Class of 1988

On March 29 at least 100 of you marked the 88th day of the year with mini-reunions, reconnecting, reveling, and possibly even rejoicing. A partial list of venues includes Boston; Chicago; New Canaan and Old Lyme, Connecticut; New York City; Park City, Utah; Portland, Maine; San Francisco; Seattle; Vail, Colorado; and Washington, D.C. We will include more in our next newsletter. Thanks to all and special thanks to reunion co-chairs Cindy Smith Wilson and Stephanie Welsch Lewin.

Speaking of whom, reliable sources say Steffi, a gifted college admissions coach, has moved from Florida—reputedly America’s “sunshine state”—to Boulder, Colorado, which enjoys more sunny days per annum than anywhere else in the United States. Steffi’s ’17 son and ’20 daughter are adulting happily, and we hope she’s enjoying a breather before the class of 2030 descends. Steffi has spent time with Tom and Cece (Jablow) Bloomfield, Maura (O’Neill) Spangler, Kendall Grigsby Carbone, and Susie Belgrad Hayes.

Dartmouth history professor Paul Christesen and his historian wife are among 198 new Guggenheim fellows, chosen from 3,500 North American applicants. Paul will use the award to finish a monograph, Living Luxuriously in Ancient Sparta. If that sounds like an oxymoron, it shouldn’t. “Spartan” now denotes “austere,” but in the real Sparta, a privileged cadre lived in luxury, thanks to enslaved agricultural laborers, Paul says.

Finally: This year began with historic wildfires, and epic upheavals just keep coming. From Seattle to Senegal, 2025 may demand resilience of us all. With that in mind, we reached out to a classmate who personifies resilience. Cuong Do resettled in Oklahoma with his family as a 9-year-old Vietnam War refugee in the 1970s. After Dartmouth and Tuck he consulted at McKinsey and held senior positions at Merck, Tyco, and Lenovo before becoming president of Samsung global strategy group. In 2022 Cuong decamped with his family from New Jersey to Florida, where he now leads several startup biotech firms. These days Cuong spends his work hours developing drugs to treat Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, solid tumors, and rare “orphan” conditions that attract limited research and investment. Drawing on his legendary stamina, Cuong also serves on nonprofit boards at Fulbright University Vietnam, Caring for Cambodia, Exceptional Minds animation studio, and the legendary Paper Mill Playhouse.

Politicking and budgeteering in Washington—where federal agencies give a thumbs-up-or-down to new drugs and medical devices—and the wrecking ball crashing through U.S. aid programs have created havoc in both spheres: A U.S. Agency for International Development grant to Fulbright University “disappeared overnight,” Cuong said, and even finding the right FDA interlocutors is now fraught. Asked what keeps him going, Cuong smiled—gently and intently—looking and sounding as intrigued as ever by life and all it has to offer. Music, family, friends, food and wine, and good books all help, he said. “ ‘Take the road less traveled’ is what I tell students when I speak to them,” Cuong said, evenly. “ ‘Do things we don’t know how to do. Go solve real problemsthat are still unsolved.’ ” Amen.

—Sarah Jackson-Han, 6213 Winnebago Road, Bethesda, MD 20816; smjhan2@gmail.com; Bill Bundy, 442 Cedar Lane, New Canaan, CT 06840; bill.bundy@mac.com