Class Note 1978
Issue
Sep - Oct 2017
We came. We saw. We celebrated. Great attendance and energy at the class of ’78 40th (okay, 39th) reunion in Hanover. A few highlights: the climb up Moosilauke on the most gorgeous day imaginable, the lawn party at Drew Baker and Bartlett Leber’s lovely Norwich, Vermont, manse on the Connecticut River, a tour of the campus steam tunnels (a must if you haven’t done it!), the pop-up art exhibit put on by the classes of ’77 and ’78, an intriguing late-night book discussion hosted by Nick Sakhnovsky and Anne Bagamery and the class dinner on Saturday night on the lawn between McNutt and Robinson.
This reunion marked the end of Dave Graham’s tenure as class president. Those of us who participated in class officers conference calls cannot forget his constant concern with “distant and disaffected” classmates and how best to reach out to them. Give a rouse, give a rouse, with a will to someone who has served the class with great passion for the last seven years.
The king is dead. Long live the king! Or in this case, the queen. Barbi Snyder Martinez is the first woman to become president of our class. Barbi also happens to be the very first member of our class ever I met, at a dinner for incoming freshmen hosted by the Dartmouth Alumni Club of Rhode Island. She is a superb choice as class president, where her clear-eyed intelligence and sparkling enthusiasm will serve her (and all of us) well.
Now, something for math fans! “Although I majored in mathematics” writes Randy Shwartz, “followed by graduate study in pure math, only about 20 years ago did I seriously delve into the history and culture surrounding math. Since then I’ve become one of the relatively small number of specialists in the mathematics of the medieval Arab world.” Randy recently attended and spoke at the 12th Maghreb Colloquium on the History of Arab Mathematics, held at the University of Marrakesh in Morocco. “These conferences are small, reflecting the difficulties that people in developing countries face in this type of work. Many precious manuscripts have been lost or destroyed through the centuries and more are threatened by today’s violent conflicts in the region. My own presentation, ‘Ibn al-Haytham Extended: Spherical Optics in al-Mu’taman and Harriot,’ described how the solution of a set of difficult geometry problems in Cairo in the year 1021 helped inspire further work in Europe that lasted into the modern era and stimulated the birth of differential calculus.”
A few weeks before reunion Barbara Moses celebrated her 60th birthday by organizing a trip to Provence and Costa Brava with a bevy of friends. My wife, Marilyn, and I came along, as did ’77s Richard Mark, Maura Harway and John Donvan and ’79 Linda Button (WDCR compadres all). Our hikes took us to breathtaking perched villages and stunning coastal cliffs along the Mediterranean. Best of all, I came away with a new appreciation of rosé!
Send news!
—Rick Beyer, 190 Bridge St., #4409, Salem, MA 01970; rick@rickbeyer.net
This reunion marked the end of Dave Graham’s tenure as class president. Those of us who participated in class officers conference calls cannot forget his constant concern with “distant and disaffected” classmates and how best to reach out to them. Give a rouse, give a rouse, with a will to someone who has served the class with great passion for the last seven years.
The king is dead. Long live the king! Or in this case, the queen. Barbi Snyder Martinez is the first woman to become president of our class. Barbi also happens to be the very first member of our class ever I met, at a dinner for incoming freshmen hosted by the Dartmouth Alumni Club of Rhode Island. She is a superb choice as class president, where her clear-eyed intelligence and sparkling enthusiasm will serve her (and all of us) well.
Now, something for math fans! “Although I majored in mathematics” writes Randy Shwartz, “followed by graduate study in pure math, only about 20 years ago did I seriously delve into the history and culture surrounding math. Since then I’ve become one of the relatively small number of specialists in the mathematics of the medieval Arab world.” Randy recently attended and spoke at the 12th Maghreb Colloquium on the History of Arab Mathematics, held at the University of Marrakesh in Morocco. “These conferences are small, reflecting the difficulties that people in developing countries face in this type of work. Many precious manuscripts have been lost or destroyed through the centuries and more are threatened by today’s violent conflicts in the region. My own presentation, ‘Ibn al-Haytham Extended: Spherical Optics in al-Mu’taman and Harriot,’ described how the solution of a set of difficult geometry problems in Cairo in the year 1021 helped inspire further work in Europe that lasted into the modern era and stimulated the birth of differential calculus.”
A few weeks before reunion Barbara Moses celebrated her 60th birthday by organizing a trip to Provence and Costa Brava with a bevy of friends. My wife, Marilyn, and I came along, as did ’77s Richard Mark, Maura Harway and John Donvan and ’79 Linda Button (WDCR compadres all). Our hikes took us to breathtaking perched villages and stunning coastal cliffs along the Mediterranean. Best of all, I came away with a new appreciation of rosé!
Send news!
—Rick Beyer, 190 Bridge St., #4409, Salem, MA 01970; rick@rickbeyer.net