumni Affairs and College Events: 518-580-5670

Communications: 518-580-5733Admissions: 518-580-5570

or 800-867-6007

Scope is published three times a yearby Skidmore College

for alumni, parents, and friends.

Printed on recycled paper(10% postconsumer)

Scope

LET TERS

Teaching the constitutionThank you so much for presenting the

Constitutional art programs [part of the We

the People exhibition, spring Scope]. I whole-

heartedly agree that the Constitution is un-

known by a majority of people today. May it

live within the Skidmore community and pro-

vide the basis of comfort for those who ques-

tion our country’s direction. It is our roots

and foundation!

Were you aware of the Constitutional

Champions camps started in 2011 for kids in

first through sixth grades that have sprung up

all over the US? They’re supported by local

donations, but primarily the National 9–12

Liberty Movement Project.

Our local Pikes Peak Patriot 9–12 group has

had a camp in the past two summers. We re-

worked the national curriculum to fit our his-

torical backdrop of the Rock Ledge Ranch. It’s

been a huge success and all-volunteer!

You can view our camp’s experience on

www.912ppp.com.

Ann Baxter Macomber ’69

Colorado Springs, Colo.

DO THE WRITE THING

Scope welcomes letters to the editor. Send your comments by e-mail to srosenbe@skidmore.eduor mail c/o Skidmore College.

Letters may be editedfor clarity and length.

Details at skidmore.edu/fosa/outing/or contact Beth Brucker-Kane: 518-580-5677 • bbrucker@skidmore.edu

or Tim Clemmey: 518-580-5621 • tclemmey@skidmore.edu

Gather a group of friends or family and make it a Saratoga weekend.Accommodations available in Skidmore’s beautiful Northwoods

Apartments. All proceeds benefit Skidmore athletics.

D

• 18 holes at the Saratoga Spa State Park Golf Course

(four-star rating by Golf Digest’s Best Places to Play)

• Tennis on Skidmore’s courts• Cocktails and buffet dinner at Skidmore

G

Tee off and serve itup for the T’breds

9TH ANNUAL THOROUGHBRED CUPGOLF AND TENNIS TOURNAMENT

SATURDAY, JUNE 22

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 3

In this issue of Scope, we explore the

College’s commitment to financial aid

and its critical role in making Skidmore

accessible to the widest possible range of

students. Unquestionably, our scholar-

ship program has paid significant divi-

dends: improving the strength and di-

versity of our student body, and thereby

enriching the lives of every student at

Skidmore.

This investment in our students has

come at a substantial cost. Since 2006,

we have expanded our financial aid

budget from $22 million to an estimated

$40 million next year—an increase of

82%. By contrast, our comprehensive fee

over that period has risen 31%. We have

funded these aid increases largely

through budget reallocation, endow-

ment growth, and gifts. During this

time, the percentage of families seeking

aid has grown by nearly a third, from

52% in 2007 to

68% for next year’s

entering class, a

trend that is likely

to continue. We

also have seen a

slow but steady rise in the average in-

debtedness of our students upon gradua-

tion. For the graduates of 2011, that fig-

ure was $21,000—lower than the nation-

al average, and quite manageable given

the value of a Skidmore education—but

significantly higher than it was in 2000.

Beyond budgetary concerns, I have

been troubled by a national trend that,

in recent years, has seen more colleges

and universities replacing need-based

aid with “merit aid,” or more accurately

“non-need-based” aid. Need-based aid

goes to students who otherwise could

not afford a college education, while

non-need-based aid is designed not to

provide access but to influence appli-

cants’ choices—to encourage prospective

students and their families to select one

institution over another.

A 2011 US Department of Education

report (Merit Aid for Undergraduates) casts

this issue in stark relief,

noting a dramatic shift in

how financial aid has been

distributed in socioeconom-

ic terms. In 1995, the study

observes, colleges gave

need-based grants almost

twice as often as non-need-

based: 43% vs. 24% at pri-

vate colleges, and 13% vs.

8% at public universities.

By 2007, the gap at private

institutions had shrunk to

44% need-based vs. 42% non-need-

based, while the percentage had actually

flipped at public universities, giving

16% need-based vs. 18% non-need-

based aid. Stated another way, by 2007

slightly less than half of aid recipients at

private institutions and slightly more

than half at public institutions received

aid that was not necessary to meet their

financial need. In

subsequent years,

this trend has

continued. Today

non-need-based

aid represents

more than 50% of all financial aid

awarded nationally.

In many cases, schools have resorted

to non-need-based aid to improve their

position in the “market” by raising the

academic profile of their student body—

for example, targeting applicants with

higher SATs and class ranks. Sometimes

they are responding to the actions of

competitor institutions. Some schools

that have struggled to enroll their in-

coming classes have made the calcula-

tion that offering non-need-based aid

will help fill otherwise empty seats with

students who will pay at least part of

their costs, thus improving the financial

bottom line. A number of public systems

(most famously Georgia’s, with its HOPE

Scholarships) have employed this ap-

proach to reduce potential “brain drain”

from their states.

The use of non-need-based aid has

certainly helped

many institutions

achieve their admis-

sions goals; however,

the cumulative effect

is ultimately nega-

tive—both for indi-

vidual schools and

for higher education

as a whole. Such a

situation is often

referred to as a

“tragedy of the com-

mons,” in which individual actors make

decisions calculated to benefit them-

selves that collectively lead to injurious

consequences for all. The problem is

that directing more aid dollars to fami-

lies without financial need and away

from those with need reduces oppor -

tu nities for students across the socio -

economic spectrum. In many cases it

also adds to the costs borne by individ-

ual schools. This outcome is a tragedy

indeed, not only for higher education

but also for our nation and the world.

Although Skidmore has two small

non-need-based scholarship programs

(Filene Scholarships in music and Porter

Scholarships in science and math), some

99% of our aid is based solely on finan-

cial need. It is important to highlight

one fallacy implied by the nomenclature

of “merit aid.” Because we are a highly

selective college, every student we aid

has proven his or her merit by satisfying

our rigorous admission standards.

Finding a way to sustain our commit-

ment to making Skidmore widely acces-

sible is critical to our mission and suc-

cess as a college. It is certainly a funda-

mental aspect of our bona fides in oper-

ating as a “public good.” Moreover, be-

cause our emphasis on need-based aid

follows directly from the commitment

that Lucy Skidmore Scribner made in

launching the school that would be-

come Skidmore, it is a proud part of

our heritage, and one I am determined

to preserve.

GARY GOLD

SKIDMORE PRESIDENT PHILIPA. GLOTZBACH

PRES IDENT ’S PERSPECT IVE

FINDING A WAY TO SUSTAIN OUR COMMITMENT TO MAKING

SKIDMORE WIDELY ACCESSIBLE ISCRITICAL TO OUR MISSION AND

SUCCESS AS A COLLEGE.

Financial aid and access

4 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

“A tide is rising in Pacific studies,”

says history professor Tillman Nechtman.

Though he’s riding that tide, his latest re-

search project sometimes leaves him feel-

ing “afloat on the sea by myself.”

Nechtman always has a lot of ground

—and a lot of ocean—to cover, consider-

ing that his specialty is the British Em-

pire. There are still 14 pieces of it, and he

was thinking of writing a book about the

persistence of empire in small remnant

states like Bermuda, the Falklands, and

Gibraltar. But when his attention fetched

up on Pitcairn Island, he knew that’s

where it would stay awhile.

A remote islet in the South Pacific,

Pitcairn was where the Bounty mutineers

took up residence with their Tahitian

women. Much has been written about

the 1789 incident, but Nechtman’s focus

is postmutiny—specifically the fraudu-

lent administration of Joshua Hill, who

posed as an official British representative

and ruled the island from 1832 to 1840.

What was to be a mere chapter in a book

on empire is growing into The Last Refuge

of Scoundrels: Pitcairn Island and the Dicta-

torship of Joshua Hill—The True Story of

the Man Who Would Be King Among the

Bounty Mutineers.

It’s a topic that

Nechtman has pretty

much all to himself.

While it may seem a

small story of a small

place, he finds it disproportionately sig-

nificant to an understanding of 18th-

century British imperialism in the Pacific.

Pitcairn has it all—a narrative of south-

sea adventure, issues of class and race,

redemption and reform, overseas power

and colonial control.

The island sparked the ambitions of

Joshua Hill, an enigmatic zealot who be-

came obsessed with saving Pitcairners

from the alcohol and immorality that

tended to come ashore with maritime

adventurers. Denied any official authori-

ty there (and dismissed by history as a

madman), Hill went to Pitcairn anyway,

presented an extravagant resume of trav-

els and connections with everyone from

European royalty to

New York’s Seneca In-

dians, declared himself

in charge, and pro-

ceeded to rule with an

iron fist.

Since Hill lied about his rights to gov-

ern the island, scholars have assumed he

also lied about his background. Necht -

man took a different tack: what if the

stories were true? So began a global

archival manhunt, which has in fact

confirmed many of Hill’s claims.

With that, Nechtman says, the ques-

tion became “Why? If you had those

kinds of connections, why would you go

to Pitcairn, this two-mile by one-mile is-

land with about 60 people on it?” The

answer he proposes is that with British

imperial might in the Pacific being

threatened by the French, Russians, and

Americans, Hill saw in Pitcairn a model

for a form of imperialism that had great

progressive and evangelical potential—

but only in the hands of the British. It

was, says Nechtman, “the perfect stage

for a colonial administrator, sane or oth-

erwise, who wanted to stand in the glob-

al imperial spotlight.”

He adds, “The detective-story aspect

of this is really fun, though I didn’t

know this little island would take up so

much of my life.” While he may never

set foot on Pitcairn—“very difficult to

reach, and very expensive”—Nechtman

is charting a research trip that would in-

clude stops in Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, and

Australia. Not bad, he allows: “How

many people can say they have to go to

Tahiti for work?” —KG

Beyond the Bounty

PITCAIRN HAS IT ALL—SOUTH-SEA ADVENTURE,

CLASS AND RACE, REDEMPTION AND REFORM,AND COLONIAL CONTROL.

HISTORIAN TILLMAN NECHTMAN IS NO SAILOR, BUT HIS MARITIME STUDIES COVER THENORTH ATLANTIC TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC.

GLENN DAVENPORT

From interviewing archivists, to re-

searching city registers and maps, to ana-

lyzing and shaping data for use by citi-

zens and policymakers, “history on the

hoof” is how Jordana Dym describes the

work of her “Public History” course.

A historian of Latin America whose

scholarship has covered city govern-

ments, mapping, and travel writing, Dym

wanted to bring history home and hands-

on by offering last fall’s pilot course. Little

did she know the course would be such a

hit that she’d add a two-credit workshop

in the spring, to allow some of its stu-

dents to continue their projects.

The fall students conducted research

for the Saratoga Springs Preservation

Foundation, which wanted data on the

city’s “sacred spaces”—historic churches,

temples, cemeteries—to help develop a

walking tour. (Earlier, two students had

interned with Sara Boivin ’96, the SSPF’s

outreach director, to select the sites).

After poring over documents in the pub-

lic library’s Saratoga Room, church stor-

age closets, and Skidmore’s special collec-

tions, and after interviewing historians,

clerics, congregants, and caretakers, the

students wrote papers, created the

sacredsaratoga.weebly.com Web site,

prepared oral presentations, and

even worked up a few internship

proposals. Because “we made

connections with local histori-

ans who were really excited

about what we were doing,” says

Sara Gross ’13, “I took the spring

workshop to keep working with

some of these great people.”

