Simon Aronoff profiled in MetroWeekly

Our own Simon Aronoff is on the cover of the July 26th MetroWeekly for his work as the deputy director of the National Center for Transgender Equality.

Read Simon Says: Simon Aronoff just wants equality -- for everyone.

The interview with Simon is great, as is his commitment to social justice and equality.

Congratulations Simon on all your work!

Wedding of Leda Nornang

Leda Nornang recently married Ryan Kampe on the beach in Rincon, Puerto Rico. She writes, "I was happy to have so many Smithies make the long trip to celebrate with us." Leda and her husband followed up the wedding with a three-month long honeymoon to Tibet, India, Central Asia, and parts of Europe. They are back home in Williamsburg Brooklyn and working in film production."

Congratulations Leda!!


Pictured (Left to Right):
Hilary Nelson 98, Heather Fontaine Merton 97J, Madhurii Barefoot 99, Leda Nornang 99, O'Hara Tudor 99, Christina Jimenez 98, Diana Jensen 99

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Highlights Carolyn Kuan

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer had a great article on our own Carolyn Kuan and her post at the Seattle Symphony Orchestra last week. I have included the first few paragraphs below with a link to the full article.

If you are in the Seattle area show your support of Carolyn and check out one of the shows she is conducting. See her bio at the Seattle Symphony site.

Congrats Carolyn on all your success!

******

New Seattle Symphony associate conductor is aiming for the top
By R.M. CAMPBELL - P-I MUSIC CRITIC

It was only last year when Marin Alsop was named music director of the Baltimore Symphony that she became the first woman to lead a major American orchestra.

However, for Carolyn Kuan, women on the podium is a non-issue.

"It's not a subject I bring up," said Kuan, who recently was promoted, a year ahead of schedule, to associate conductor of the Seattle Symphony. "There are so many other things to discuss." But, she added, "I think I have been very fortunate."

Two decades ago, no major management firm represented a female conductor, top-flight orchestras rarely had women musicians and female music directors were, almost without exception, found only in regional orchestras. The pioneers were few, among them Antonia Brica, Sarah Caldwell and Eve Queler. Today, there are 30 or so scattered across the country, from nations as diverse as China and Finland, and leading the parade into more important jobs.

Kuan, whose biggest conducting assignment of her first season in Seattle comes this week, is with an orchestra that had one of the first women music directors. Mary Davenport-Enberg took the baton in 1921 and led the symphony for a couple of years.

It's no surprise that Alsop is a major role model for the 30-year-old Kuan, who not only admired her from afar but up close.
Read the Rest of the Article

Sucker for stories about older alums

At Smith I worked for the Alumnae Association, which included being a student representative at a table during volunteer dinners and luncheons. Basically, chat with the old ladies while they ate and talk about life on campus now. Most students tended to gravitate towards the younger alumnae class tables, but I always sought out the oldest classes in attendance. It took only one lunch experience to find out that not only did these wonderful ladies have interesting stories and worldly insight, they were by far the most fun ladies in the room*! So when I saw this news bit come through my email I just had to post it.

Tugboat Lucy gives lessons in boating, fear

HAINES -- For the 400-mile trip down the Inside Passage from Haines to Ketchikan in a 32-foot well-used Nordic tug, my captain wore canvas Carhartt work pants, a T-shirt with "Uff'Da" printed on the front (that's Norwegian for "darn it" and "oh well"), a porkpie hat and a pair of suede sneakers.

She has two pair in case one gets wet, because she doesn't like to wear rubber boots.

"She" is 82-year-old Lucy Harrell. We are heading south to pick up her friend Pat, 78, for their summer ladies-only "ancient mariner" cruise around Prince of Wales Island.

Although she dresses like a hired handyman, Lucy has manners befitting a 1946 graduate of Smith College in Massachusetts.
Read the rest here.

Happy Monday All!
Tiffany

** one of many examples to prove this is
the class of 1933 asked if i would please buy them some whiskey. when i said i was not yet 21, they began to discus whether sending me with a note or calling pretending to be my grandmother would get me past the clerk

Summertime and some thoughts

Hello Everyone!

Sorry for the silence. Jessie and I have been on an extended roadtrip visiting family. I hope summer is treating everyone well! I just wanted to post a few thoughts and I would love to get feedback either in the comments or at the class officers email.

1. 10th Reunion is now less than 2 years away and we have to start organizing and planning. I think it would be wonderful if we could have a few people be reunion leads responsible for recruiting volunteers, taking opinon polls, and encouraging people to come. Because I know we are all extemely busy, it would be great to get a handful of people who would be the contact for all 99ers from a small group of houses. My hope is that having everything broken down will make the work of contacting everyone more manageable and not overwhelm a single person. Ideally it would be great to get one reunion lead from each house, this would make the work load very small and make me die of excitment. Is this something anyone would be interested in helping with? Would this work for you?

2. Blogger has become a bit of a pain and we are looking into moving the blog to wordpress. If we move it over we will be able to offer more functionality and integrate the blog into a domain I purchased for the class. The change would not happen for a while, but I'm just trying to plan ahead. Anyone have any objections or ideas as to why the switch would be a bad idea? Of course, there will be a link from here to there so that everyone can get to the right place.

3. I have updated the classmates link section. Please let us know if your name is still missing or something is incorrect.

4. If you are in the Providence, Rhode Island area keep your eyes open for an email announcing a Smithie pub gathering hosted by the class of 1999. Not sure when it will happen, but it will be sometime in the next month.

Take care all and keep in touch with us!
Tiffany