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1930s
Ruth Branning Molloy Ed’30
E. Craig Sweeten W’37
B. Franklin Reinauer II W’38

1940s
Jack E. Cole M’41
Harold J. Buxbaum W’45
Alan Halpern C’47
Clark T. Thompson C’47 CCC’56 NEW (12.23.02)
George Robert Brown ME’48 NEW (12.23.02)
Rhoda Fishman Sandlers CW’48

1950s
Sam Maitin FA’51
Bernie Lemonick W’51
John N. Reardon W’51 WG’56
Emily Pritchard Cary CW’52 NEW (12.23.02)
Dr. E. J. Hathaway V’53 NEW (12.23.02)
Dr. Robert S. Maurer C’53 NEW (12.23.02)
Bob Johnson W’55 NEW (12.23.02)
John C. T. Alexander W’56
Sally Wendkos Olds CW’56
Edwin M. Epstein C’58

1960s
George M. Jenner W’60
Wendy E. Powell GLA’61
Mary Ellen Mark FA’62 ASC’64 Hon’94
Mary Ann Greenawalt CW’62
Mireille Lellouche Key CW’62 NEW (12.23.02)
Dan Rottenberg C’64
Mike Bennett WG’65 NEW (12.23.02)
Jane Biberman CW’65
Dr. Eric R. White GEd’67 GrEd’75

1970s
Ira Harkavy C’70 Gr’79
Margaret Manning CW’70
Andy Wolk C’70
Amy Berkovitz CW’71 NEW (12.23.02)
Steven Gayle C’71
Ethelea (Reisner) Katzenell CW’71 NEW (12.23.02)
Jared Wolovnick W’72 NEW (12.23.02)
Robert L. Boyer C’73
Gerald Early C’74
Dr. Andrew Gewirtz C’75 NEW (12.23.02)
Dr. David L. Kupfer C’75 NEW (12.23.02)
Jon Sarkin C’75
Charles Berg C’77 EE’77 NEW (12.23.02)
Jo Koster CW’78
Stephen Fried C’79
Dave Lieber C’79
Neil Plakcy C’79

1980s
Leslie Esdaile-Banks W’80
Donna Frisoli GFA’80 NEW (12.23.02)
Hon. Marc H. Morial C’80
Ken Rohrbaugh WEv’80 NEW (12.23.02)
Cyrus R. Sabri GAr’80 GFA’80 NEW (12.23.02)
Cathy Crimmins G’81
Dr. Donna Price Henry C’82 NEW (12.23.02)
Beth Kephart C’82
Holly Love EAS’85
Joan Capuzzi Giresi C’86 V’98
Jane Wang Beck C’89
Terry Dennehy C’89 NEW (12.23.02)

1990s
J. Robert Lennon C’92
Felicity Wood C’92
Caren Lissner C’93
James Saint C’93
Scott R. Carpenter C’94 NEW (12.23.02)
Sabrina Rubin Erdely C’94
Nate Chinen C’97
Miriam Yondorf C’98 G’98 NEW (12.23.02)
Myra Lotto C’99 NEW (12.23.02)

2000s
Andrew Exum C’00
Dahlia Morrone C’00 NEW (12.23.02)
Andrew Zitcer C’00
Dana S. Douglas L’01 NEW (12.23.02)
Aaron Karo W’01
Neil Parris C’01 NEW (12.23.02)
Jessica Pomerantz C’02 NEW (12.23.02)
Michelle Been Watson C’02 NEW (12.23.02)

Copyright 2002 The Pennsylvania Gazette
Last modified 12/23/02

1930s back to index

Ruth Branning Molloy Ed’30
I Remember, I Remember …

I was 16 on July 24, 1926, when I suddenly made a decision. “I’ll go to the University.” I’d thought about Wilson College after an alumna of that school had talked in our assembly at West Philadelphia High School for Girls, but I chose to become a member of what would be called “the hand-picked class,” because we were the first to take an intelligence test. The School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania (don’t ever say just Penn) was there for the women, whether or not we planned to be teachers.

On that first day I sat in a long row of freshmen waiting for an interview with Dean Minnick. To while away the time, I rolled up a small piece of white paper and pretended to be smoking a cigarette. Then my name was called. The dean stood at his door, ready to shake my hand; I was frightened: “I wasn’t really smoking.” “I know that,” said the kindly dean in a forgiving voice. Smoking was forbidden for coeds, although some sneaks puffed away in the rest rooms.

I arranged to pay my tuition ($200 a term) in installments of $50 a month. Suddenly I was aware that I was a member of the Class of 1930. The possibilities were enormous: I might go to a dance or see a football game. Season tickets were $10, and we, the women of the hand-picked class, were made aware of a special privilege: we would be the first coeds allowed to buy a season ticket, just the way the men students did. We could even cheer and sing Pennsylvania songs—unlike, I later learned, another institution at which coeds were not allowed to cheer or sing at games, as their high-pitched voices might bother the team.