Among them is Teri Blasko,

who oversees the public library’s

Saratoga Room of history docu-

ments. “I’ve been impressed,”

she says, “that the students al-

ways seem well prepared before

they come to us.” She also re-

marks, “Saratoga people take

their history very seriously, and

these students have earned ac-

ceptance into the local history

community.”

Dym confirms, “I’m coaching them,

but really we’re all collaborating, doing

genuine professional history.” In one

class meeting, they discussed old maps:

sometimes labels say “Catholic church”

without “St. Peter’s”

or “St. Clement’s,”

Temple Sinai had

several headquarters

before it acquired its

own building, and a

few street names around cemeteries were

changed. Working from primary sources

can be “tedious and frustrating,” Dym ac-

knowledged with a grin, “but it results in

some wonderful discoveries.” One thing

Gross discovered was that “the sheer vol-

ume of articles, books, records, maps, and

interviews that inform a single written

history is astounding.”

The group also planned their oral pre-

sentations for the Preservation Founda-

tion and public library audience. Gross

says it was challenging to figure out

“how much content is appropriate, what

voice would be most engaging, and what

story to tell.” She adds, “I’m not used to

framing my writing this way, but it was

fun to experiment with and learn about.”

Drawing on their peers’ work from

the fall and their own distillations this

spring, the students presented Saratoga’s

spiritual traditions in local and national

contexts, including Gross discussing

Greenridge Cemetery, David Schlenker

’13 on St. Clement’s

Catholic Church,

Addy Shreffler ’13 on

Bethesda Episcopal

Church, and Sophie

Don ’14 covering

Temple Sinai. In addition, the foursome

is writing essays for the Saratogian news-

paper (with help from Dan Forbush,

Skidmore’s executive director of commu-

nications and a board member of the

Preservation Foundation) and also col-

laborating with local journalist and his-

torian Field Horne on his new book.

For her part, Dym was thrilled that

the course arrived at “one of those excit-

ing moments when you see students ap-

plying ‘traditional’ skills (research, analy-

sis), learning new ones (teamwork, ethics,

public speaking), and growing by leaps

and bounds.” She adds, “It’s a great way

to help students connect their intern-

ships with their studies. Now we’re ex -

cited to identify our next public-history

project.” —SR

“History on the hoof”

“SARATOGA PEOPLE TAKE THEIR HISTORY VERY SERIOUSLY,AND THESE STUDENTS HAVE

EARNED ACCEPTANCE INTO THELOCAL HISTORY COMMUNITY.”

BOLSTER COLLECTION

THE VAULT AT SARATOGA’S GREENRIDGE CEMETERY, AROUND THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

Ian Berry, associate director and Malloy

Curator at Skidmore’s Tang Museum, has

been named to its Dayton Directorship.

He succeeds John Weber, the Tang’s di-

rector for eight years, who left to help

found the Institute of the Arts and Sci-

ences at the University of California at

Santa Cruz.

Beau Breslin, dean of the faculty, calls

Berry “a brilliant artistic visionary, one

who not only understands the current

wave of contemporary art, but in every

way helps to shape that wave.” He says

Berry “acutely understands the impor-

tance of the Tang’s central mission as a

teaching museum.”

Berry was the Tang’s founding curator

in 2000, after serving as assistant curator

at the Williams College Museum of Art.

A SUNY-Albany graduate, he earned an

MA in curatorial studies at Bard College

in 1998. He has served and led a range

of arts councils and associations, and in

2009–10 he held

the Roy Acuff Chair

of Excellence in the

Creative Arts at

Austin Peay Univer-

sity in Tennessee.

Over the years

Berry has organ-

ized, and authored

catalogs for, many

of the Tang’s most

memorable shows.

He worked closely

with artists such as

Nayland Blake,

Kate Ericson and

Mel Ziegler, Nina Katchadourian, Los

Carpinteros, Shahzia Sikander, Fred

Tomaselli, and Kara Walker. And his ap-

proach to collaborating with faculty on

large interdisciplinary shows—from

Mapping Art and Science to Lives of the

Hudson to We the People—has become a

national model for best practices in col-

lege museums.

Berry says he’s honored to serve as di-

rector, adding, “It is a pleasure to be part

of a great team that lives the museum’s

mission in every part of our daily work.”

—BK, SR

Berry leads Tang

RUSTY RUSSELL

CURATOR IAN BERRY IS THE NEW DAYTON DIRECTOR OF THETANG MUSEUM.

6 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

The Skidmore faculty bade farewell

this term to retiring professors Roy Mey-

ers and Linda Simon.

Meyers joined the biology faculty in

1971, finishing his PhD at SUNY’s

Downstate Medical Center the next year.

He helped shape Skidmore’s University

Without Walls and taught early and

often in its program for prison inmates.

Over the years Meyers taught a wide

range of physiology courses and intro-

duced computer modeling of physiologi-

cal functions

and interven-

tions. Meyers

published in

major journals

on both phys-

iology and

computers in

pedagogy, and

he served on

Skidmore’s

pre-med ad-

vising com-

mittee.

His Web-Human physiology simula-

tor (co-authored in the late 1990s and

frequently updated ever since) allows

students to conduct finely tuned, com-

plex experiments testing combinations

of physiological functions, treatments,

and reactions—from symptoms to lab

analyses to diagnoses—through com -

puter modeling, without risking the

health of a live subject. The tool has

been adopted by thousands of professors

and researchers around the world, who

run some 100,000 experiments each year.

Simon came to Skidmore in 1997,

with a Brandeis PhD in English and

American literature and 14 years on Har-

vard’s English faculty. She taught fiction

and nonfiction writing, 19th- and early

20th-century American lit, and courses

on the memoir, contemporary imagina-

tion, and other topics.

A prolific scholar and writer, Simon

published articles on Upton Sinclair,

John Cheever, women’s biographies,

Jane Austen, Charles Reznikoff, writing

across the curriculum, and more. Her

books include The Biography of Alice B.

Toklas (1977), Thornton Wilder: His World

(1979), Of Virtue Rare: Margaret Beaufort,

Matriarch of the House of Tudor (1982),

Genuine Reality: A Life of William James

(1998), Dark Light: Electricity and Anxiety

from the Telegraph to the X-Ray (2004),

and Coco Chanel (2011), as well as several

textbooks on writing. She is the general

editor for the journal William James Stud-

ies and for the Camden House series Mind

and American Literature. —SR

Meyers and Simon retire

ROY MEYERS LINDA SIMON

GLENN DAVENPORT

SAM BROOK ’12

What’s the best new thing in cleaning?One of the best innovations at Skidmorehas been our autoscrubbers. They usejust water to polish our terrazzo floors,and the results look better than when weused detergents. Plus, we don’t have toapply finish anymore, which also meanswe never need to strip the finish withsolvents. It’s especially good for our sci-ence labs, where any fumes or chemicalexposure could cause problems.For carpets also, we don’t use deter-

gents. We use a truck-mounted steamcleaner with water at 180 degrees,which is hot enough to sanitize withoutchemicals. We sometimes use stain re-movers for small spots, but steam clean-ing on a regular basis keeps those to aminimum.And I think the polished-concrete

floors in the Northwoods apartmentcomplex are workingwonderfully. Afterthey get 30 weeks—that’s one semester—

of heavy use,

we can come in, scrub them right up,apply a very thin coat of polish, and theylook terrific again. I bet we’re using 80 or90 percent less products there than weneed on some of our tile and other floors.

Do “green” products work well enough? We started using a wider range of greencleaners back in 2000, after the govern-ment issued new regulations abouthousekeeping products. Back then, it’strue, a lot of those alternatives weren’t aseffective, but over the past decade therehave been huge improvements, not justfor institutional use but for consumerstoo. Clorox, for example, has a line of

green cleaners with no chlorinebleach in them, and I thinkthey’re very good. At myhouse, I don’t think we use anycleaners that aren’t green. At Skidmore we recently

switched our glass and all-purpose cleaners to a perox-ide-based alternative. Formany applications, we needto use certified disinfec-tants, and our peroxidecleaner is starting the processof getting certified. We’d loveit if that succeeds and wecould use it in place of theharsher disinfectants. As it is,we don’t use bleach or am-monia—they’re just too po-tent, and no longer neces-sary. The green products arebetter for the environment,the employees, and the oc-cupants. Same for the interi-or paints we use now:they’re not just low-VOC,but certified green. Thefumes are so minimal andso harmless that we canpaint while people are still

in their offices right down the hall andthey don’t even notice an odor.

What about cloth vs. paper?A great new product is microfiber wipesand mops. Unlike paper towels, they’rereusable—we can put them through thelaundry 500 times! And unlike cloth,they rinse and wring out so clean thatthey don’t hold dirt and germs, and theydry quickly. For mopping, they’re muchbetter than cotton string mops, whichare heavy to handle, need bleach to dis-infect them, and take a lot of drying toprevent mildew. We love the microfiber.

What’s the toughest cleaning job? Showers and tubs, definitely. Like all ofSaratoga, Skidmore has pretty hardwater. But even in the bathrooms weuse green products. (If a mineral de-posit has built up a lot, first we try ascrubbing pad and elbow grease toscrape it off. We rarely use solvents likeLime Away—they’re dangerous and canerode the metal faucets and fixtures.) Ifwe use our peroxide cleaner regularly—and if we make sure to dry off the sur-faces right afterward—we don’t havemuch trouble with mineral buildups. Infact, this cleans better than our previousbathroom products.

Do you do spring cleanings? The best method is to keep on top ofcleaning year-round. If you maintainthings regularly, you don’t need toschedule any special big cleaning. Butit’s nice, after a stuffy winter, even if it’sstill a little chilly, to open up the win-dows and air out the house.

Richard Mickus kept Union College cleanbefore moving to Skidmore as supervisorof custodial operations in 2000; he nowmanages both housekeeping and painting.

EXPERT OPINION: Green clean with Richard Mickus

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 7

MARK BOLLES

8 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

...almost anything, Skidmore’s guest

lectures embrace a huge array of academ-

ic and/or timely topics. A small sampling

of this year’s offerings:

• “New Age Imperialism: A Crisis in Pan-

African Conscience” by Dhoruba Bin

Wahad, former Black Panther and

Black Liberation Army cofounder

• “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life,

Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Under -

city,” by Katherine Boo (First-Year

Ex perience author), New Yorker

• “The Crisis of Zionism,” by Peter Beinart

(Perlow Lecturer), City University of

New York and New America Foundation

• “Can the Constitution Cope with Our

Polarized Politics?” by Paul Pierson,

UC-Berkeley

• “Reading the Forested Landscape: A

Natural History of New England,” by

Tom Wessels, Antioch University of

New England

• “Inventing the Fetish: Voodoo, Reli-

gion, and the European Thing for

African Objects,” by Elizabeth Perez,

Dartmouth College

Speaking of...

WATERLOGGING 8

DAN FORBUSH

In probably the first-ever intercollegiate log-rolling competition, Skid-more’s Will Hoeschler ’14, at right, spins Middlebury’s John Wyman into thedrink. On the greenhorn Skidmore team, Hoeschler is the star, having wonworld titles at age 6, 13, and 17, but Middlebury has had three stars over theyears, in Hoeschler’s three sisters—all thanks to their mom, Judy Scheer-Hoeschler, a seven-time champion log-roller from Wisconsin. In the William -son Sports Center pool, Middlebury dominated by 6-1, with Hoeschler earningthe lone Skidmore win. His advice for learners: “Never stop moving, and keepwatching your opponent’s feet.” —SR

worth thetrip from

anywhere!

