Greetings, ’76!


I’m sitting here the day after Christmas 2012 and hope that you and your families were able to enjoy time together through the holidays. I wonder, what with the advances in social media and the instantaneous availability of information, if my columns, viewed eight weeks after being written, are even relevant any more. In any event, if you are not subscribing to the online class of 1976 newsletter, make sure that you do. Martha Hennessey is doing a terrific job of putting more detailed, timely information out to the class than I can put into 500 words every two months. Between the Newsletter and the Class of 1976 Facebook page you can access almost everything that I put in this column much sooner than you’ll see it in the alumni magazine.


The only piece of news that I didn’t see in the most recent 1976 newsletter actually comes from The Norwich Times in Norwich, Vermont. In its fall 2012 issue was a long article about a project undertaken by Bill Nutt involving sculpture for an Oxford University alumnus that has been presented as a gift to his college within the university, Linacre. The gift was a sundial sculpted from granite. The actual sundial was built on a base that was a book the same size as a 15th-century manuscript of the Nuremburg Chronicle, a book of the early Renaissance written by a medieval scholar. The finished product was truly international. It was made in Vermont right in the Upper Valley from granite imported from Africa and now resides in Oxford in Great Britain. The entire project involved considerable collaboration between Bill and the donor, Frank Manasek.


I had hoped to pass along “new” news of two other classmates, Brian Matimore and Louise Erdrich, all of which was literary, but I was scooped by Martha. Brian had his book published, Idea Stormers: How to Lead and Inspire Creative Breakthroughs. It recounts actual examples of new ideation and innovation processes in companies ranging from “smaller” companies up through Fortune 500 companies. Brian’s company, Growth Engine, in Norwalk, Connecticut, is the link between what he does and the actual examples used in the book. (You can read more about him in the back-page profile in the Jan-Feb issue of DAM.)


Congratulations to Louise, who won the 2012 National Book Award for her novel, The Round House.


Martha has additional information about both books in the latest class of ’76 newsletter. If you’re not receiving the newsletter online, you will want to check it out and add your name to the list so that you can receive it electronically. Here is the address for the most recent newsletter: http://issuu.com/dartmouth1976/docs/1976newsletter.december2012.


That’s the news that’s fit to print for now. Send me news when you can or news of yourself or other classmates that you think will be of interest to other classes and I’ll pass it on. In the meantime, a safe and healthy 2013 to you and yours.


—Jay Josselyn, 106 Yukon Lane, Chapel Hill, NC 27514; (919) 493-7814; jayjosselyn@hotmail.com