Class Note 2020
Issue
May-June 2026
Class Note 2020. Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Emma Xin Velicky (née Sampugnaro), and I am your new class secretary. I’ve penned a few guest columns in prior Class Notes, but it looks as though we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other. You could say that I’m the “People’s Choice” for secretary—or you could say that no one else ran for the position. Call it a lesson in civic engagement. If you’re a writer and you find a soapbox unattended, it’s kind of your job to get on up there.
As the column’s latest keeper, I want you to feel that you can write in about anything. I always go straight to this section to see who’s getting married, starting a company, or publishing a book. However, in the age of the internet, most of that can be found with a little sleuthing.
Dartmouth grads are pros at condensing our rich, complicated lives into marketable soundbites. I do it all the time. It’s a lot easier to say, “I left my job at Microsoft to follow my passion,” than to say, “Working at Microsoft made me want to stab my eyes out with hot knives and the resulting despair forced me to quit.”
Luckily, Dartmouth encourages us to explore lots of different interests—not just the ones that are imminently profitable. My current venture, Saturday Box, uses storytelling, game design, and brazen artistic flair to help couples engage with kink and roleplay. It’s the direct result of an alumni-run consumer startup incubator and the indirect result of many writers workshops where I forced everyone to read (and critique) my X-rated erotica. It’s also an indirect result of my post-breakup burlesque performance at Tabard’s “Lingerie,” after which I realized that female sexual submission was long overdue for a makeover. Though Dartmouth ultimately denied my petition to declare a second major in narrative expression, it would’ve been a damn good way to describe what I was up to.
The important roads taken (and not taken) are rarely obvious to us at the time. They’re a barrage of seemingly innocuous choices, persisting despite our devotion to labels: premed, team player, hard worker, free spirit. Only in retrospect do we see the full constellation, the bumps and ridges that make up our lives.
I want our Class Notes to be more than a rarefied version of LinkedIn. Tell me about your neighborhood, your favorite books, the glimpses of Dartmouth you still catch in the rearview. Tell me about starting over when you thought you had it all figured out. Tell me your story—even while it’s still changing.
At the five-year reunion, I was shocked by the number of people I didn’t know. Would taking a different route to East Wheelock have resulted in a lifelong friendship? How many classmates are living in Seattle who I never had the chance to meet? One of my goals as class secretary is to help you hunt down some of those missed connections, but I’ll need your help. I plan to publish engaging interviews, regional features, and hot gossip (that we’ll share only with the subject’s explicit permission, of course). Whether you have something to contribute or just want to say hello, write in to dartmouth20classnotes@gmail.com.
Finally, I’d like to close this column with a note of farewell from Katie Goldstein, our previous class secretary: “It’s been a pleasure to see you all grow during these past five years! Thank you for the honor to be your class secretary.”
Thank you, Katie, for all your efforts in keeping us connected!
—Emma Velicky, 808 24th Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98144; emmavelicky.20@dartmouth.edu
Back to 2020 Class Year
More of 2020 Class Notes
As the column’s latest keeper, I want you to feel that you can write in about anything. I always go straight to this section to see who’s getting married, starting a company, or publishing a book. However, in the age of the internet, most of that can be found with a little sleuthing.
Dartmouth grads are pros at condensing our rich, complicated lives into marketable soundbites. I do it all the time. It’s a lot easier to say, “I left my job at Microsoft to follow my passion,” than to say, “Working at Microsoft made me want to stab my eyes out with hot knives and the resulting despair forced me to quit.”
Luckily, Dartmouth encourages us to explore lots of different interests—not just the ones that are imminently profitable. My current venture, Saturday Box, uses storytelling, game design, and brazen artistic flair to help couples engage with kink and roleplay. It’s the direct result of an alumni-run consumer startup incubator and the indirect result of many writers workshops where I forced everyone to read (and critique) my X-rated erotica. It’s also an indirect result of my post-breakup burlesque performance at Tabard’s “Lingerie,” after which I realized that female sexual submission was long overdue for a makeover. Though Dartmouth ultimately denied my petition to declare a second major in narrative expression, it would’ve been a damn good way to describe what I was up to.
The important roads taken (and not taken) are rarely obvious to us at the time. They’re a barrage of seemingly innocuous choices, persisting despite our devotion to labels: premed, team player, hard worker, free spirit. Only in retrospect do we see the full constellation, the bumps and ridges that make up our lives.
I want our Class Notes to be more than a rarefied version of LinkedIn. Tell me about your neighborhood, your favorite books, the glimpses of Dartmouth you still catch in the rearview. Tell me about starting over when you thought you had it all figured out. Tell me your story—even while it’s still changing.
At the five-year reunion, I was shocked by the number of people I didn’t know. Would taking a different route to East Wheelock have resulted in a lifelong friendship? How many classmates are living in Seattle who I never had the chance to meet? One of my goals as class secretary is to help you hunt down some of those missed connections, but I’ll need your help. I plan to publish engaging interviews, regional features, and hot gossip (that we’ll share only with the subject’s explicit permission, of course). Whether you have something to contribute or just want to say hello, write in to dartmouth20classnotes@gmail.com.
Finally, I’d like to close this column with a note of farewell from Katie Goldstein, our previous class secretary: “It’s been a pleasure to see you all grow during these past five years! Thank you for the honor to be your class secretary.”
Thank you, Katie, for all your efforts in keeping us connected!
—Emma Velicky, 808 24th Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98144; emmavelicky.20@dartmouth.edu