June 6--9, 2013saratogaartsfest.org

Join us in Saratoga Springs for our seventh annual citywide celebration of the arts—music,dance, visual art, film, theatre, andliterary art.

Winter featured ice hockey’s Packthe Rink and basketball’s Big GreenScream. Both occasions featured lotsof green face paint, Skids the mas-cot, and cheering fans of all ages.Riding. Again undefeated in the regular season, Skidmore qualified15 equestrians for this year’s Inter-collegiate Horse Show regionals and was preparing for another trip to nationals in May. Basketball. The men went 15-11 enroute to their fourth consecutive Lib-erty League playoff appearance.Skidmore lost a tight game, 77-72, to eventual champion Ho-bart in the semifinals. AldinMedunjanin ’16 (at right)was a Liberty, ECAC Up-state, and d3hoops.comRookie of the Year, and Tanner Brooks ’16 was aleague all-rookie selection. At 12-14, the women made

the Liberty tournament butlost to St. Lawrence by 58-44 in the opening round. JordynWartts ’14 was the league’s Defen-sive Player of the Year; Angela Boti-ba ’15 was a first-team all-confer-ence selection; Dani De Gregory ’16and Skylar Caligaris ’16 made theleague’s all-rookie team. Ice hockey. After posting an 11-13-2record, the Thoroughbreds earned atrip to the ECAC East playoffs, wherethey fell to eventual champion Bab-son, 7-1, in the quarterfinals. ZachMenard ’13 was an ECAC East first-team selection, and Jack Even ’16made the all-rookie team.Swimming and diving. The womenhad one of their highest UNYSCSAfinishes ever, taking seventh place.The team broke 16 Skidmore records,led by a 5:10.12 third-place finish byCarrie Koch ’13 in the 500 freestyleand a 24.03 fourth place by Cather-ine King ’15 in the 50 free. The pairhas combined for eight individual andfive relay-team records. The men also had one of their best

finishes at states, taking ninth. Theyset 12 new Skidmore records, includ -ing all five relays. Jesse Adler ’13set three new individual marks andMario Hyman ’16 set two. —SeanFarnsworth

THOROUGHBRED NEWS:Get full results and schedules for allteams at skidmoreathletics.com.

4SPORTSWRAPGOOD PLAY8

BLOCKER OR NO,ALL-ACADEMICFORWARD MOLLYGILE ’13 GOESFOR HER SHOT.

BOB EWELL PHOTOS

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 9

Join the Skidmore College Legacy Society through a gift from your estate,or a gift that pays you income for life. Help guarantee the tradition of creative

excellence at Skidmore for future generations. Plan your Legacy today.

giftplanning@skidmore.edu • 518.580.5655 • www.skidmore.edu/giftplanning

“A Skidmore annuity lets

me show my gratitude for

the education I received.”

—Susie Tucker-Ross ’74,

Gift annuity donor

“Joe and Edwin would be veryproud to see Skidmore today.”—Anne Palamountain, Gift annuity, bequest, and pooled income fund donor “Happy Pappy weekend left me with some of my favorite Skidmore memories.”—Sheila Salvo ’59, Bequest donor

“Skidmore friends last forever.”

—Barbara Collyer ’52, Trust donor

“Some of my fondest memories and friendships were formed in Skidmore Hall.”—Florence Andresen ’57, Bequest donor

Legacysociety

Honor the past. Provide for the future.

GIFT PLANNING FOR SKIDMORE

FINANCIAL AID, ACCESS, AND... BY PETER MACDONALD

JON REINFURT

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 11

12 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

In other ways, the stresses and strains couldn’t be more

different. In 1973 Skidmore received 1,700 applications,

roughly 95% of which were accepted. In those “lean” years,

Bates recalls, “a student with a solid record could show up in

August and join the freshman class.” This year, Skidmore re-

ceived a record-breaking 8,200-plus applications, of which

only 35% were accepted, a selectivity rate that underscores

its standing as one of the nation’s top liberal arts colleges.

The angst for Bates and her admissions

staff isn’t about filling the class; it’s about

having to turn away well-qualified appli-

cants when the pool of aid money runs

dry. In 2012 the disparity between their

financial need and Skidmore’s available financial-aid dollars

was $2.3 million. And that gulf is widening. Despite expand-

ing its resources earmarked for financial aid year after year,

ultimately the College must stay out of the red and refrain

from drastic cuts in other areas. Says Beth Post-Lundquist,

director of financial aid, “We’ve stretched as far as we can.

We never want to turn anyone down because of money, but

even with the infusion of new aid dollars, we simply

don’t have enough to go around, particularly when we

need to honor the ongoing aid commitments to our re-

turning students.”

Of course, Skidmore has met the demonstrated financial

need of thousands of worthy students over the years, and

thereby helped transform their lives. Students such as Alta -

gracia Montilla ’12, a coach for a Chicago-based nonprofit

that prepares underprivileged high school students for col-

lege. And entrepreneur C. Jerome Mopsik ’06, a business ana-

lyst for a Saratoga-area company that acquires and manages

animal hospitals. And Nancy Wells Hamilton ’77, a partner

with the Houston law firm of Jackson

Walker who has a national practice in First

Amendment law, intellectual property, and

commercial litigation (with clients includ-

ing Oprah Winfrey, CBS, and CNN). Their

career successes—in many ways, the very shape and texture

of their lives—are directly linked to the financial aid they re-

ceived from Skidmore. An effervescent, first-generation col-

lege student from the Bronx, Montilla had no family resources

to put on the table. Mopsik came from an upper-middle-class

Philadelphia family, which translated into just a modest aid

award; his parents gladly made the extra reach to send him

and his sister to top liberal arts colleges. Hamilton,

from Red Bank, N.J., would have been limited to a

state school had it not been for Skidmore’s support,

along with contributions from her grandparents.

Two years after Mary Lou Bates graduated from college in 1972, she took a jobat Skidmore’s admissions office. Nearly 40 years later, and now the dean of ad-missions and financial aid, she’s still making her daily commute, reading appli-cations, visiting high schools and college fairs, answering parents’ questions.And losing sleep over bringing in each new class.

BETH POST-LUNDQUIST DIGESTS A LOT OF STUDENT-AID INFORMATION SO THAT APPLICANTS DON’T HAVE TO.

“IT’S INCREDIBLY HARD ANY TIME WE CAN’T ADMIT A COM-PELLING STUDENT BECAUSE OFLIMITED AID RESOURCES.”

...THE STRESS OF SUCCESS

MARK MCCARTY

“Financial aid did basically everything for me,” says Mon-

tilla. Starting college was a huge step for her: “I was so lost

when I first came to Skidmore. So alone. Now, I’m a com-

pletely different person—I want to say, woman—because I’ve

grown up so much. I’m confident and happy. I don’t feel like

I’m behind anyone at all.” As for getting virtually all of her

college costs covered, the psychology major says, “I felt

some initial guilt, because it was a lot of money and no one

from home was doing what I was doing. Then I thought

about all the work I’d put in to get to this point, and I real-

ized that I deserved it. I was so motivated and wanted to

prove myself—that was a big deal to me.”

This year Skidmore awarded $36 million in grants to

1,150 students, about 44% of the student body. The average

grant amount was $31,315—twice what it was in 2003–04.

This 10% annual growth rate over the past decade has easily

outpaced increases in Skidmore’s comprehensive fee and

overall US inflation. But it has also placed increasing stress

on College finances, especially as employee health care,

technology, and other costs have been claiming more budget

dollars at the same time. As a percentage of its operating

budget ($135 million this year), Skidmore aid has grown in

the past decade from 15% to 22%, a clear reflection of the

institution’s unflagging commitment to broad access. Alum-

ni, parents, and friends have supported this commitment by

contributing more than $60 million for scholarships over

the same decade. Yet even with these investments, Skidmore

officials have struggled to keep up with the demand. Be-

tween 2007 and 2013, the percentage of applicants request-

ing aid has risen from 52% to 68%. And while the propor-

tion of students receiving aid has expanded by 20% over the

past decade-plus, Bates still finds it “incredibly hard any

time we can’t admit a compelling student because of limited

aid resources.”

What is financial aid really worth?Thanks in part to its determination to find more aid dollars

in tough times, Skidmore has seen an important shift in the

composition of its student body. American students of color

increased from 13% of the student body in 2003 to 22% in

2012, and the international student population leapt from

1% to 6% (today’s students come from 43 states and 51

countries). These changing demographics are already being

cited for helping to enhance the intercultural understanding

of all students—a key goal of Skidmore’s current strategic

plan. “Recent studies and firsthand experience tell us that

diversity increases the intellectual and cultural vitality of our

academic community,” asserts President Philip Glotzbach.

“Likewise, it links directly with creative thought. Interac-

tions among disparate perspectives frequently strike the in-

tellectual sparks that herald the emergence of a new idea.”

Bates is hardly one for hyperbole, but even she can’t resist

touting Skidmore’s progress in opening its doors wider than

they’ve ever been. She says, “Considering our relatively

small endowment when compared with our peers, our com-

mitment to access and diversity is second to none.” Skid-

more’s endowment is squarely in the middle in a 17-member

peer set (with the likes of Vassar, Colgate, Kenyon, Sarah

Lawrence, and Trinity), yet in student diversity it scored

fourth in US News & World Report’s 2011–12 “Campus Ethnic

Diversity” breakdowns.

At the same time, Skidmore’s retention rate (freshmen

returning as sophomores) has been climbing and now stands

at 92%, and its six-year graduation rate is 88%, both strong

figures. One example Bates points to is the College’s oppor-

tunity programs, which enroll and mentor students who

come from disadvantaged secondary-school backgrounds but

who show the ability and drive to flourish at Skidmore. Serv-

ing 170 students (over 5% of the student body), these pro-

grams have been hailed as national models not only for

widening access but also for fostering high student achieve-

ment, from grade-point averages to graduation rates.

Another aspect of Skidmore aid that gives students a leg

up is its attention to helping families keep their indebted-

ness reasonable. Rather than spreading smaller aid amounts

among as many applicants as possible, Skidmore provides a

complete package to each student it aids. As aid director

Post-Lundquist says, “Skidmore’s policy is to meet the full

need of everyone it admits; we don’t gap.” Gapping, or offer-

ing less aid than a student’s full need, is a growing practice at

many colleges and universities. The problem, Post-Lundquist

notes, is that gapped students often resort to taking on moreg

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 13

aid amounts awarded

skidmore aid awarded

aid recipients, number

aid recipients, % of class

average aid package

tuition and fees

$17.6 mil

1,008

42.2%

$17,466

$39,815

$19.9 mil

1,051

42%

$18,929

$41,780

$21.4 mil

1,038

40.8%

$20,653

$44,250

$24.3 mil

1,057

41%

$23,021

$46,696

$26.5 mil

1,088

42.1%

$24,322

$49,265

$28.9 mil

1,120

43.3%

$25,805

$51,196

$32.1 mil

1,167

43.6%

$27,505

$52,170

$32.9 mil

1,127

42.8%

$29,240

$53,684

$36.2 mil

1,156

44.2%

$31,315

$55,764

2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13

14 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

loans, which at best makes

for heavy debt burdens by

the time they graduate; at

worst, she says, “it adds the

risk of extending the number

of years it takes them to

graduate, or even prevents

some from graduating.”