The fun and horror of hazing was thrust upon us: black stockings, hats, and obedience to sophomores asking us questions or making us sing all the verses of “Hail, Pennsylvania!” Most of us went home by trolley: our Class included 39 alumnae of my high school who lived near enough to the University to ride home after classes.

Before classes started, Provost Josiah Penniman C1890 Gr1895 Hon’22 addressed the student body: “The coeds have found a place here. A good education is assured them, and I have noticed that they are better looking now than they used to be.”

That first day, on my way home, in a burst of bravado, I went into a drug store, sat at the soda fountain, and ordered—what else?—a milk shake. As I sipped I thought, Now I really am a Pennsylvania student. I’m drinking a milk shake at daybreak and next week I’ll be cheering for the team.

My first assignment in English (with Dr. Alfred B. Harbage C’24 Gr’29 Hon’54) was to write “Who I am and why I came to Pennsylvania.” He gave me a D, which stood for Distinguished in those days, and I’ve saved that paper for more than 75 years. I knew who I was and why! I remember ... I remember ... and it seems (almost) like yesterday.

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The rally in the big Quad on the eve of the 1936 Penn-Princeton game has become a great memory for me. I presented the game ball to my classmate, team captain Lew Elverson W’37, with the admonition that it was not to end up at Princeton. He promised the huge crowd that filled the Quad, the Junior Balcony, and the freshman dorms that it wouldn’t, and, of course, it didn’t.

Years later, the Class of 1937, after presenting the Van Pelt Library with a Memorial Reading Room, asked its members who made up the so-called “Destiny Backfield,” the most widely publicized backfield in the annals of Penn football, if they would give the jerseys they wore and the game balls in their possession to the Class for inclusion among the memorabilia, artifacts, photographs, etc., that the Class was assembling for permanent display. They all responded, and today, on the fifth floor of Van Pelt, one may see, among a host of ’37 treasures, a glass-enclosed case in which their pictures and jerseys are displayed. In the center of the display is the game ball; devoid of air, it still retains its shape on which is revealed in bold letters “Penn 7, Princeton 0.”

On Alumni Day 2002, the Class returned for its 65th Reunion. Services were held in the morning in the Memorial Reading Room. Among the guests was Kelly Elverson C’03, Lew’s granddaughter. She was present as a recipient of scholarship aid from the Class of 1937 Endowed Scholarship Fund. In expressing her appreciation and saying a few words about her Penn experience, she mentioned how often she visited the ’37 Memorial Reading Room for study purposes. “While I’m here,” she said, “I sense the presence of my grandfather, and with it, his hope that I would be a credit to the University.”

The Destiny Backfield and three others from ’37 who started in the Penn-Princeton game were not present: they have all gone to their eternal rest. But the game ball remains, a reminder of a Pennsylvania victory in a game judged a classic by all who saw it and by all those who maintain the archives of Franklin Field.

E. Craig Sweeten was for many years the vice president for development at the University.

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B. Franklin Reinauer II W’38
Memories of Penn: 1934-38

During my Freshman year, my roommate and I lived in 107 Ward. We had two small bedrooms with lavatories in each room and a large living room, which held two desks with chairs, a couch, two large chairs and some tables for lamps. Toilets and showers were down the hall.

We experienced the usual changes in living at Penn for all freshmen. No one to tell you when to study or go to bed. Learning how to budget a modest allowance. Meeting other students and learning the ropes of living on your own. Most of us survived well and enjoyed our new times. Later in the year, ‘rushing’ season began at fraternities. We were invited to many different houses for evening entertainment or meals so we were able to ‘look over’ and ‘be looked over’.

My roommate and I both joined the same fraternity, Theta Chi, and lived there during the next three years at Penn. There were 38 Christian fraternities and a lesser number of Jewish fraternities. That was as much social distinction as there was. Of course we all got along well and had friends in both groups. The Theta Chi fraternity house was the former Bomont Estate, and located at 3817 Spruce Street. We sold part of land property to Zeta Beta Tau so they could have a place to build their fraternity house. During those days we were all just Penn students and in due course became Penn alumni. No further social or other designation among us existed then or now.

There was an Inter-fraternity Council of the Christian fraternities. I was one of the two officers. Each year we held an Inter-fraternity Ball. Several years it was held in the ballroom of the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. Big bands played - Benny Goodman, Hal Kemp, Noble Sissle, Eddie Duchin, etc. One year ‘Johnny’, the Philip Morris Bellhop, came in a little Austin automobile on the freight elevator to the ballroom of the Benjamin Franklin Hotel to help select the most beautiful woman.

There was also the Ivy Ball, which was held a time or two in the gymnasium, but more often off-campus. The gentlemen wore white tie and tails. Our dates wore beautiful long evening dresses. We supplied corsages. Breakfast followed at different restaurants nearby. These were grand and memorable events.

