Class Correspondent

The Class of 1968 50th Reunion in June was a huge success — more than 100 graduates and their guests, many of them first-time reunion attendees. As they say, a good time was had by all.

Bob Acker ’66 has announced the creation of the Bonnie Baskin Fund for Lao Culture, launched in memory of his late wife, Bonnie Baskin. Nancy Wulwick Basmann, a retired professor of economics, is a professional Certified Master Photographer in Binghamton, New York. Her images have won several national awards. Sara Anne Filler Fox, who lives in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles, is a former feature-film development executive who now works with screenwriters and authors as a writer and story editor. She participates in writers conferences, runs workshops on story writing and screenwriting, guest-teaches high-school and college classes, and is a paid mentor in a film fellowship program. Widowed in 1997, she is the mother of two grown sons: Daniel, a writer and teacher, and Nicholas, assistant conductor, chorus master and director of the artist-in-residence program at the Portland (Oregon) Opera. She can be reached at saraanne.fox@att.net. Stephen Herman writes, “I’m still glowing from our class reunion. Seeing classmates was wonderful, and meeting older and younger graduates was extra-special. Judge Louie would be proud. I’m still practicing forensic psychiatry in NYC and Arizona, and loving it. I don’t see retirement happening anytime soon. As I.F. Stone once wrote, ‘Eat well and fight like hell.’ (Well … I’m not sure he actually wrote that, but he could have — if he were alive today.)” Ron Kronish, P’99, is writing a series of posts for his blog on The Times of Israel website about peace builders in Israel and Palestine, which he is hoping to develop into a book. During the fall semester, he is teaching at the Drew Theological School and in the Conflict Resolution and Coexistence master’s program at Heller. While in the U.S., Ron and his wife, Amy, will live in the Bronx near their daughter Rabbi Dahlia Kronish ’99, who was expecting to welcome her second child in October. Robert Lamm, who wasn’t able to attend the 50th Reunion due to the then imminent birth of his fifth grandchild, announces that Reese Penelope was born on June 11, weighing in at 9 lbs., 6 oz. Bob is co-chair of the securities and corporate governance practice at the law firm Gunster, and independent senior adviser to the Deloitte Center for Board Effectiveness. Jon Landau, manager of Bruce Springsteen and producer of “Springsteen on Broadway,” which ends its run in December 2018, produced “Elvis Presley: The Searcher,” an HBO documentary. In an April interview with Pollstar magazine, Jon said, “We wanted our Elvis to be real and to feel real. My ideal viewer would be a 25-year-old who barely knows anything about Elvis. If, after seeing the film, that young person stands up and says, ‘That guy was great,’ then we have done our job.” Anne Naumoff Newman, who lives in Hartsdale, New York, and Delray Beach, Florida, with husband Yossi, closed her private psychotherapy practice in December 2016. She has two daughters, and is Nana to three granddaughters and a grandson. She’d love to reconnect with classmates. Ellen Novack’s new book, “Taming the Cyclops: How to Do Your Best Work in an On-Camera Audition,” was released in September. Ellen teaches film acting and auditioning at the Yale School of Drama and the Juilliard School, as well as a private on-camera auditioning class in New York City. Biologist Barry Potvin is professor emeritus at Yeshiva University, where he spent 36 years. In July, Barry was appointed to the Plymouth, Massachusetts, Board of Health and named its vice chairperson. Since retiring in 2016 as the CEO of the Coalition for Behavioral Health, Phillip Saperia has served on several boards; mentors master’s students in the Fordham nonprofit leadership program; advocates in behalf of local and political issues; and is active on several committees at his Brooklyn synagogue, Kolot Chayeinu. He and his husband of 44 years (legally married for 14) own a second home in the New Jersey countryside. Their travels include trips to Sicily, Rome, Barcelona, southern France, Southeast Asia, Scotland and Ireland.

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