Compared to its peers, Skid-

more is in the lower third

when it comes to the average

debt of graduates. For the

class of 2011 it was $21,000,

well below New York State

and national averages.

Tuition economicsThat Skidmore has boosted

its financial aid budget and

its diversity while maintain-

ing its median SAT scores and

even improving other aca-

demic measures is remark-

able, given 2008’s global fi-

nancial crash and sluggish

economy ever since. In the

decade of 2001–11 American

incomes from all strata, even

the top 5%, did not rise, ac-

cording to a College Board

report co-authored by Sandy

Baum, professor emerita of

economics. With incomes

still shrinking, the average

student’s net price (that’s

out-of-pocket, work-study,

and loan commitments,

apart from grant aid) at a four-year school is up 4% from

last year—double the rate of inflation. The average debt for

a private-college graduate, $29,900 in 2011, also rose more

than inflation, at 3.5%. Meanwhile, inflation-adjusted gov-

ernment funding for postsec-

ondary education fell again,

by 5%.

But in her analyses Baum

also emphasizes longer-term

trends, which are still positive

for students hoping to attend

private colleges. There, tui tion

and fees (adjusted for infla-

tion) over the past decade

rose just 2.4%, compared to

3% and 4.6% in the two pre-

vious decades. By contrast,

those same costs for public

colleges and universities grew

twice as fast in the past de -

cade, at 5.2%. Which is not to

say there aren’t warning signs

for privates. Baum’s concern

is that “even the incomes of

people at the top are going

down, and those are the peo-

ple who are supposed to be

able to pay without dipping

into their savings.”

At Skidmore 56% of fami-

lies do pay on their own. An

often-forgotten fact, however,

is that the true cost of educat-

ing each Skidmore student is

higher than tuition and fees.

In 2011–12 the cost was

pegged at $62,700, a full

$9,000 more than that year’s

$53,700 comprehensive fee.

In effect, every student is sub-

sidized to some extent by

Skidmore’s endowment earnings, donations, and other in-

come. Still, the post-2008 economy has changed both the

wallets and the mindsets of full-pay families, according to

Bates and Post-Lundquist. “Many of our fellow schools in

15.4%

Budgeting financial aid

Aid as % of Skidmore budget

16.7%

77.4%

5.9%

16.7%

19.3%

74.4%

6.4%

17.2%

14.0%

80.5%

5.5%

17.7%

15.8%

77.0%

7.2%

16.8%

16.1%

75.8%

8.1%

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

LIKE ALMOST ALL COLLEGES, Skidmore builds each aidpackage starting with a federal, low-interest Stafford or Per -kins loan, usually restricted to $3,000 or $4,000; next it addsa federally subsidized work-study job, usually limited to about$2,000; it looks for small state or federal grants to add; andthen it tries to fill the rest of the need with grants from its ownaid budget. Last year Skidmore’s contributions ranged from$2,000 to $56,000 depending on demonstrated need.

One example: Felipe had $5,000 in savings; his parentshad $280,000 in home equity, $30,000 in savings, and anannual income of $105,000. Skidmore asked his parents tocontribute $8,700 of their income, $3,000 from savings, and$10,000 from a Parents Loan and asked Felipe for $2,000of summer-job earnings and $1,000 from his savings. Skid-more offered the rest, their calculated need of $31,700, as a$26,200 College grant, a federal work-study job for $2,000,and $3,500 in federal loans.

A second scenario: Lisa lived with her divorced mother,who had $60,000 and an income of $62,000 including childsupport. Skidmore asked her mom to pay $5,000 and her dadto pay $6,000 (in 10 installments over the year), while Lisacontributed summer-job earnings of $2,000. That left $43,400in need, which was covered by $37,900 in Skidmore grants,a $2,000 work-study job, and $3,500 in federal loans.

CALCULATING NEEDS AND AWARDS

Aid from operating budget Aid from gifts/grants Aid from endowed scholarships

JON REINFURT

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 15

g

the top 50 of US News & World Report’s rankings are pro -

viding non-need-based or ‘merit’ aid,” Post-Lundquist says.

“At some of our peers 30% of financial aid is non-need-

based, while at Skidmore just 1% of our aid is.” In today’s

admissions and aid race, she reports,

“Parents tell us about the packages that

other colleges are offering them and ask

us what we can do. Or they tell us their

child was admitted to a very selective

elite school, so they expect some ‘merit’ aid from us to

sweeten the pot.”

With its emphasis on access and affordability, Skidmore

has stood firm on restricting its non-need aid to the long-

standing Filene Music and Porter Presidential Math and Sci-

ence scholarships for

about 12 incoming

students each year.

In reconfirming this

pol icy at last Octo-

ber’s trustee meeting,

Skidmore leaders

agreed to accept the

price: losing some top

applicants who get

wooed elsewhere with

‘merit aid’ offers.

“The bigger price,”

says Glotz bach,

“would be turning

our back on the prin-

ciple that a Skidmore

education should be

available to qualified

students regardless of

their abil ity to pay. Arguably, every non-need-based dollar

we offer takes away from what we can provide to those who

truly need it. If we expect to graduate students who are ethi-

cal and who value the common good, then Skidmore has to

model this kind of behavior.”

These days, even the most elite and highly resourced

schools are feeling squeezed, according to a recent New York

Times article on aid and diversty. Wesleyan had been “need-

blind”—admitting students without regard to their ability to

pay, because it knew it could meet their need—but it has

backed off slightly, now accepting 10% of its freshman class-

es from candidates who can pay full fare.

Another well-funded college, Grinnell, is

also considering becoming “need-sensi-

tive.” Williams and Dartmouth, which

had provided their aid exclusively through

grants, are beginning to include student loans as part of

their packages.

There’s no escaping the math. “Skidmore’s current oper-

ating budget is predicated on 42% of our students receiving

aid,” Bates notes, “yet 68% of our applicants requested it.”

Earnings from the en-

dowment provided

nearly 20% of the fi-

nancial aid budget in

2003–04, but after the

down markets in recent

years, that figure has

fallen below 12%. Little

wonder that Skidmore

too is becoming more

need-sensitive; Bates

now estimates that the

College accepts 25% of

each incoming class

with some considera-

tion for the families’

ability to pay on their

own. “We’ve wanted

to build our applicant

pool in part to build

the number and strength of those who don’t need aid,” she

acknowledges, so this year’s big spike in applications was

gratifying on several levels.

Price vs. valueJerome Mopsik came to Skidmore as a transfer student, able

to make the move thanks to an aid package that included

19.1%

15.6%

77.7%

6.7%

19.9%

13.5%

78.1%

8.4%

21.3%

13.4%

79.0%

7.6%

21.7%

11.6%

82.5%

6.9%

21.1%

13.3%

79.8%

7.0%

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

MARY LOU BATES AND HER ADMISSIONS STAFF REALLY DO LOVE OPENING DOORS.

“PARENTS TELL US ABOUT OTHER COLLEGES’ OFFERS, AND

EXPECT SOME ‘MERIT’ AID FROM US TO SWEETEN THE POT.”

GLENN DAVENPORT

one of the College’s Palamountain Scholarships. Mopsik’s

father, Eugene, a Penn grad and executive director of a pho -

to graphers’ trade association, was unswayed by money mat-

ters. He avows “a deep personal commitment to higher edu-

cation. It’s the best investment parents can make to allow

their children to take maximum advantage of what life has

to offer.” He says, “Skidmore’s value proposition was extra -

ordinary: the resources per student were very inviting, the

facilities were overwhelmingly good, the town had a lot to

offer. Our family made a decision that we

were going to do whatever we needed to.”

Not everyone is as bullish as the Mop-

siks about the value of a four-year degree.

A recent New York Times article, “The Old

College Try? No Way,” asks pointed questions: Why go into

debt with no guarantee of a job? Why not undertake your

own self-directed learning, as UnCollege.org recommends?

Why not just drop out like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark

Zuckerberg, who made millions? The answer, it turns out, is

clear and compelling. Apart from very rare exceptions, it

pays to go to college. A 2010 College Board analysis calcu-

lates that the median earnings of bachelor’s degree recipients

working full-time in 2008 were more than twice those of

high school graduates. By age 33, these higher earnings off-

set not only the four college years spent outside the labor

force but also the average tuition and fee payments at a pub-

lic four-year university funded fully by student loans.

Moreover, grads from liberal arts colleges say they feel bet-

ter prepared for life’s challenges, including careers, than do

those from private or public universities, according to a 2011

national study commissioned by the Annapolis Group, a con-

sortium of leading liberal arts colleges. In the survey, 79% of

liberal arts grads rated their college experience as highly ef-

fective in pre paring them for a first job or admission to grad

school, compared to 73% from private universities and 64%

from national flagship universities. More striking was that

77% rated their undergraduate experience as “excellent,” as

against 59% from privates and 53% from flagships. On vir -

tually every measure known to contribute to positive out-

comes—challenging professors, small

classes, mentoring—the liberal arts grad -

uates rated their experiences more highly

than did university graduates.

Additionally, liberal arts schools, while

representing just 3% of American higher education, produce

a disproportionate number of successful graduates and lead-

ers. A 2012 count showed that, per capita, liberal arts colleges

turned out twice as many students who earned PhDs in sci-

ence as did other institutions. A 1998 study found that liber-

al arts schools turned out 19% of US presidents; 8% of the

wealthiest CEOs and 8% of Peace Corps volunteers; 23%,

19%, and 18% of Pulitzer Prize winners in drama, history,

and poetry; and many more.

The way forwardAt the end of the day, financial aid isn’t about numbers. It’s

about the students who are transformed by a Skidmore edu -

cation because of that aid. And therefore it’s also about the

alumni, parents, and others who understand the value, not

just to the student recipients but to the campus community as

16 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

“I CAME TO SKIDMORE ON FINANCIAL AID AND HAVE BEENFOREVER GRATEFUL TO THOSEWHO MADE THAT POSSIBLE.”

franklin & marshall college

gettysburg college

dickinson college

Bard college

connecticut college

st. lawrence university

union college

wheaton college

skidmore college

Bates college

trinity college

hamilton college

colgate university

kenyon college

sarah lawrence college

Vassar college

oberlin college

$31,617

$29,067

$26,928

$26,897

$26,545

$26,270

$26,252

$25,778

$21,000

$20,706

$20,367

$20,262

$19,721

$19,480

$18,360

$18,150

$16,813

student deBt comparison Average debt burden of borrowers, upon graduation in the class of 2011

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 17

a whole, and who make that knowledge material as donors.

Lawyer Nancy Hamilton says, “I came to Skidmore on fi-

nancial aid back in the 1970s and have been forever grateful

to those who made that possible.” She calls the growth in

financial aid and diversity at her alma mater “a signature

achievement” demonstrating that “Skidmore has its priori-

ties straight.” A trustee, alumni board member, and longtime

supporter of scholar-

ship aid, she has en-

joyed returning to

campus for the annu-

al scholarship din-

ners, where recipients

and donors have a

chance to meet. She

reports, “Many stu-

dents are surprised to

learn that I and many

others were also fi-

nancial aid recipients.

My hope is that

they’ll be inspired to

give as well. To me,

scholarship gifts are

not so much about

paying as they are

about paying forward,

investing in the fu-

ture. The return on

that investment—

someone like me,

sometime down the

road—makes it the

best investment

you’ll ever make.”