My best girl, the woman I married and who was my wife for more than 57 years before she died, was a student at Smith College, Northampton, Mass. She would make the long journey by train to New York and then change for Philadelphia for Inter-fraternity and Ivy Balls. I would reserve a room for her at the Philadelphia Hotel, 39th and Chestnut Streets. There was the annual Junior Class Cane March. The Class of 1938 cane was an evening walking stick - black with white top. I still have mine!

Penn football at Franklin Field found the stands almost filled to capacity. We used to play Army, Navy, Notre Dame, Penn State, University of Michigan And most of the Ivy League schools. The Penn-Cornell game was always played on Thanksgiving Day. Sometimes, Boy Scouts or other young people were invited to attend when there were some available seats. I remember the Michigan band especially. This was the largest band—about 160 members—all dressed in elegant uniforms with the Drum Major wearing a Shako [large fur hat], superb long tail uniform and he could strut magnificently! Drum majors always would throw his baton over the bar at the goal post. The goal posts were made of wood and, sometimes, students would climb on them after the game and tear them down. Dangerous prank!

When we students went to our classes each day we were dressed in slacks, tweed jacket, shirts [many with button down collars] and ties. There was a fine shoe shine place on Spruce Street just above 36th Street where our cordovan shoes were shined to perfection. We wore coats and Fedora hats, too. Those students who were members of the football or other team sometimes wore their sweaters with ‘P’ emblazoned.

There were trolley cars on Spruce Street, Woodland Avenue and some other Streets. During Rowbottoms, the connecting pole from trolley cars to the electric wire, frequently were pulled down to disconnect the power and one time [or more] a trolley was lifted off the tracks by students standing shoulder to shoulder all around.

Popular eating places were Beaston’s at Spruce and 36th and Smokey Joe’s on 36th. There was a Horn and Hardart’s Restaurant, the Waffle Shop [with 100 different waffles] and Zavelle’s bookstore for new and used books on Woodland Avenue opposite College Hall. There was also a small shop in the basement between the Quad and the small Quad where we could have breakfast of orange juice, a sugar bun and coffee when I was a freshman and for others, who lived in the dormitories surrounding the quads.

There were some good men’s clothing stores: Gommy’s on Woodland Avenue Street just below 36th Street and Sox Miller on Spruce Street just above 36th Street. People from men’s clothing stores in other cities would travel from college to college campuses get a room in a hotel or elsewhere to show their clothing to students and hopefully make some sales. Student representatives at different schools tried to get students to come to see the clothes. They received a modest commission. I was a representative at Penn for Finchley. The Daily Pennsylvanian was a far different paper from today’s paper. Not better or worse, - just different. In the 1930s it had more social news and fewer official University releases. There was also the grand monthly Punch Bowl magazine as well as the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Wharton School was located in Logan Hall. Wharton students also had some liberal arts classes in the College with classes in College Hall. As I recall, we were required to have 134 credits for graduation - about 110 in Wharton subjects and the balance in College subjects. There were no women at Wharton during the 1930s. Annual tuition at Penn was $400 per year plus $10 for Health services. [When my son, B. Franklin Reinauer III, Wh’65, went to Penn for his freshman year the tuition was $1700.]

Weekly participation in athletics was required for all students. Squash courts were located in Franklin Field below the stands. The Palestra was new for basketball. There were opportunities for swimming, crew, baseball, soccer and all the same sports as today. There may have been some but I do not remember any women’s teams. When we graduated in the 1930s most of us got jobs for $20 to $25 a week. We, who had college diplomas, were the lucky ones for unemployment in the USA was high and the depression pervasive. Since we barely got going after graduation before World War II began and many of us went into the military and others were stymied by the war effort at home, we really did not ‘get going’ until after the war. The Wharton School diploma was a blessing for it has opened doors for me, and all other Wharton graduates, ever since graduation. I am told all Penn diplomas do the same thing in other areas of work. On the 25th Reunion of the Class of 1938, we arranged for the vacation of Locust Street as a regular street and developed as Locust Walk. A granite plaque in the walk at the 36th Street intersection records our gift to Penn. This gift to Penn began the vacation of streets, which has resulted in Penn having a real campus in the midst of a busy city.

Since my days at Penn, many new buildings have been constructed. They do not have the architectural design of the former buildings, such as in the Quad or like the Library, College Hall, Logan Hall, Wistar Institute or Houston Hall, but are a great variety of modern architecture. Some are fine —others, well, the eye of the beholder!

Now, that those of us who graduated in the 1930s look back as well as at Penn today, we marvel at the changes: the physical look of the campus, changes in courses and curriculum, appearance of students, interests, language, communication and the myriad of changes in our own lives. And so, this has been a time for reminiscing! If you read what I wrote, I hoped you enjoyed reading some of what a Penn alumnus remembers about his days at Penn.

