Class Correspondent

60th Reunion
June 7-9, 2013

For the first time in my tenure as class correspondent, I received very few responses to my request for news. Perhaps I have 
worn out my inbox welcome. However, the old proverb is “No news is good news,” so I won’t complain. I did hear from Marshall Sterman, who sent the following information: “I just started co-hosting an ‘unregulated radio’ Internet program (urbusinessnetwork.com), interviewing guests and talking about entrepreneurialism, early-stage investing, ‘thoughts’ (essentially things I blog about) and so on. If any of our classmates want to talk about something they think attention should be drawn to, I can easily arrange a call-in 15- or 30-minute segment. The show is prerecorded, so a mention of some clandestine Brandeis fiction or folly can easily be retracted.” The Long Ridge School in Stamford, Conn., honored Joanna Baker Merlen for her 40 years of service as the school librarian. She recently signed a contract to work another year, and plans to do so again as long as her arthritis cooperates. She writes, “I feel fortunate to have spent my working life reading wonderful stories to children I do not have to put to bed and buying beautiful books with money that is not from my wallet. A special pleasure in my years at the school was catching glimpses of my own two children and their four children happily frolicking with their friends in the fields beyond my windows.” Roberta Korelitz Carmusin writes that though she has nothing of great interest to contribute to our class news, she does want to make a request: “At present, I am one of many senior persons who cannot drive at night (I hope cataract surgery will rectify the situation). Perhaps Reunion activities for people our age should be held during the day and not at night. Whatcha think?” I think it is a good suggestion. Reunion typically includes a number of daytime activities, and there is good reason for our class to continue those. And that brings me to the subject of that wonderful upcoming event: our 60th Reunion. Let me urge all of you who read this column to make every attempt to attend. We have had a very good response to our request for committee members, and we hope this is a sign that lots of you will be attending. I have enjoyed hearing from so many of you in response to my Class Notes requests; now I want to see you in person. Email is OK, but in the flesh is better! Also, I want to take this opportunity to mention our class gift. As you know, the Class of 1953 has long joked that we were “second-class citizens.” Let’s end that joke now and try to match — if not surpass — the Class of 1952, which held Brandeis’ first 60th Reunion in 2012 (more than 70 percent of the class contributed to its gift). After all, who knew in 1953 that we would be able to say with such enormous pride in 2013, “Yes, I was a pioneer in the second class at the newly established Brandeis University.” As I close this entry, there is one sad note to report. Valerie Troyansky ’78, the daughter of our deceased classmate Leila (Grossman) Troyansky, died on Dec. 11, 2012. The details of her extraordinary life can be read on page 95 in the In Memoriam section. I look forward to recognizing you at our 60th Reunion. I hope you recognize me.


Herman Hemingway was the keynote speaker at “The Duty of a Dream,” Brandeis’ eighth annual observance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Herman, the first black man to graduate from Brandeis, was a fraternity brother and mentee of King, and has maintained the civil rights leader’s spirit and values in his personal and professional life.
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