Eben Haber,who lives in Cupertino, California, sent in some musings on turning 50: “Turning 50? Well, I certainly don’t feel ‘old’ at this point or as old as I would have imagined feeling looking ahead when I was a student. While my close vision requires glasses now and much of my hair has gone, the years have been otherwise beneficial. I’ve accumulated a depth of knowledge in many areas and a level of wisdom and perspective that help me better engage with the world and I’m always learning new things to add to that. I have a lovely family that keeps me on my toes, and my children especially help to keep me up with what’s new in the culture. Finally, I’m faster and have better endurance on my bike than when I was younger, in part due to really focusing on it. All that is definitely worth needing to wear reading glasses, not that there’s any choice in the matter! From a distance 50 may seem to be a milestone, but up close it is just another day to live and learn and contribute.”

In other news Laura DeNardis, who lives in Washington, D.C., with her wife, Deborah Smith, received the 2016 Virginia Tech Graduate School Alumni Achievement Award during commencement exercises on May 12. Laura, a globally recognized Internet governance scholar, earned a master’s from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Virginia Tech. With a background in information engineering, she studies the social and political implications of Internet technical architecture and governance. She has worked with the State Department and United Nations and her work has been published in numerous publications. She has also authored several books, most recently The Global War for Internet Governance, published in 2014. Laura taught at New York University and Yale Law School and is an affiliated fellow of the Yale Law School Information Society Project, where she served as its executive director from 2008 to 2011. She is a senior fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation and a frequent keynote speaker at global universities and institutions. She currently is the director of research for the Global Commission on Internet Governance.

After studying and performing classical guitar at Dartmouth, Laura has continued to play and occasionally performs in the Washington area. “One surprising element of my life is how much I’ve traveled for work (and pleasure), most recently to Jordan, Indonesia, Turkey, Korea, Brazil, the Fiji Islands, South Africa and throughout Europe. I need to put Hanover on this list very soon because I haven’t yet attended any reunions! But in the past year or so Deborah and I enjoyed swarming the Georgetown football stands with the Dartmouth Club of Washington at the Georgetown-Dartmouth game and attending a spring dinner gathering of ’88s at Stephanie Welsch-Lewin’s house—Stephanie is our local mini-reunion chair for Washington. I love being a professor and author and increasingly realize how much the trajectory of my life has been shaped by my engineering degree at Dartmouth. To mark my 50th birthday, and after playing classical guitar for 43 years, I decided to take up piano and am enjoying feeling like a complete beginner again.”

Beginning with a gathering in Brooklyn, New York, on September 22 and continuing through a gathering in the Bay Area, California, on November 12 we will be hosting our all-class virtual reunion and 50th birthday bash. Details will be communicated by email and in our fall newsletter. And remember, it’s never too early to start planning to attend our 30th reunion in June 2018.

—Jere Mancini, 34 Wearimus Road, HoHoKus, NJ 07423, d88correspondent@gmail.com