B. Franklin Reinauer II is chairman of Reinauer Corporations.

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1940s back to index

Jack E. Cole M’41
A Simple Procedure, A Great Adventure

Recently as I walked through the corridors of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to visit my daughter in ICU, daily I passed through the Ravdin Pavilion. This brought back fond memories.

As a senior medical student I scrubbed for surgery for the first time and the head surgeon was the internationally known Dr. Isador Ravdin. I stood against the wall of the operating room wondering what to do next. Dr. Ravdin graciously came over to me, took my hands in his, led me to the table where an already draped patient lay, put my hands on the patient’s belly, and said, “Now doctor stay sterile.” I was no longer intimidated by the fellows, first-, second-, and third-year residents, and interns already assembled.

On a Sunday afternoon a few days later Dr. Ravdin’s office called to request me to report to an operating room. I expected to see his retinue but only the two of us were there. The ancient mother of another professor of surgery had a distended gallbladder which needed to be drained before it ruptured. It was a simple procedure—opening the abdomen, draining the bladder, and closing the incision. It would have bored his retinue but to me, a lowly student, it was a great adventure, especially assisting an internationally known expert on gallbladder disease. I loved Dr. Ravdin.

Jack Cole was wounded in the Battle of Normandy while serving as battalion surgeon with the 13th Infantry. Physician for Lehigh University four years. He practiced family medicine for 32 years in Bethlehem, Pa., split in the middle by five years with Peace Corps, and has written two books since retiring in 1989.

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Harold J. Buxbaum W’45
War Comes to the Campus

I was a 16-year-old freshman living in 303 Magee on December 7, 1941. That Sunday was the midpoint of Rush Week and all the freshmen were busily making the rounds of the various fraternities. In those days the fraternities were separated, or segregated, into “A” (Christian) and “B” (Jewish) fraternities. There were even two inter-fraternity councils. It was the only type of segregation or bias that I ever experienced at Penn. And from the perspective of 2002 it is hard to comprehend that this was the way of the time.

As I emerged from the dorm that Sunday a friend of mine who lived in Provost Towers called out to me that the “Japs” had bombed Pearl Harbor. Rushing continued, and I remember being at the Pi Lambda Phi house speculating with all as to what would happen to us. Some of the ideas were very “far out,” but most were fairly realistic and mirrored what actually happened. Of course Penn nor any other University was ever the same again, as old traditions were put aside (beanies, vig books, hazing, and many more) and new traditions created. On May 18, 1943, I enlisted in Philadelphia in the then-U.S. Army Air Corps just before my 18th birthday. I know for myself, and I’m sure for many of my fraternity brothers who also enlisted in the Air Force, that the decision was triggered by a visit to the fraternity by Bill Laven’s brother who was one of America’s first “Aces” as a P-38 pilot. His descriptions of air battles with the Japanese over the Aleutians triggered all our imaginations.

One of the results of the war was accelerated classes, which meant we had a full class load in the summer. I attended the summer semester of 1942. Classes started very early, at 7:30 or 8 a.m. My first class was with Professor William Harbison studying Elizabethan English. He was a wonderful, crusty gentleman of the old school, and I had been in his classes before. We had the first class without much incident, except he seemed very unhappy. It was summer, it was hot and it was stuffy. At the start of the second session Professor Harbison addressed the class. He felt that this was an “ungodly” hour to have a class and he did not feel he could teach the class properly, nor could the students learn the material at this “awful” time. He then cancelled classes for the rest of the summer session, assigned us reading assignments, and instructed us to write up the results of our studies in Elizabethan English and turn them in on the last day of class. We all learned then and there what independent study was all about.

Harold Buxbaum is president of of Buxbaum Rink Consulting in Woodbridge, Connecticut.

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Alan Halpern C’47
The Dispirit of ’43

Penn in the 1940s was a tight little white island.

I entered Penn in the fall of 1943 and, except for a time-out in the U.S. Maritime Service, left the campus for Paris in 1948. Remarkably, I am again a Penn student at age 76—a senior associate—auditing courses I never got around to taking as an undergrad nearly 60 years ago. I’m back because I have the time and the inclination. I am, at this time in my life, a retired journalist.

I am also a secular Jew, which is most relevant to this memoir of my undergraduate days at Penn. I grew up in the sycamore-shaded, lawnless Jewish ghetto of West Philadelphia. My fellow students in grammar school and junior and senior high were overwhelmingly Jewish. The jumble of groceries, barbers, butter-and-egg stores, restaurants, shoe-repair shops, and bakeries in my neighborhood were all—except for the A&P—Jewish owned and operated. It was a rye-bread world. At age 18, I had never encountered anti-Semitism until I entered the white-bread University of Pennsylvania on a mayoral scholarship. My freshman beanie was, I suppose, a surrogate yarmulke. Nearly 60 years later, I will try to recall that clash of cultures.