Hamilton adds

that the average debt

for a Skidmore educa-

tion “seems eminent-

ly reasonable” com-

pared to the far larger debt burden of some grads, especially

those from the for-profit institutes. She says, “We know the

intrinsic value of the Skidmore experience—from having close

relationships with outstanding faculty (expert, dedicated pro-

fessors, not just graduate students) to having seats available in

courses so that students can graduate in their chosen major

within four years. Supporting financial aid extends those life-

changing educational opportunities to more students.”

Jerome Mopsik is on board with giving back, too. The for-

mer Palamountain Scholar is now an organizer, along with

wife Emily Carnevale Mopsik ’07, for this year’s Palamoun-

tain Scholarship polo benefit. He declares it “the best deal in

town for a summer gala. The best food, the best company.

It’s just $125 per person. And it all goes to financial aid.”

These and other scholarship supporters, from every era

and area, tend to share a belief in liberal education as a

personal, professional, and public good. Skidmore’s codi-

fied “Goals for Student Learning and Development” set an

expectation that graduates will, among many other things,

acquire discipline-specific knowledge; understand social

and cultural diversity;

develop advanced

learning skills, in clud-

ing the capacity to

think critically, cre-

atively, and independ-

ently; and hone their

ability to analyze, inte-

grate, and apply infor-

mation and communi-

cate the findings effec-

tively. It’s a “daunting”

list, as Glotzbach ad-

mitted at last year’s

commencement cere-

mony, but, he told the

new grads, “the intel-

lectual and ethical tool

kit you have acquired

through your Skid-

more education pro-

vides you the best

possible platform for

success in a world

marked above all by

rapid, persistent, and

unpredictable change.”

It’s no coincidence

that it’s the same tool

kit expressly sought,

more and more ur-

gently, by medical

schools, law schools,

and employers in practically every profession.

Educational like that doesn’t come cheap. What Skidmore

does is necessarily cost-intensive—from its large faculty and

personalized mentoring, to its laboratory, studio, athletics,

and other resources, to its comprehensive First-Year Experi-

ence program, to its research, service, internship, travel, and

other opportunities. But the more world crises that arise, the

more Glotzbach sees Skidmore as an incubator of creative

problem-solvers. That’s why he and Bates and other Skid-

more leaders not only defend the value of its ever more cost-

ly education, but also insist that it should be able to work its

magic on a diverse community of the best and brightest stu-

dents regardless of their finances.

JON REINFURT

BY SUSAN ROSENBERG

BRUCIE ROSCH

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 19

Pour on some politics, global trade, and high tech, and it’s

no wonder we devour news headlined “‘Pink slime’ served

in school lunches,” “Drought threatens nation’s wheat

crop long term,” “Health secrets of the shopping cart,”

“Food-borne diseases rising,” and “Helping cities feed

themselves.” Every budget cycle, legislators wrangle over

federal farm subsidies, even though two-thirds of Ameri-

can farmers never collect one, according to an OnEarth

magazine article. From 1995 to 2012, OnEarth estimates,

nearly 90% of agricultural subsidy money went to just

20% of farms—the biggest holdings, owned by megacor-

porations like Monsanto, Cargill, and ConAgra. Subsidized

or not, much of what’s grown in America’s breadbasket we

never see on a plate. Corn goes for

sweetener, cattle feed, and ethanol fuel;

a lot of wheat is exported; soy is pro -

cessed into additives as well as chow

for farm animals from hogs to chickens

to salmon. Nearly all corn, soy, and

canola is now grown from genetically modified seed, and

the growth hormone administered to dairy cattle is itself

genetically modified.

Is this food system intensive and efficient, or a rapa-

cious agro-industrial monster? Several Skidmore minds, on

campus and off, are helping to lead new thinking on such

issues, and Scope asked a few of them for insights.

More and smaller Economics professor Mehmet Odekon has guided students

in collaborative summer research on food-chain market

sectors. They found that between 1997 and 2007 just 10

companies shared 56% of the seed market; in agrochemi-

cals, the top 10 firms had an 89% share. And those top 10s

add up to less than 20, since firms like Monsanto and

DuPont are in both oligopolies. The project’s conclusions

recommended policy changes to diversify the markets and

support smaller-scale farming.

Lauren Mandel ’05 is documenting the role of urban

agriculture on rooftops. A landscape architect and green-

roof designer, she reports, “Some colleges and schools are

planting their roofs with edibles. Restaurants are too, grow-

ing heirloom vegetables that are hard to find elsewhere.

Urbanites are beginning to realize that you can’t get any

more local than your own roof!” Mandel covers this trend

in her new book Eat Up: The Inside Scoop on Rooftop Agricul-

ture. She says large warehouse roofs are even hosting “com-

mercial-scale farms, some with a few chickens or rabbits

(for meat as well as manure), and some with bee hives” to

help ensure pollination so high off the ground.

Hydroponics, using liquid nutrients rather than soil, is

ideal for roof-mounted greenhouses. Mandel writes about

greenhouse farms on Montreal roofs, and she says the

Whole Foods chain buys from “a New York operation like

this to get fresh year-round produce at competitive prices.”

Hydroponics, she suggests, “can feed a lot of people with

very little labor, because it’s often highly mechanized.”

Biology professor Monica Raveret-Richter agrees that

“high-input methods of agriculture are

not the only route to high yields.”

Raveret-Richter, who has researched

foraging behaviors in social animals

from insects to birds to humans,

teaches a popular course on the ecolo-

gy of food and is currently writing a book on it. She says,

“Understanding how the environment and evolution in-

fluence your choices really changes your way of approach-

ing the food landscape.”

Raveret-Richter’s advice is to eat less meat, since raising

animals is an extremely high-input enterprise. But with

any food, she says, “eating close to the source” directs

more of the price to the grower, reduces shipping and stor-

age, and shortens the production line from farm to table.

She also calls for policy-level action, to cut back support

for monocultured commodities such as corn and wheat

and to boost it for “diversified, low-input, organic farms.”

She says data show that “we can feed people this way. Our

challenge for advancing agriculture should be in produc-

tivity and sustainability, not just output.” Such farming,

she adds, also “improves resilience in times or places of

food insecurity.”

Journalist and food blogger Mary Nelen ’79 points back

to Skidmore as “a good example of local food in action.”

Student advocacy for more locally raised products in the

dining hall led to deals with area farmers and spurred the

creation of the campus garden that now supplies hun-

dreds of pounds of organic produce to the College’s dining

service. Nelen was impressed that the students weren’t

taking agriculture courses or getting academic credit but

“FOOD IS NOT JUST PART OF OUR PHYSICAL FABRIC.It’s part of our growing up and family life. We engage with it, usual-ly in a group, at least a few times every day,” notes Spanish pro-fessor and cultural scholar Viviana Rangil. From body-mass indexto tastes and taboos, our very identity is shaped by the food we eat.

g

20 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

simply “wanted better food and taught themselves how

to grow it. Can this be duplicated in other environments?

I think it can. Almost all of us should be doing it.” She’s

currently writing a book titled From Scratch.

With organic gardens and farmers’ markets spreading,

“this is a promising time,” Andrew Plotsky ’00 declares.

People like him, alarmed that “we have the fewest farm-

ers we’ve ever had in this country” and eager to fix “a

broken system,” are picking up shovels and, in his case,

going online. Serving small farmers around Washington’s

Puget Sound, he works for a local butchering company

and also owns FarmRun, a media and

marketing business. A self-taught pork

connoisseur, he also raises a few her-

itage-breed pigs for himself, focusing on

healthy, natural husbandry, humane

slaughtering and hand-butchering, and

old-fashioned, artisanal curing.

“There’s a lot of romance flying

around in portrayals of small-farm life,” Plotsky cautions.

“My friends and I know how it really works—how freakin’

hard it is—but we’re committed to the economy and well-

being of our small group.” He believes their paradigm has

real promise to contribute to “a radical revisiting of classi-

cal agrarian society, which doesn’t go backward but uses

modern technology to forge a new agrarian system.”

He acknowledges that when he started out, “the imme-

diacy of taking

life—and pigs are

very charismatic—

was difficult. But

I’ve learned that it’s

possible to love

both pigs and pork.

The heartbreak and

labor are worth it,

to participate in a

farming communi-

ty.” In fact, true sus-

tainable agriculture,

he argues, is more

than raising the

food; it also includes

“blacksmithing and

carpentry and all

the other jobs that

make a farming life -

style possible.” Plotsky wants his niche to be media, for

communicating the value of small-farm products com-

pared to cheaper, mass-produced supermarket fare. “The

key for industrial meat processing,” he says, “is low price

and high profit; for us, it’s quality. We scald and scrape

the hide, rather than skinning the pig and losing good fat

and flesh. Leaving the skin on also supports the biology

of traditional curing for prosciutto and other meat.”

Along with butchering, his company teaches curing and

sausage-making—spreading natural pork cultures into the

nearby human culture.

Food curesThe spread of food cultures is of special interest to Rangil,

both as an academic and as an expat from Argentina. “I

grew up eating seasonal food and local game and fish,”

she recalls. “On my great-grandfather’s farm, after a pig

was butchered in the winter, we kids would help with

cooking and preserving the pork.” On

sabbatical this past year, Rangil re-

searched “Latino foodscapes,” interview-

ing people who emigrated from Puebla,

Mexico, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, to

live in New York City.

While Rangil’s study subjects usually

want to cook their familiar recipes, and

many can’t afford not to cook, for nutrition consultant

Marti Wolfson ’02 a big hurdle can be convincing people to

cook. With a culinary degree from the National Gourmet

Institute and experience teaching at a holistic health and

lifestyle center, she’s a from-scratch fan. In place of eating

packaged food or take-out, “cooking does take time, but it’s

much healthier,” she says. “I also believe the act of cooking

is very healing, and cooking with your family is quality

time that’s nourish-

ing on many levels.”

Wolfson has been

pleased to see that

the Food Network

and other TV cooking

shows seem to have

revived Americans’

interest in preparing

whole, unpro cessed

food at home.

Of course, food

choices reflect not

just social influences

but basic biological

adaptation. Raveret-

Richter says, “For hu-

mans in the wild, op-

timal foraging would

draw us to sugar and

fat and meat.” For 21st-century urbanites trying to stretch

a paycheck and also honor their heritage, it might mean

beans and grains, to afford enough for everyone at the

table. In her research, Rangil has noticed “a strong sense

of duty around nourishing the family—primarily among

women, who are typically the cooks and shoppers.”

Rangil proposes that food both distinguishes cultural

BRUCIE ROSCH

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 21

identities and bridges them. Her study is charting a Latin-

ization of the US that’s “a reciprocal and transformative

trend for both the Latino and US cultures.” Cuisines—

from “authentically ethnic” to muddled to “fusion”—

help “create alternative affiliations and ‘imagined com-

munities’ that can reconfigure notions of citizenship,”

she says. She also notes that Americans’ disposable in-

comes allow them to sample foreign foods as entertain-

ment. “We like to ‘eat the other’—which can suggest a

devouring of a colonized culture, especially if we don’t try

to understand that culture a little bit through its food.”

“You are what you eat” certainly cuts more than one

way. For biologist Raveret-Richter, “We become part of

our environment by eating of it.” As a youngster, she ate

fish from Lake Michigan, before its pollution was widely

recognized. As an adult she came to realize that “when-

ever you eat a fish, you join the marine ecosystem—and

it joins you.”

