As these Class Notes find their way onto the page, the first of many laps are being run around a blazing Homecoming bonfire on the eve of what I hope was a strong showing against Harvard at Memorial Field. The chill autumn air has already enveloped the Upper Valley and several classmates will be making the journey “home” to mark the annual passing of one of our inherently Dartmouth experiences.

With just a few months removed since our late summer reunion (another of those uniquely Dartmouth experiences), stories continue to trickle in from classmates who recently made that same journey home to Hanover. Jacquelyn Chappel—who traveled in from Hawaii where she teaches composition and developmental English at Kapiolani Community College and serves as a supervisor for teacher candidates at the Leeward Community College College of Education—said that some of the funniest conversations she had were, in fact, with ’96 parents about their own children (in particular, those of the 13- to 14-year-old age range). Names have been redacted to protect innocent parents in need of support.

One father relayed that with respect to his two kids and with all comic seriousness: “Every. Day. Is. A. Struggle.” Another challenged parent passed along that, “I’m pretty sure my 14-year-old doesn’t like me.” And one parental guardian offered what Jacquelyn found to be sage advice: “For preteens it’s all about ‘high frequency-low amplitude’ (lots of time-low stakes interactions), while for teens, it’s about ‘low frequency-high amplitude.’ They need less of your time, but when they do, cancel your meetings, move everything, make time for that teen. They need you.” As the father of a teenage daughter, I can personally identify with all three of these statements on any given day!

Speaking of ’96 fathers and their kids, our own Peter Jastreboff and his family (including his young son and daughter) made the long trip to New Hampshire just as the newest chapter of their lives was about to unfold. Their time in Hanover was part of a two-month sojourn on the East Coast of the United States midway through a round-the-globe move from their long-time home in Hong Kong to their new home in London, England. After multiple years specializing in systems architecture and information security within the financial services segment in the Asia-Pacific market (including multi-year stints with Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, and Credit Suisse), Pete set forth for a new adventure in Europe as VP of client services with Talos, an assets trading platform provider that supports a crypto-asset market structure across the diverse parties involved with crypto trade.

One last note of congratulations to Monica (Oberkofler) Gorman after her recent transition to her new role as special assistant to the president for manufacturing and industrial policy at the National Economic Council. Her new role in the Biden White House represents a transition after 18 months as deputy assistant secretary of manufacturing in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Monica indicated that, “It is the honor of a lifetime (and extraordinarily humbling) to have been asked to take on this position, where I will continue to work on addressing the nation’s supply-chain challenges.”

—Garrett Gil de Rubio, 1062 Middlebrooke Drive, Canton, GA 30115; ggdr@alum.dartmouth.org