Actually, Penn’s anti-Semitism then was in the American grain, a genteel policy of exclusion and tokenism. It also applied to women, blacks, and Asians, who were tolerated in small numbers. After all, wasn’t the nation in the middle of a great war for democracy?

I learned of the Jewish quota at Penn when I tried to heel for what is now The Daily Pennsylvanian. I was told they already had their quota filled. With some other rejectees from the newspaper, we started an on-campus literary magazine. (Rejection has its compensatory rewards: magazine-editing became my profession.) I was also interested in theater and looked up the celebrated Mask & Wig; unfortunately, they already had their token Jew. So I joined quota-free Penn Players where I met another Jew, Hal Prince C’48 Hon’71, who directed one of my one-act plays. He has also found a career extracurricularly.

As for social activities, I could go to Hillel, the student Jewish social center, where my greatest spiritual enlightenment came from learning to play killer bridge. Other social groups included A and B fraternities: the B Greeks were 100 percent Jewish, the A Greeks 100 percent non. Learning to live with segregation taught me the authentic Greek virtue of stoicism. There were other places to meet and greet: dances at the CA, and the smoking room at the Furness library, where I mingled fumes with a cell of proto-existentialists, ur-beats, and Trotskyites who went on to become a professor at Princeton, high-profile lawyers, admen, and judges.

At the Friday-evening socials at International House I met Penn’s handful of Hispanic students, almost invariably the scions of wealthy families living well in Latin American dictatorships. Alhough Penn today is over 20 percent Asian, there was only one Asian face, a Thai, among the 500 faces in my yearbook. There were a few blacks on campus in those years, generally Africans on fellowships. Kwame Nkrumah (who went on to become president of Ghana) was a grad student at Penn at the time, some said on an OSS fellowship. There were just three blacks in my graduating class and one of them hailed from Monrovia, Liberia.

As late as 1947, there was only one black on the 57-man varsity track team. Otherwise, athletics were uniformly white bread. There were no blacks on Penn’s 59-man varsity football squad, nor on the 39-man freshman squad, and, surprising in retrospect, there were no blacks on its 12-man varsity basketball team or 26-man varsity baseball team posing staunchly in the Record Book. Other absolute strongholds of the WASMs (white Anglo-Saxon males) were the Undergrad Council, the Houston Hall Board, the Sphinx Senior Society, the Kite and Key, and probably a dozen others—which discouraging heeling. There were women and Jews, but no blacks or Asians, in the all-white, left-leaning American Veterans Committee and in the Symphony Orchestra.

Although Harvard and Princeton were well-staffed with academic refugees from Hitler like Kissinger and Einstein, I do not recall having a single Jewish professor. Bradley, Spiller, Baugh, Haviland, Harbeson and Weygandt were the heavy hitters in the English Department. My non-refugee German language professors all had a pre-1933 outlook and worshipped at the altars of Goethe, Holderin, and Bach, rather than the then-current Teutonic idols. The solitary woman faculty member I can recall was Dr. Elizabeth F. Flower Gr’39, in the philosophy department.

The only sign of ecumenicalism on campus during the 1940s was a sandwich joint called Kelly & Cohen. (There was, it turned out, no Kelly aboard, but business, evidently, was business).

As a career path, I was torn between journalism and my family’s wish to see me go into medicine. But applying to the med school would have just put me up against another Jewish quota. So after graduation I took a wanderjahr in France, got an editing job on a European magazine, and my career was officially launched.

But that was then. This is now. Penn, like current and recent prexies at Princeton, Brown, Barnard, and Harvard, has a Jewish president and a just-named black chief operating officer. And the campus buildings—named for WASP donors like Houston and Wharton in my undergraduate days—have been supplemented by buildings and public spaces financed by and/or named for a gaggle of occasionally louche Jewish donors—Walter Annenberg W’31 Hon’66, Saul Steinberg W’59, Steve Wynn C’63, and Ron Perelman W’64 WG’66. The faculty, too, has broadened; today I take history classes with department chair Dr. Jonathan Steinberg and English classes with Dr. Rena Potok C’83 G’90 Gr’95—much brighter and more worldly academics than my undergrad WASP professors.

And the University now boasts departments of Jewish studies, black studies, Asian studies (formerly called non-PC “Oriental” studies), and women’s studies. (Talk about ghettoization: in my undergraduate era—while Rosie the riveter was sexually integrating the American workforce—Penn women matriculated in Bennett Hall, the separate-but-equal school for women. They even had their separate-but-equal newspaper, The Bennett News).

All, happily, water under the bridge. Today Penn is unquestionably light years more stimulating, cosmopolitan, gender- and color-blind than it was when I was a beanie-wearing, 18-year-old freshman 59 years ago. Maybe it’s time for the rest of America to also catch up.

Alan Halpern was, for almost 30 years, the editor of Philadelphia Magazine, acting editor of Boston Magazine, and founding editor of Manhattan inc.