Last spring Skidmore students took on the Real Food Chal-lenge, a national effort to make food served on campuses ashumane, fair-trade, ecologically safe, and local as possible. Thegoal is to make those descriptions true for 20% of campusfood by 2020. Recently well over 10% of dining-hall food has come from the

student-run organic garden next to the Colton Alumni WelcomeCenter. How is this possible? Skidmore has four things going forit: a decent growing zone, a willing dining-services director, anaggressive grass-roots Food Action Group, and Gabby Stern ’13and her compatriots.Stern spent a summer not just toiling in the student garden,

but also interning at American Farmland Trust and working withthe farmers’ market in downtown Saratoga—a locavore’s trifec-ta. “I came into Skidmore with zero experience,” says the envi-ronmental studies major. “Then I started working the garden.There I was, 18 years old, and it was the first time I’d harvesteda carrot. There is a problem with that. How had I gone my entirelife not knowing this?” Under the umbrella of the Environmental Action Club, the

Food Action Group began four years ago when students brokeground. Stern took over as manager of the garden in 2010 andcontracted with the dining hall. She says, “A few professorsgave their two cents, and we just learned on our own. We get alot of support from the ES department; they covet this garden!It has been a great part of my education.” Stern got no academic credit for that work, but Faith Nichola

’14 did an internship in data analysis for last spring’s Real FoodChallenge, providing findings to give Skidmore’s administrationa better understanding of the issue.Elizabeth Cohen ’14 grew up with a garden in her backyard, so

the origins of a carrot were familiar to her. But coming to Skid-more put organic food in a different light. “Working in the gardenmade me think about where things are coming from. Affordabilityand access aren’t the same for everybody,” she says. Riley Neu -ge bauer, Skidmore’s sustainability coordinator, also sees food asa social justice issue, arguing that “sustainability includes equityas well as ecology and economy. If people don't have access toone of their most basic needs—food—or if the only food theyhave access to is grown with pesticides that accumulate in ourbodies over time, harms the environment that we are all a part of,and doesn’t tell a story about where it came from or who grew itor why that matters, then we have a justice issue.”Margot Reisner ’14 followed her term as manager of the stu-

dent garden with a semester in Australia to study permaculture.Reisner, in the social and cultural track of the ES major, definespermaculture as “the mentality that everything we do as humanshas to do with ecology. If there is a discrepancy between theway human systems work and the way ecology works, then youare going to have a problem, such as the health problems wesee today due to what we are feeding our animals and puttinginto the air. Permaculture mimics the way ecological systemswork.” After graduation, she plans to start her own farm. “I justwant a place to have people live and be healthy,” she says.

by Mary Nelen ’79

ERIC JENKS '08

g

22 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

That inextricability is another obstacle for Wolfson’s

clients. “Food sourcing is so tough. Products made in

America may have ingredients from who knows where,

and we don’t require labeling of genetically modified

crops. You have to shop for different items at different

places to get the safest of each.” Her realistic advice is just

to buy whole foods and, when you need to buy packaged,

“check the number of ingredients: the list should be short

and they should be recognizable. I think that can be more

important than the nutrition labeling, because the US De-

partment of Agriculture ‘food pyramid’ is more about farm

subsidies and lobbying than about

sound nutrition.”

Blogger Nelen says one bright spot is

the USDA’s 2012 measure requiring

twice the previous amounts of fruits and

vegetables in the national school-lunch

program. “Getting sugar, fat, and pro -

cessed food off cafeteria menus,” she says, “could begin to

heal the damage done to a generation of students” whose

early diets have “contributed to record rates of obesity and

food allergies.” Nelen would also like to see “choices limited

to healthy food at home.”

Wolfson confirms that starting good eating habits in

youngsters is vital. She serves many clients who have

food intolerances—to wheat and dairy, primarily—but

“sugar is the number-one thing that people need to re-

duce or eliminate.

An excess affects

everything in our

bodies, and our need

for it is minuscule.”

Genetically engi-

neered crops worry

her too, since “we’re

just on the cusp of

learning how they

really affect us. The

new field of nutri -

genomics is starting

to explore how food

can influence our

genetics and those

of our offspring.”

She cites evidence

that certain genes’

expression can be turned on or off “through a clean, high-

quality diet or a diet that’s poor or contaminated by pesti-

cides, hormones, plastics, and metals.” Whatever complex

of factors is at work, Wolfson says, “There is no question

anymore that many chronic conditions today, from heart

disease to bowel disorders to cancers, are directly related to

a poor diet.”

But take the burgeoning healthier-foods market with a

grain of salt. It’s nice that restaurants are offering more

gluten-free or low-fat offerings, Wolfson concedes. Prob-

lem is, “many companies are jumping on the bandwagon

by marketing packaged foods that replace fats with sugars,

or sugars with artificial sweeteners.”

Socially engineered food?The only answer, Wolfson says, is many answers. “Take

our food back into our hands, support our local farmers,

educate our children, train our doctors, and cast our votes

every time we shop.” Rangil interjects, “We also need to

acknowledge the privilege of being able

to shop selectively and advocate for bet-

ter systems without having to worry

about putting food on our table.” The

more-produce rule for school lunches is

reportedly resulting in students’ tossing

much of it into the trash. “We can’t af-

ford to throw food away,” she says, “while we’re trying to

teach our kids how to eat.”

Wolfson concurs “the population isn’t getting any

smaller, and our food-supply expectations grow bigger

by the second.” For her, one key to the problem of “how

to feed the world but feed it with good nutrition” is to

prune back the dominance of big agro. Andrew Plotsky,

hog butcher for the world of his small circle, cites ag pol-

icy reforms too. While he respects the food safety con-

cerns behind feder-

al meat-packing

regulations, he

says, “they can

only be met by big

corporations with

administrative de-

partments to han-

dle them.” Absent

alternative rules for

small “meatsmith -

ing,” his processor

is state-certified,

not US-certified.

On rooftops too,

Lauren Mandel

would like to

rewrite some or -

dinances. While

more cities are beginning to allow small flocks of chick-

ens, bee-keeping is usually prohibited, as bees are consid-

ered a nuisance or hazard. Mandel says, “We need ways

not just to permit but to promote agriculture in residen-

tial and industrial zones.”

Economist Odekon shares the preference for small,

local, diversified farming. “Unfortunately, the distribution

of labor in global food production,” he says, “is following

BRUCIE ROSCH

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 23

the rule of comparative advantage. America and Europe,

rich in capital, are producing capital-intensive grains and

other commercial crops; developing countries, rich in labor,

are producing labor-intensive fruits and vegetables.” Conse-

quently industrial nations are increasingly dependent on

imports for their produce, while the developing world must

import its grain. Neither group can control how cleanly its

imports are farmed. “The rampant use of fertilizers and pes-

ticides in some countries is a serious health concern,” Ode -

kon says, which makes “sustainable farming, urban and

rural, more important than ever.” In his view, though,

small ag can’t develop enough without “new institutional

and legal frameworks—for example, new forms of collective

ownership for urban agricultural cooperatives.”

Cooperative arrangements also apply to meal-making.

Attending Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico, Rangil

more than once witnessed people with small incomes lay-

ing out enormous feasts for up to 500 visitors. In the Unit-

ed States, she points out, “we more often provide charity,

giving away resources that are in excess of our needs, but

this was genuine sharing, the breaking in half of our only

piece of bread to give to someone else.” In her study com-

munities, she says, “the money for such lavish holiday

generosity sometimes comes from remittances sent home

by a family member who left to find work in the States,

perhaps even in agriculture.”

Such foodways serve as familiar cultural resources that

can mean a lot to immigrants. As Rangil says, taste is a

feeling, and in fact smell and taste are often the strongest

senses for triggering memory and other associations, so

“food is about the past and present, the bodily and the

symbolic.” Curating its traditions, cultivating it, and shar-

ing it “can bring people closer together and help us under-

stand each other.”

BRUCIE ROSCH

Rekindle old friendships • Rediscover Saratoga SpringsReconnect with faculty • Join the parade • Picnic on the green

Go back to class • Visit the alumni art exhibitionEnjoy live music and fireworks

To register and get details, visit www.skidmore.edu/reunion

May 30–June 2

It’s not too late to take part.

2008 • 2003 • 1998 • 1993 • 1988 • 1983 • 1978 • 1973 • 1968 • 1963 • 1958 • 1953 • 1948 • 1943 •

2008 • 2003 • 1998 • 1993 • 1988 • 1983 • 1978 • 1973 • 1968 • 1963 • 1958 • 1953 • 1948 • 1943 •

1938 • 1933 • 1928 • 1923 • 2008 • 20

03 • 1998 • 1993 • 1988 • 1983 • 1978 • 1973 • 1968 • 1963 • 1958 • 1953 • 1948•

2003 • 1998 • 1993 • 1988 • 1983 • 1978 • 1973 • 1968 • 1963 • 1958 • 1953 • 1948 • 1943 • 1938 • 1933 • 1928 • 1923 •

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 25

If Jennifer Daniels ’94 is having a

stressful day at work, she goes to see the

caracal, a beautiful, black-eared desert

cat that usually prowls in Africa and

Asia. Or if she is jittery from fighting

traffic around her office in Washington,

D.C., she visits with the elephants,

which she finds calming, especially

when they’re being bathed.

These are some of the quirky perks

that Daniels gets to enjoy as the land-

scape architect at the Smithsonian’s

National Zoological Park, the 163-acre

home to animals ranging from the icon-

ic giant pandas to birds, monkeys and

apes, amphibians and reptiles, and even

insects. “I never expected this to be my

career, but it’s pretty exciting to touch a

65-year-old elephant,” she admits.

After her anthropology major at Skid-

more—she was drawn initially to the

dance program, but ultimately chose an

academic discipline over the performing

arts—Daniels’s first job was as a facilitator

moderating dialogues on race relations,

especially between blacks and whites in

New Haven, Conn., where churches,

community groups, and government

agencies were seeking such interactions.

She had gained the skills when an an-

thropology professor, Jill Sweet, intro-

duced her to leadership training through

Futures for Children, which encourages

American Indian students to graduate

from high school, pursue postsecondary

education, and give back to their com-

munities through public service.

Daniels also studied with George

Lakey’s program Training for Change,

specializing in “activist training that

helps groups stand up more effectively

for justice, peace, and the environment,”

working with youngsters who had expe-

rienced violence. She says, “It shaped

who I am,” and she

adds, “These conflict-

resolution techniques

could be relevant in

Los Angeles, Ireland,

or Israel.” In fact, she

took them to Russia, where she and hus-

band Rick Fox lived for six years. She

learned the language and conducted dia-

logues from Siberia to Moscow, helping

people navigate the volatile interperson-

al dynamics of alcoholism, unemploy-

ment, and social isolation.

Back in the US, Daniels had to decide

what to do next. What she cared about

most was people, and how they use their

spaces, so she enrolled at the University

of Pennsylvania for a master’s degree in

landscape architecture. She explains,

“Landscape architecture was, for me, not

about plants. It was about people in an

environment—how to make that work.”

As a dancer and anthropologist, “I was

ready to translate those interests into fig-

uring something out about human be-

ings and how they occupy their space.”

