Class Correspondent

This year, Arjun Appadurai is a visiting professor at Humboldt University, in Berlin. A member of the New York University faculty, he lives in Manhattan with his wife, Gabika, and their 2-year-old son, Kabir. Arjun’s most recent book is “Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance.” Thomas Francis August was elected to the board of directors of DDR Corp., which owns and manages 367 value-oriented shopping centers in 38 states and Puerto Rico. From 2010-15, Tom was president and chief executive officer of Equity Office, the U.S. office platform wholly owned by Blackstone’s real estate funds. After 30 years of living in Europe and working in the nature-conservation field, Meg Gawler retired in 2011 and moved back to California to practice, study and teach Buddhist meditation. She is pursuing a master’s in Theravada Buddhist studies at the Graduate Theological Union. She writes, “I’m living happily in the Sierra foothills, blessed with a great family, including two amazing daughters, a beautiful granddaughter and a sweet husband. I treasure my old friends from the Class of ’70.” Leigh Grossman has been at the University of Virginia’s School of Medicine since she started her pediatric residency in 1975. She is currently chief of pediatric infectious disease. Leigh recently authored “The Parent’s Survival Guide to Day Care Infections.” She writes, “My passion has been treating the critically ill child with an infection; researching how to prevent hospital-acquired infection; and teaching about the prevention of infection at home, in day care, in the hospital and in the developing world.” Martha Kanter serves as executive director of the College Promise Campaign, a nonpartisan effort that supports the development and expansion of College Promise programs across the country. To date, five states and 176 communities across 37 states have introduced College Promise programs, which support tuition and fees for hard-working college students, with a special focus on low-income students. Barbara (Weber) Kaplan and her husband, Marty, and Norm Winer ’69 and his wife, Wendy Rice, are deliriously happy to announce the marriage of their daughter Meredith Rachael Winer to Ron Dimon. Meredith is the founder and executive director of Transit Residency, a nonprofit that creates opportunities for artists of multiple disciplines coming from and going to Chicago to reflect, make work and interact with community. Susan Saltzer-Drucker reports she is still a “struggling artist”; she also volunteers at the Detroit Zoo. She has four grandchildren. After serving as dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Arlington for more than 11 years, Beth Segal Wright has returned to faculty status as a professor of art history. She writes that she and her husband, Woodring Erik Wright, have had the joyful experience of constant grandparenthood this year: Their son Benjamin, daughter-in-law Crystal and 1-year-old grandson Bradley lived with them while their new house was under construction.
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