Clark T. Thompson C’47 CCC’56
The “I-House”

I remember the International House at 3905 Spruce St. where students from many different lands met and got to know each other and their various views of the world. The “I-House” was the center for foreign students from all the Colleges and Universities in the Philadelphia area. it was started by the Christian Association, “C.A.” under the impetus of Edward C. Wood. The I-House should not be forgotten.

My sister and I were privileged to grow up in that environment since my father, Elmer T. Thompson, served as its director from 1925-50. I was a student at U.Penn College 1943-45 (NROTC), CCC 1952-56; received BA, Physics major.

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George Robert Brown ME’48
“Brown’s Here!”

In my senior year, 1947-48, I attended all of our football games and we had an undefeated season [one tie]. We lost Tony Minisi W’48 L’52 to the Navy and played against Blanshard & Davis of the Army. [Misters inside & outside]. I road the subway to school with George Saviski [All American] and studied “thermo” all the way.

Had a course in Law for Engineers followed by the Thermo course in the Towne building—at the opposite end of the campus. I had to run all the way to make roll call as our instructor said he would close the door to late comers and that with two “absences” he would flunk us. With the name “Brown” I would be one of the first to be called. One day I was running up the three flights of stairs in the Engineering building and heard my name being called. So I shouted as loud as I could from the second floor, “BROWN’S HERE” —much to the delight of the class, which roared back. Without a remark, the instructor left the door open for me and called my name last on future occasions.

I also remember the “Rowbottoms” around the Quad and the times we pulled the trolley-pole off its power line and jumped on the car to kiss all the girls. I’ll be 80 this coming year, but remember the great times [many of them] during my undergrad years.

As a research, development & inventor-type engineer, my Penn degree gave me the chance to rise from designer to project engineer to department manager to vice president of corporate research and technology and to travel the world to many industries. As a young engineer, I had the opportunity to work with Chuck Yeager, the pilot who broke the sound barrier and wore the high-altitude flying helmet that I designed in secret for him. My helmet is in the Smithsonian, along with Chuck’s statue & the Bell-X plane.

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Rhoda Fishman Sandlers CW’48
Failing the Femininity Test

I entered Penn from a very small suburban school (Jenkintown) and was somewhat overwhelmed by the size of Penn, even diminished as it was during the war, but excited by the rich variety of course offerings. I quickly switched from an English major to political science. I wrote for the Bennett News, as the women’s’ paper was called, and joined WXPN. As a result of these activities, I was accredited to attend the famous Democratic Party convention in 1948 at which Truman gave a rousing speech that convinced me he would win the election.

I enjoyed many professors, especially Dr. Elizabeth Flower Gr’39 in philosophy, and Dr. Harter and Dr. Phillip Jacobs in political science. These two men changed my life by helping me receive a scholarship through the Institute of International Education to attend the University of London for a summer. From then on living abroad was my goal and I did so for many years, both in England and France.

The main thing I actually remember of course work was a sentence from an economics professor who stated that the part of the blanket that hangs over is the part that keeps you warm. How true! I also recall the patronizing psych prof who gave his students a test to indicate femininity and masculinity. I was termed by him to be insufficiently feminine, almost masculine in my interests and personality, because I registered as too curious, and had “male” interests. I never took another psych class; it was rubbish. I directed a media library for 20 years in a local community college, am married and have two daughters who are Harvard grads—and would have failed the femininity test, too.

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Sam Maitin FA’51
Penn By Night

I was only 16 years old—a child—when I started at Penn, taking classes at night and going to art school at [what is now the Philadelphia College of Art] during the day. World War II was almost over, and so I was in school with big, tough guys who had had dreadful experiences and who were my classmates. And night was different. I never had a normal college experience, nor did they.

We all did other things. The others were all working and making a living and had families and so on. They were all there on the G.I. Bill and voracious for an education, and I was caught up with that kind of steam and so we worked very very hard. We had no time for football games and parties and hanging out at Smoky Joe’s. None of that was part of our lives really—though I did hear one of those older guys say, “Well, us night people are superior to the day people.” It was fun.

There were wonderful classes here. Roy Nichols was lecturing in history—he and his wife both won a Pulitzer Prize—and science courses on Saturday mornings: zoology, biology, botany, and so on. [But] in art history, there was a particular professor I fear we all feared. His lectures were boring, interminable, almost fascistic. You were never allowed to think for yourself, just give back the information he gave you, and we detested it.

Penn did provide what I think was quite an excellent education, and despite all the social activities that we missed out on, we became rather loyal to Penn eventually anyway. I was in the Class of 1951, but I should have graduated in 1949. I earned over 130 credits. I remember Dean Coyle calling me in, and saying, “Well, you’re on your way to an MA. Do you want an MA?” and I said, “God, no,” and he said, “Well, get out of here. You’ve finished your work.”