Next, in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Fox

worked for the US Forest Service and

Daniels worked for a landscape architec-

ture firm on projects such as the design

and construction of bridges and exhibits

in Grand Teton National Park’s Rocke-

feller Preserve. A promotion for Fox

brought them, with their three children,

back east to Washington, D.C.

Daniels became the first resident

landscape architect at the National Zoo

since its creation in 1889 by Frederick

Law Olmstead (who also designed New

York City’s Central Park and other fa-

mous sites—including Saratoga’s Con-

gress Park). She had a steep learning

curve, she admits, but notes that her

background helped her build relation-

ships, understand politics, and embrace

challenge and problem-solving.

Planning for animals as well as people

was new to her, and she loves it. She has

to think about topography and nutrition,

efficiency and beauty, and what makes

spaces safe, user-

friendly, com pliant

with regulations, and

fun. For a carousel, “I

got to pick the ani-

mals for the seats and

plan how to section them according to

which lived in wetlands, deserts, oceans...

I still smile every time I think about it.”

Also exhilarating is advocating for the

zoo and its public support. Addressing

“everything from conservation to rev-

enue, I’ve become more of a strategic

planner in the process.”

Off the job, she spends time with her

kids. “And what dohey want to do?” she

asks with a sigh. “They say, ‘Mom, can we

go to the zoo?’” —Helen S. Edelman ’74

Shaping interpersonal—and interspecies—dynamics

JEN DANIELS ’94 DESIGNS SPACES FOR ZOO VISITORS AND RESIDENTS.

“LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTUREWAS, FOR ME, NOT ABOUTPLANTS. IT WAS ABOUT

PEOPLE IN AN ENVIRONMENT—HOW TO MAKE THAT WORK.”

HILARY SCHWAB

CREATIVE THOUGHT AT WORK

26 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

CREATIVE THOUGHT AT WORK

“They pull the oars in and finish at

their chins, but they’re out there,” says

Bob Tarrant ’78, co-founder of the

Saratoga Rowing Center. “We run

sculling camps for 8- to 12-year-old

kids—summer programs, after-school

programs.” Tarrant continues, “At the

novice level, kids that are 8 years old are

easier to teach than novices that are 50.

Adults have to kick the door to learning

back open. But little kids, by and large,

are fearless. If you put a 9-year-old in a

racing single on the third day of camp,

she’ll flip and not care. She’ll figure out

what she did wrong and not flip again.”

Neither Tarrant nor wife Jean Tierney

Tarrant ’79—known by many as Bean, he

says—rowed at Skidmore, as the college

had no varsity crew in their student days.

They started Saratoga

Rowing Center in

2003, after he decid-

ed to leave his fami-

ly’s manufacturing

business.

He says, “We’ve

had some cool successes with a couple of

rowers who started at 8 or 9 and went on

to the competitive rowing program” at

Saratoga Rowing Association, a partner

to the Tarrants’ rowing center. “It’s fun

to watch them head off to row for Har-

vard or Brown.” Started

in 1996, SRA has grown

into a vibrant hub of

rowing in what its head

coach Chris Chase calls a

“rowing-crazy town. One

in 12 kids in the high

school here in Saratoga

Springs is a rower.”

Chase explains that

the Tarrants’ sculling

program for youngsters

makes his team stronger.

He says, “Bob and Bean

were both scullers. They

taught their three daugh-

ters to scull. And doing

the program for 8- to

12-year-olds was a niche

they wanted to fill.”

Chase has 177 kids on

the SRA team, “and

every kid can row a sin-

gle. They come to us al-

ready knowing how to

handle the boats.” When

asked if he knows of

other learn-to-row pro-

grams that teach elemen-

tary school kids, Tarrant

replies, “I haven’t heard

of any in the United

States.” That’s partly

why he adds, “Bean and

I feel sculling in this

country could use a boost.” Sounds like

he and his wife are doing that, but he

counters, “It’s the kids that are doing it.

They’re the stars.”

Chase jumps in with a

thought about Tarrant’s

style. “Don’t let him

fool you. He’s incredibly

detail-oriented and

methodical, as a coach

should be. He’s stern with the kids, but

a lot of fun.”

Tarrant’s program is usually full. He

says, “Mostly we operate from waiting

lists. Mom and Dad want to give their

kids a taste of rowing.” But it’s not easy:

“Listen, putting a 9-year-old in a boat,

with the equipment sizes we have, it’s

demanding on them. I don’t let them

graduate to the next level until they can

steer a single and navigate on a small

river that may have 40 shells out during

a varsity practice. It’s sometimes a lot to

ask, but it’s important. We keep our

camps small, no more than 10 kids with

three coaches, because you can’t mess

around with kids on the water. But

they’re learning so much out there.”

Tarrant smiles as he talks. “These kids

are amazing. They’re learning to scull in

equipment that’s oversized for them,

which means they have to learn how to

handle it. It would be like asking you to

scull with sweep oars. You’d end up with

a lot of control as a rower.”

Both coaches say they are operating

at maximum capacity. “During practice

we have 25 singles, 20 pairs, seven

coxed quads, plus 10 boats with Bob’s

kids in them,” says Chase. “We run two

practice times a day. It’s the only way it

can happen.”

Is “it” getting all the kids on the water

or getting all the kids to become great

rowers? Either way, in Saratoga Springs,

with the Tarrants as youth coaches, row-

ing starts early in life.

Adapted with permission from “Ahead of

the Curve,” by Jen Whiting, in the Novem-

ber 2012 Rowing magazine.

pulling for local kids

BOB ’78 AND JEAN TIERNEY TARRANT ’79 PREP FORCOACHING DUTIES AT THEIR SARATOGA ROWING CENTER.

“PUTTING A 9-YEAR-OLD IN A BOAT, WITH THE

EQUIPMENT SIZES WE HAVE,IT’S DEMANDING ON THEM.BUT THEY’RE LEARNING SO MUCH OUT THERE.”

GARY GOLD

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 27

A Skidmore double and four both

finished in the top 10 at October’s Head

of the Fish Regatta (which also drew more

than 30 alumni, including competitors in

mixed eight and other races). Last spring

a Thoroughbreds four came in second,

just behind a West Point boat, at the state

championships. This spring 43 students

were rowing hard.

As the crew program has grown and

thrived over the decades, outstripping the

capacity of its old boathouse, the pace is

picking up in the fundraising for a new

facility. Designed by architect and Skid-

more Hall of Famer John Onderdonk ’89,

launched with a lead gift of $750,000

from Margaret and Michael Valentine

(parents of former T’bred Martha ’09),

and supported by other crew alumni and

friends, the new boathouse plan has

raised $1.1 million so far. Now the

Valentine family has pledged to match

all gifts of any size, up to $250,000. The

$500,000 from a successful challenge

would bring the

construction fund

up to $1.5 mil-

lion, enough for

the $2.3 million

project to break

ground.

The Valentine

Boathouse will in-

clude large stor-

age bays, a train-

ing room, full

locker rooms, a

spectators’ deck,

and more. Spaces are still available to be

named with major gifts, and young

alumni can name an “oar of honor” for

a five-year pledge of just $5,000. Already

Luke Huber ’85 has named the viewing

deck, Ron Levene ’86 has funded the ter-

race between the main boathouse and

the sculling pavilion, Chip Babcock (hus-

band of Nancy Hamilton ’77) has funded

a boat bay and the waterfront park, and

Neil Kaye ’81 (recalling the spartan con-

ditions back when he was starting crew

as a club sport?) has named a locker

room. Levene is also coxing the challenge

effort among fellow crew fans, with sights

set on that $250,000 match.

For more, go to skidmoreathletics.com

and click “crew,” or send an e-mail to

tclemmey@skidmore.edu. —SR

How to float a boathouse

AN EARLY-MORNING THOROUGHBREDS WORKOUT ON FISH CREEK

BOB EWELL

Putting a string around my finger wasn’t exactly an option.

y finger wmutting a string arP

tly xact e’asny finger woundutting a string ar

an option.

he Alumni Division on T

June 11-16 & 19-23, 2013oga Classic Horse ShotaSar

ollege e CidmorSk

te these davsaer it takevthaW

he Alumni Division on

June 11-16 & 19-23, 2013: woga Classic Horse Sho

ollege

es:o emember t, reser it tak

idmorsclassic@sk

518-580-5632 or 518-580-5633.edu/sareidmor.skwww

daturSahe Alumni Division on T

.edueidmor

518-580-5632 or 518-580-5633ogaclassicta.edu/sar

, June 22, 2013he Alumni Division on

JOIN US FOR A WEEKEND OF FAMILY, FRIENDS,AND CELEBRATION OF THE SKIDMORE COMMUNITY

oct 18–20 President’s Hour

Minicollege presentations

Exhibitions at the Tang Teaching Museumand Art Gallery

Thoroughbred athletic contests

Under the Big Top with talented student performers

registration and schedules:skidmore.edu/celebrationweekend,

collegeevents@skidmore.edu, or 518-580-5670lodging and dining information:saratoga.org or 518-584-3255

Putting a string aroundmy finger wasn’t exactlyan option.

Whatever it takes, remember to save these dates:

Skidmore CollegeSaratoga Classic Horse ShowJune 11–16 & 19–23

Join us for the Alumni Divisionon Saturday, June 22

www.skidmore.edu/saratogaclassic518-580-5632 or 518-580-5633sclassic@skidmore.edu

Skidmore’s Parnassus Society, hon-

oring donors of more than $1 million,

now has nearly 100 members, after 14

were inducted last December. The in-

ductees’ combined $19 million in gifts to

Skidmore have provided “critical support

for projects ranging from the annual fund

and scholarships to the Tang Museum

and Valentine Boathouse,” remarked

President Philip Glotzbach. He went on,

“These individuals have not let us settle,

but have encouraged us to make Skid-

more a place where creative thought is

truly made material, and for that we are

deeply grateful.”

The new members are:

Frank and Barbara Underhill Coll -

yer ’52. Barbara was an educator at Cor-

nell, Brown, and the University of Texas.

In support of Skidmore crew, she donated

a shell that was dubbed B-52 in her

honor. She also established the Barbara

Underhill Collyer ’52 Scholarship and

recently endowed the position of vice

president for advancement.

Shelby and Gale Davis of the Davis

United World College Scholars Program.

Since Skidmore joined the Davis UWC

network in 2004, some 70 students

from 39 countries have attended Skid-

more with support from the program,

the world’s largest privately funded in-

ternational scholarship program for

undergraduates.

Jerome and Emily Farnsworth ’59.

Emily was a high-school teacher and li-

brarian. She and her husband have been

dedicated supporters of higher educa-

tion, both at Skidmore and at his alma

mater, Trinity.

Irving and Selma Harris, P ’76, ’79.

Parents of Jonathan ’76 and Lisa ’79, the

Harrises have supported the Palamoun-

tain Scholarships and the Parents Fund.

After Jonathan’s untimely death, they

endowed a scholarship and named a

reading room in the Lucy Scribner Li-

brary in his memory; they later named

the library’s Harris Lobby as well.

Paul and Barbara McGrew Jenkel

’62, P ’91. Parents of Cyndi ’91, the

Jenkels contributed to the Thomas

Endowed Fund for the Arthur Zankel

Music Center in honor of Barbara’s

friend Suzanne Corbet Thomas ’62. Bar-

bara has helped run Educated Canines

Assisting with Disabilities, located at the

Children’s Village, a treatment center for

at-risk children.

