Alumnae Bulletin
August 2010
Reunion: 25th Reunion Address
by Lauren Buxbaum Kacir
Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I volunteered to be the voice of our class. Only after I volunteered did I read the somewhat intimidating instructions to us speakers. I will, nonetheless, strive to make my remarks” both personal and universal” and to “illustrate a transcendent quality across generations which would otherwise be lost in the business” of the annual meeting.
I represent the Centennial class of 1985, now celebrating our 25th Reunion along with Bryn Mawr College’s 125th anniversary. It doesn’t seem possible that almost three decades have passed since I first met the women of Pem West who would become my dearest friends. I was delighted to see so many names from my freshman orientation group appear on the roster of reunion attendees.
In the years during which we attended classes together we weathered the storms of exams and papers and commiserated over countless cups of coffee, tea and hot chocolate. We survived Room Draw every year and were occasionally drawn into passionate debates over the role of the Honor Code in our campus life. We celebrated May Day with varying degrees of enthusiasm and enjoyed baking chocolate chip cookies in an illicit dorm room toaster oven.
In the years since graduation, we have gone our separate ways and established careers and families. We have also found new relationships with men and women outside the Bryn Mawr community. Somehow, however, we never completely lose touch with our college friends. Years may go by with minimal interaction, but when we seek each other out, it is as if no gulf of time or space exists between us. It is this bond on which the strength of the Bryn Mawr experience is based.
We came to Bryn Mawr for its rigorous academics, beautiful campus and accessible professors. We stayed here because we became fascinated by our chosen fields of study. We come back to join with the amazing women who shared four intense years of our early adulthood and we look forward to returning again and again in the future.
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Oil paintings by Sheila Isham '50 exhibited in Canaday Reading Room show the influence of her immersion in many cultures.
Vignette from the ballet Desire, performed by the Rebecca Kelly Dance Company. Photo by Todd Bissonette.
The Admissions team that brought Graduates Of the Last Decade (GOLD) alumnae to Bryn Mawr toasted them with a wine tasting on Benham Gateway Building porch presented by the Wine School of Philadelphia. Shown here: Jessie Stolarke '05 and Maureen Callahan '05.
Melodee Siegel Kornacker '60 cycling from Ohio to Bryn Mawr for her 50th Reunion. Photo by Joe Honton.
The Class of 2005 parades: Sarah Ross, Darby Thompson, Diana Ducey Girard, Scout Mayor, Chelsea Phillips, Katie Rutledge, Lilah Rahn-Lee and Charlotte Rahn-Lee.
Rebecca Kelly's ballet Desire, a work for six dancers, considers the many facets of desire. Kelly creates a mood of restless longing, frenzy, and fractured timing, centered around the past and future possibilities of two central lovers. The music is set to the arresting sounds of the Finnish cello metal band Apocolyptica. Photo by Todd Bissonette.
Mark Lord shows an old door from Goodhart that was left in the new teaching theater.
Alumnae explore a new dressing room on the floor below the stage during a tour of the $19 million Goodhart renovations led by Director of Facilities Glenn Smith.
Rebecca Kelly '73 and Craig Brashear, Hfd. '73, dance during Illumination.
Mark Lord and alumnae in the "Kate," the new teaching theater. Pat Sheffield '46 sits third from the right in the front row.
Dali Salad (1980) by Red Grooms, on loan from the Marlborough Gallery, New York. The piece was part of an exhibition in Canaday Rare Book Room that focused on Grooms' portraits of artists and was the subject of a Treasures session.
Michele Dominy '75 caught in a sprinkler at the Temple University Ambler arbortetum during a pre-Reunion "Treasures" tour of Philadelphia gardens created by women.
Nona Abrams '45 and student helper Holly Brunner '12 compare experiences and memories at a meeting of the classes of 1940 and 1945 in Wyndham's Blue Room.
Ruth W. Mayden, M.S.S. '70; Gloria Guard, M.S.S. '78, M.L.S.P. '80; Dean Darlyne Bailey; and Rosemary Barbera, M.S.S. '96, Ph.D. '03; the group presented a panel discussion on the theory and practice of social justice.
Flautist Marjorie Shaw Jeffries '50 gave a concert for her class in Wyndham's Ely Room.
Paula Singer, M.S.S. '00, and Kerry Walls, M.S.S. '06, at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research panel discussion
on social justice.
Mary Macomber Leue '40 and classmate Sherry Hutchinson wowed the crowd at Step Sing with their rendition of "Cocaine Bill and Morphine Sue." Leue, mother of five, grandmother of 13, great-grandmother of seven, has been a Maine farmer, registered nurse, teacher, civil rights and anti-war activist, lay midwife, leader in both alternative education and natural childbirth movements, therapist, community organizer, editor, writer, desktop publisher and bookseller.
Reunion members of the Class of 1945 with President Jane McAuliffe in Wyndham's Blue Room: Miriam Rothenberg, Barbs Greener, Doris Mason and Nona Abrams at the meeting for the classes of 1940 and 1945.
Sarah Kelley '11 with President Jane McAuliffe greets alumnae as they process from the Parade of the Classes into the Annual Meeting in Goodhart.
Stephanie Wenkert Kanwit '65 at a reception for Slade Society members.
Diana Lees '80 takes a photograph from the Music Room during a tour of renovations to Goodhart Hall.
1960 Class President Sally Davis '60 and Reunion Gift Chair Suzanne Swan Bassett '60. At the Annual Meeting of the Alumnae Association. The Maisie Hardenbergh Dethier '43 Award for Highest Annual Fund Participation was presented to the Class of 1960 with 89 percent participation. The Ellenor Morris '27 Award for the Highest Annual Fund Total was presented to the Class of 1965 with a gift total of $326,590. The Barbara Auchincloss Thacher '40 Award for the Greatest Improvement in Annual Fund Participation Among the Ten Most Recent Classes was presented to the Class of 2000 with an increase in participation from 22 percent to 31 percent. A Special Reunion 2010 challenge by Trustee Emeritus Ruth Kaiser Nelson '58 to the class with the greatest increase in donor participation went to 1960 (up 29 points from last year), giving them an additional $10,000 towards their Reunion Class Gift.
Nia Turner '05,
Eileen P. Kavanagh '75,
Leslie Glassberg '55 (left) and Jane Miller Unkefer '55.
For more photos, see www.brynmawr.edu/alumnae/reunion/.
To order Reunion photos, see: www.nogueras.smugmug.com/Bryn-Mawr-College.
Photos by Paola Nogueras '84 and Linda Johnson. Assistants to the photographer, Lille Estelle Williams '12 and Brittney Sampson '12.