I remember getting out of Spanish class at 11:00 at night. These guys on the GI Bill were so active, they wanted at much as Penn could give them. Many of them would never have gone to school otherwise, and Penn took them very seriously. There was no diminishment of the scholarship. It was tough.

At night, it was so dark. I was so tired. It was hard to just stay awake sometimes. and the 34 trolley would drop me off right in front of College Hall, where most of these classes were.

The responsibilities that we had academically were enormous, a tremendous amount of work. I remember gauging myself. I would get weighed once a week, because I figured I could lose 15 pounds a semester. More than that, I was in physical trouble, and I knew I had to get some sleep or something to eat.

The most recent of Sam Maitin’s many Gazette covers was for the March/April 2002 Centennial issue focusing on Penn’s faculty.

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Bernie Lemonick W’51
When Franklin Field Was Filled

George Munger, Penn head football coach from 1938-1953, touched hundreds of people from all walks of life throughout his career.

For many years, George was devoted to football and he coached precisely and intelligently. Joining with George was Rae Crouther, nationally famous line coach; Paul Riblett, broadly experienced and animated end coach; Bill Talanico, player-tested and smart backfield coach; and Jack Welsh, record-holding freshman coach and brilliant football scout.

George was sincere and honest. As a teacher of the game and a gentleman, he set an example for his players which influenced and stayed with me. Each of George’s teams became a “family,” and our teams developed a camaraderie and confidence.

Other recollections of my playing days include:

A Penn dump truck which made stops around campus topick up football players and take them to River Field for practice.

Ms. Boar, an elderly, refined training-table dietician, who felt compelled to correct the table manners of the biggest, toughest, and sloppiest players.

Pre-season practice at Hershey, Pennsylvania, with a strong aroma of chocolate wafting in the breeze.

From 75,000 to 80,000 spectators greeting the football team’s entry onto Franklin Field. Yelling and Screaming, mixed with clapping and explosive band music distracted our pre-game warm-up and created chills and goose bumps (Penn led the nation in football attendance for five years in George’s era. On the other hand, the NFL Eagles had trouble drawing 30,000 to their games at Shibe Park).

People felt the “electric” atmosphere in the city of Philadelphia on game days. There was always a great demand for Penn football tickets. Sales were easy.

The pageantry and spectacle of the Penn-Army and Penn-Navy games were exhilarating.

Posh game parties took on the form of Mardi Gras celebrations.

Jess Butz, Haberdasher, always held slim brim hats for sale along with the preppiest ties, shirts, three-button suits, and shoes. His wife, Jessie, did all the sewing with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. A large ash was always waiting to fall.

Kelly and Cohen’s “Emporium” served combination sandwiches two inches thick, with all varieties of deli meats and cheeses, at highly affordable student prices. Students without enough money usually received credit.

Horn and Hardart Restaurant stood where the library now stands. The restaurant had a balcony used by students who were “brown bagging” their lunches.

The trolleys and tracks that ran though campus created familiar but annoying noises and clatter.

Hesch’s Florist, on Walnut Street, provided the most elegant floweres for deserving dates.

We were the luckiest men on earth to have attended Penn.

Bernie Lemonick played freshman football in 1947, and was on the varsity from 1948-1950. He was voted to the All-American team in 1950 and elected to Penn’s Athletic Hall of Fame in the inaugural class of 1996.

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John N. Reardon W’51 WG’56
Memories of a Commuter

In the autumn of 1947, I began my freshman year at Wharton. I wondered, that first day, “What is a kid from Germantown High in Philadelphia doing waiting for a No.6 trolley car at 71st Street and Ogontz Avenue at 6:45 a.m. to go all the way to the foreign land of West Philadelphia to attend an 8 a.m. Economics of Industry class at the University of Pennsylvania?”

Penn was a mysterious place, and most commuting students really only knew about the buildings that housed our classes. We knew that there were dorms, and fraternity houses, but rarely saw them that first year. After my No.6 trolley, the Broad Street Subway, and the subway-surface trolley, I dashed into Logan Hall and up the center-worn wooden steps—almost falling on the uneven surface—to an upper floor.

We commuters could be seen daily, dashing from our last classes and rushing home to our families. For us, commuting to college was more like working at a job. The presence of so many returning veterans on the GI Bill gave a “serious business” flavor to our studies. We read in the DP about fraternity happenings, and some other “cultural” campus events, but rarely experienced them. Since we lived at home, we had other family responsibilities, and our comments on “college life” were made in terms of course material, not the college culture.

The Penn campus, in those days, was more of a collection of old school buildings and old houses containing classrooms, in the midst of stores and aging residences. Off to the south were those odd-looking “dorms.” We never went there! Houston Hall was the only classy structure, and we tried to imagine how real college kids lived.

