Class Note 1997
Issue
May - Jun 2018
As I write this in the waning hours of our February Flashback Challenge, I am overwhelmed at our class’s generosity. An anonymous ’97 offered to give $19,997 to the Dartmouth College Fund if 97 class members donated to the College in February. I am proud to report that we more than met the challenge with 137 donors!
In other February news, the Open Theatre Project just completed its production of the world premiere of Stefan Lanfer’s play, An Education in Prudence. Shown during three weekends in February in Boston, the play is based on the true story of an early desegregation battle involving the education of African-American girls in Connecticut in 1833, told through the lens of today. “The first time my work was ever produced on stage was as part of the Frost Festival, spring of my senior year,” Stefan wrote. “A thrill that cemented my self-conception as a playwright, and truly changed the trajectory of my life.”
In a February 6 Q&A in The Dartmouth, Stefan delved into the five-year process of writing and perfecting his script, the challenges of balancing his career in the nonprofit sector, family life, perseverance and Dartmouth’s influence on his life.
“The biggest shaper of my experience beyond the ‘Dartmouth bubble’ has been a girl I met from Atlanta [Ashley Graves], who is now my wife of almost 19 years,” Stefan said. “Specific to the playwriting process, being surrounded by friends and having the few lines that were in The Dartmouth that had kind words about a project fuel you up with what at times can seem like irrational beliefs. After about nine months into this project, I started sending it out to theaters and festivals all around the country and got one rejection after another. We’re pushing more than 100 rejections by now. Two years ago, at 80-something ‘no’s,’ I was pretty sure the universe was telling me it was time to move on. My success is certainly not all attributable to Dartmouth, but it’s one of those places that encouraged me to take risks, try new things and find and explore what those passions may be.”
Rosi Kerr was interviewed in a February 21 article in The Dartmouth. Rosi directs the Dartmouth Sustainability Office, whose mission is to challenge and empower the College and its students to solve the human and environmental problems presented by a rapidly changing planet. Rosi stressed that with respect to our responsibility to maintain a better environment for future generations, we need to decide what kind of fingerprints we want to leave on the world. “We get to decide what our sustainability legacy is going to be,” she said. “And that’s the thing about legacies; you get to decide how it’s going to be by the effort you put into it. And if you think about the impact you have on the people around you, you get to decide sort of every day, how that legacy will continue in the world.”
And speaking of decisions, please choose to attend our 20th reunion June 15-17. Go to alumni.dartmouth.edu/reunions/1997 to register. Also visit our all-new class website at 1997.dartmouth.org for more reunion information, to pay class dues and to read old Class Notes columns.
If that’s not enough nostalgia, check out our Class of 1997 Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/Dartmouth1997, where you will be treated to Jenn Tudder Walus’s daily ’97 Shmenu page postings. If you missed your page, go back and find it. If not, keep checking up through reunion. Don’t you want to see what everyone looks like now? Can’t wait to reunite in Hanover in June!
—Jason Casell, 10106 Balmforth Lane, Houston, TX 77096; jhcasell@gmail.com
In other February news, the Open Theatre Project just completed its production of the world premiere of Stefan Lanfer’s play, An Education in Prudence. Shown during three weekends in February in Boston, the play is based on the true story of an early desegregation battle involving the education of African-American girls in Connecticut in 1833, told through the lens of today. “The first time my work was ever produced on stage was as part of the Frost Festival, spring of my senior year,” Stefan wrote. “A thrill that cemented my self-conception as a playwright, and truly changed the trajectory of my life.”
In a February 6 Q&A in The Dartmouth, Stefan delved into the five-year process of writing and perfecting his script, the challenges of balancing his career in the nonprofit sector, family life, perseverance and Dartmouth’s influence on his life.
“The biggest shaper of my experience beyond the ‘Dartmouth bubble’ has been a girl I met from Atlanta [Ashley Graves], who is now my wife of almost 19 years,” Stefan said. “Specific to the playwriting process, being surrounded by friends and having the few lines that were in The Dartmouth that had kind words about a project fuel you up with what at times can seem like irrational beliefs. After about nine months into this project, I started sending it out to theaters and festivals all around the country and got one rejection after another. We’re pushing more than 100 rejections by now. Two years ago, at 80-something ‘no’s,’ I was pretty sure the universe was telling me it was time to move on. My success is certainly not all attributable to Dartmouth, but it’s one of those places that encouraged me to take risks, try new things and find and explore what those passions may be.”
Rosi Kerr was interviewed in a February 21 article in The Dartmouth. Rosi directs the Dartmouth Sustainability Office, whose mission is to challenge and empower the College and its students to solve the human and environmental problems presented by a rapidly changing planet. Rosi stressed that with respect to our responsibility to maintain a better environment for future generations, we need to decide what kind of fingerprints we want to leave on the world. “We get to decide what our sustainability legacy is going to be,” she said. “And that’s the thing about legacies; you get to decide how it’s going to be by the effort you put into it. And if you think about the impact you have on the people around you, you get to decide sort of every day, how that legacy will continue in the world.”
And speaking of decisions, please choose to attend our 20th reunion June 15-17. Go to alumni.dartmouth.edu/reunions/1997 to register. Also visit our all-new class website at 1997.dartmouth.org for more reunion information, to pay class dues and to read old Class Notes columns.
If that’s not enough nostalgia, check out our Class of 1997 Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/Dartmouth1997, where you will be treated to Jenn Tudder Walus’s daily ’97 Shmenu page postings. If you missed your page, go back and find it. If not, keep checking up through reunion. Don’t you want to see what everyone looks like now? Can’t wait to reunite in Hanover in June!
—Jason Casell, 10106 Balmforth Lane, Houston, TX 77096; jhcasell@gmail.com