Richard and Jean “Hadley” Sillick

Robertson ’60. A prolific and longtime

designer with Recycled Paper Greetings,

Hadley has supported, along with her

husband, a range of Skidmore causes

from the annual fund to the Tang Mu -

seum to financial aid, for which they

established the Richard and Hadley Sil-

lick Robertson ’60 Scholarship.

Michael and Margaret Valentine,

P ’09. Parents of Martha ’09, who great-

ly enjoyed being part of Skidmore crew,

the Valentines gave a lead gift for the

project now known as the Valentine

Boathouse. And they recently pledged a

matching-gift challenge to inspire fur-

ther support for the project. —DF, SR

Reaching parnassus

Mix and match: In March, threedozen students of color made careerconnections with alumni of color, atSkidmore’s first-ever MulticulturalSpeed-Networking Reception. Theevent drew more than 40 alumni,from the classes of 1989 to 2012,employed by a range of firms fromMor gan Stanley to Urban Arts Part-nership to Aetna Insurance. WendyWilson ’96 was impressed by “sucha diverse group of students, all veryfocused and prepared.” Studentswere given five minutes with eachalum in the room, to introducethemselves, ask questions, and net-work on professional topics; thenthey had a chance to follow up withalumni of special interest. Josin Lin’09 enjoyed the “speed dating” for-mat: “I like that we were able to ro-tate and speak with each studentabout our experiences after Skid-more. I think we should continue tohost these events in the future, sothat students will connect withmore alumni.” —Daniella Nordin

CLUB CONNECTION:NEW YORK CITY

8

CHARLIE SAMUELS

TODD FRANCE ’89

A PRESIDENTIAL TOASTTO PARNASSUS MEMBERS

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 29

It’s a January evening in a midtown Man-hattan high-rise, where dozens of Skid-more volunteers, alumni job seekers andchangers, and students nearing gradua-tion are networking like crazy. The energyis high, the vibe is good, and the conver-sations are flowing. Everyone’s followingthe advice of Adam Wald ’94 to “meet atleast three people and e-mail each ofthem the next day.” They’ve been re-minded that networking is the best way,bar none, to land a job.Jenna Hartwell, the Career Develop-

ment Center’s associate director foralumni career development, kicked offthis “Evening of Career Transition andTransformation” with a workshop, “TheRoad Not (yet) Taken,” featuring small-group brainstorming and a roadmap foralumni considering career changes. Inits second year (and sold out well in ad-vance), the event is a direct outgrowthof Skidmore’s commitment to provide“free career counseling to alumni forlife,” as Hartwell puts it. “How cool isthat?” she asks. “At most colleges youhave to pay for it, or you get two ses-

sions and you’re done.” Hartwell teamed with

Wald, president of Skid-more’s New York City cluband an alumni board mem-ber, and with Mike Sposili,director of alumni affairsand college events, to setthe context for the eve -ning. Then it got underway, as 43 alumni volun-teers (and some Skidmoreparents and staff) from 13career fields made them-selves available for face-to-face networking for almost two hours.Wald, a voiceover actor who also pro-vides career advice to artists, made asimple suggestion: “Write a little elevatorspeech for yourself—your own personalstory. In job interviews you’re oftengoing to hear, ‘Tell me about yourself.’So be ready!”Among the buzz of conversations and

connections (video highlights are atyoutu.be/8JJ0r7joyoE), education pub-lisher and Skidmore Parents Council

member David Behrman, P ’13, chattedwith freelance writer Michele Herman’79 about potential work at his BehrmanHouse Inc. Nearby, volunteer David Har-rison ’87, business analyst and senior VPat Citigroup, was delighted to reconnectwith Enrique Tiburcio ’06, who as a stu-dent had job-shadowed with Harrison.“Enrique is doing extremely well for him-self now,” says Harrison proudly. “He’sa VP at JP Morgan. And he talked withstudents last November at Skidmore’s‘Wall Street 101’ panel.”All in all, Hartwell says, the evening

exceeded her expectations. “I wish Icould adequately convey the level ofengagement—and noise—in the room!It was wonderful to observe so manythoughtful conversations, words of en-couragement, and inspirational ideas.” Hartwell underscores that this is just

one way that Skidmore serves alumni onevery step of career journeys that mayspan their lifetimes. “An instructor ofmine once told me that building a careeris like building a home: you start with avision, but eventually you redecorate,tack on an addition, or knock down awall. In that metaphor, your college ex-perience is your front door. I want ouralumni to know that, no matter wherethey go, what they do, or how much theyaccomplish, their front door is and al-ways will be Skidmore. The time theyspent here is the point of entry to theirprofessional lives.” —MM, PM

CAREER CORNER: Alumni event makes a buzz

PETER MACDONALD

Now’s the time to join your classmatesfor a weekend at Skidmore,to plan your next bigget-together.

SECTION I July 25–27, 2013,Thursday–Saturday (for classes 1954,

1959, 1964, 1969, & 1974)

SECTION II July 26–28, 2013, Friday–Sunday (for classes 1979, 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004, & 2009)

For more information call 800-584-0115. Reunion 2014 is May 29–June 1. Save the date!

It’s right around the bend…

ReunionPlanning Weekend:

REUNION 2014

ENRIQUE TIBURCIO ’06 (AT RIGHT) DIVES INTO CAREERNETWORKING AT THE NEW YORK CITY EVENT.

Early Sketchies? Lynn Lavorgna McCrea ’66 still recognizes

some of the players, though the show took place before her

time. She says, “The person on the far left, I believe, is Eliza-

beth Ferguson, who was one of my dear sociology professors.

I kept in touch with her for many, many years before she died

a couple of years ago.” McCrea also spots Dean Norma MacRury,

“sixth from the left.” And she guesses that the shorter woman

next to her was a professor

of music, “but I have lost

her name in the recesses of

my memory!”

MacRury, dean of the

college from 1949 to 1970,

is indeed the white-haired

cast member in the middle,

but her shorter neighbor is

actually Edith Stone quist,

wife of sociology professor

Everett Stonequist. Up in

front of them is the chap-

lain, Edgar Sather, in un-

convincing drag. McCrea is

also correct about the per-

son at the far left: social-work professor Tish Ferguson (behind

the stage-struck English setter). To her left is Russian and Ro-

mance-language professor Rudy Sturm (in glasses and necktie)

and art professor Alice Moshier (in heroic armor).

What were they playing at? According to Skidmore’s history

Make No Small Plans, it was sketch comedy—a popular way to

raise funds for student aid, special events, community pro-

grams, and other causes in

Skidmore’s early days. In

1937 “Faculty Flickers for

the Foundlings” was a ben-

efit for freshmen who had

lost their belongings to a

fire in the South Hall

dorm. The performance

pictured here, in May

1959, portrayed life at the

myth ical Breedlove College

and featured parodies of

Wagnerian opera with

Moshier and government

professor Henry Galant as

Teutonic warriors.—SR

FROM LAST TIME

MORTICIANS? Who are these students, where, and what’s on the shelves? Tell us your answers at518-580-5747, srosenbe@skidmore.edu, or Scope c/oSkidmore College. We’ll report answers, and run anew quiz, in the upcoming Scope magazine.

WHO, WHAT, WHEN

30 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

PHIL HAGGERTY

S P R I N G 2 0 1 3 SCOPE 31

QG: CLASS NOTES— pp31–63 —

ARE IN SEPARATE QUARK FILE

THE KAYAK SHAK, ON FISH CREEK AT THE OUTLET OF SARATOGA LAKE, IS A POPULAR LOCAL VENUE FOR WATER SPORTS.

PLYING SARATOGA’S WATERS

Water is the word in Saratoga Springs, of course, but not

just for drinking or bathing. The area is also brimming with

liquid sports and recreation.

Saratoga Lake, just east of the city, is a busy attraction for

fishing, boating, water-skiing, and sailboat racing. Anglers

with their own craft can put in at the New York State Boat

Launch on Route 9P and try landing a bass, northern pike, or

walleye. For advice, lures, and bait, stop in at Saratoga Tackle

and Archery, and for motivation, hook onto the lake associa-

tion’s guide to fish species and record catches.

Need a boat, or just fuel or supplies? Point Breeze Marina

rents and sells a range of boats and has dock space. At South

Shore Marina, at DiDonna’s Restaurant, you can rent dock

space, buy a seasonal boat-launch pass, and even rent a vaca-

tion property. Fish Creek Marina, on County Route 67 at the

lake’s outlet near Skidmore’s boathouse, also has the lively

Kayak Shak, where it seems a party is always about to break

out. It offers half- and full-day rentals of kayaks, canoes, row-

boats, and stand-up paddleboards. If you have your own non-

motorized craft, you can park and launch at the city’s new

Waterfront Park off Crescent Avenue.

Need lessons? You can get instruction at the Saratoga Sail-

ing Club—or just enjoy the beautiful boats in its regattas.

Likewise for rowing, in late spring and early fall you can

watch the Skidmore crew pulling hard along the lake and

creek, or you can sign up for the Saratoga Rowing Associa-

tion’s instructional camps, lessons, and competitions—two

highlights are the Saratoga Invitational in April and the leg-

endary Head of the Fish Regatta (always an alumni favorite)

in October.

For swimming, Saratoga Spa State Park is home to two pub-

lic pools. The large Peerless Pool Complex is family-friendly,

with a separate slide area and wading pool. The Victoria Pool

is smaller, historic, and tucked into arched promenades for a

more elegant vibe. It features an outdoor bar, but be there

when it opens to have any hope of scoring a lounge chair.

Those looking for more thrills with their chills can head

north to Lake George for parasailing or to Hadley for high-

adrenaline rafting or tubing that the Sacandaga Outdoor Cen-

ter promises is “one of the best buzzes mother nature can dish

out.” Its equipment includes water cannons and buckets to

ensure that your every molecule gets doused.

On the other end of the drama and decibel scales, there

are abundant options for peaceful paddling, from leafy Lake

Lonely to Lake Moreau just north of town. For suggestions,

along with thoughtful commentary and gorgeous photogra-

phy, check out Saratoga Woods and Waterways, the blog of for-

mer Scope editor Jackie Donnelly, whose wanderings always

include “looking closely, listening carefully.” Her favorite

paddle? “It’s the Hudson River between the Spier Falls and

Sherman Island dams, accessed by a boat launch on Spier

Falls Road in Moreau,” she says.

After bumping over rapids in a whitewater adventure or

paddling across a scenic lake, you may just be ready for the

other Saratoga H20: a tall quaff of, or a long soak in, the fa-

mous fizzy waters. —KG

BEAU STALLARD

SARATOGA SIDEBAR

64 SCOPE S P R I N G 2 0 1 3

Skidmore College, Annual Fund | 815 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866 800-584-0115

www.skidmore.edu/annual_fund.

matter:/’maete(r)/ v. be of importance; have significance. (Oxford English Dictionary)

Skidmore is a College on the MOVE

You can play a critical role in the energy that is Skidmore College.

Make your gift to the Skidmore Annual Fund, and say more than

just “thank you” for the life-changing experience you had. Tell us

“Skidmore matters today,” and it matters to you and to the next

generation of students who will make their own impact on the world!

BE A PART OF IT!

Nonprofit OrganizationU.S. PostagePAID

Skidmore College

Skidmore College815 North BroadwaySaratoga Springs, NY 12866-1632

Scope

ERIC JENKS ’08

IT’S BIG. IT’S GREEN. AND IT’S DEFINITELY A SCREAM. SEE PAGE 9.