I was happy to leave this hectic environment and return to my nice little rowhouse in quiet West Oak Lane. From that first day, my focus was more on working seriously to get a good education than on having a good time in college. My objective was to form the basis for a business career, not to extend my adolescent years. Enlisting in the army after graduation, because of the Korean War, delayed that career. Ironically, those three army years became my version of college life, with a year at the Army Language School, a year at army posts in Kentucky, Virginia, and Massachusetts, and a year in Kyoto, Japan. I became a real college kid! When I returned to Wharton Grad for an MBA, on the GI Bill, I became like those worldly vets I knew and envied in 1947.

Today, as a retired CEO and CPA, my activities include serving on the UPAS board and communications committee, volunteer treasurer of several charitable organizations, and professional church organist and choral singer. Penn continues to be an important part of my life—and I still commute from the suburbs.

John Reardon is a retired CEO and CPA and a past president of the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Society.

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Emily Pritchard Cary CW’52
Penn Was My Destiny

From the day I attended a campus tour guided by student representative Jane Davis, I knew that Penn was my destiny. The acceptance letter and subsequent meetings with the incomparable Drs. Althea K. Hottel Ed’29 Gr’40 Hon’59 and Karl Miller clinched my decision.

At Freshman Camp, I met women who have become close friends and helped craft the lyrics of our class song (to the tune of “Fine and Dandy”) with the optimistic promise: “We have talent, of that we boast, We’re collected from coast to coast, ‘52 is the class you’ll adore, If fun is what you’re looking for.”

Fun it certainly was, dominated by cerebral romps through formidable tomes, serious devotion to student government that culminated in gatherings of women class-officers in the home of then Penn President Harold Stassen home and launched my concern to this day about our nation’s role in the world, and vocal bursts of pride at Franklin Field when the football team saved the day or at Irvine Auditorium, its rafters rumbling above Bill Dickey’s mighty organ rendition of “Hail, Pennsylvania.”

The aroma of old brick, the din of traffic penetrating Bennett Hall classrooms, the daily aerobic climb to its fourth floor cafe and lounge, supplemented by sprints to College Hall, forays to the library, and treks up Locust Street to Alpha Chi Omega sorority house are imprinted on my brain. Few life experiences have been as exhilarating as riding the West Chester local to class each day in anticipation of absorbing wisdom from my advisors, Loren Eiseley and Frederick Jones, and from such esteemed and supportive faculty as Robert Spiller, Matthias Shaaber, Albert Baugh, MacEdward Leach, Richard Bozarth, and Ward Goodenough.

Everything I learned and loved during those years at Penn has guided my career and enhanced my role as a wife and parent.

Emily Pritchard Cary taught vocal music in Pittsford, N.Y., and Millburn, N.J., before becoming a specialist in gifted/talented education for Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, where she taught for 18 years. During that time, she was a state finalist for the NASA Teacher in Space Project and conducted creative-writing workshops statewide for the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Her articles on music, education, and Americana have appeared in periodicals nationwide, including the Journal Newspapers of Washington, DC, which features her weekly column, First Chair. The most recent of her six books, The Ghost of Whitaker Mountain, is based on Western Pennsylvania history, mysteries, and current events.)

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Dr. E. J. Hathaway V’53
New Bolton Beginnings

Actually, I already have and it appears in the Fall issue of Bellwether, on remembering the first class at New Bolton Center in Kennett Square (www.vet.upenn.edu/comm/publications/bellwether/53/nbc_first_class.html). Additionally, for the record, Bellwether has got to be one of the more premier publications of its type in the nation.

E.J. Hathway is a retired veterinarian, 40 years in Wilmington, Del. Proprietor of the Wilmington Animal Hospital, now operated by two more recent Penn grads, Dr. Karen Phillips V’79 and Dr. Shelley Epstein V’85.

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Dr. Robert S. Maurer C’53
Memories of Penn

A 16-year-old boy from Brooklyn checking into Magee in the dorms … Fraternity rushing and hazing … Large lecture halls for chemistry and history … Intramural sports … Winning the IFC sports trophy in my senior year … Playing basketball with Ernie Beck, Mike Lyons, and Warren Gray … Also, backyard basketball at the TEP house … Bowling competition … Fraternity parties … Subway surface cars … Late night, poker or studying … Working at the Red and Blue Diner as a short order cook … Going downtown to see Joni James and Tommy Edwards … The Quad … Sophomore Sols … And of course, graduation, with our keynote speaker Milton Eisenhower, in the blazing sun …

Dr. Robert S. Maurer, osteopathic physician, U.S. Navy 1953-1958; Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, 1958-1962; intern 1962-1963; family practice, Woodbridge, N.J., 1963-1985; JFK Medical Center 1985-1992; associate professor of clinical family medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, School of Osteopathic Medicine, 1992-1998. Now mostly skiing, playing tennis, and grandfathering.

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Bob Johnson W’55
A Winning Tie

I was a member of the Penn Marching Band as a freshman in 1951. It was an exciting season, playing teams like Army, Navy, William & Mary, California, and Wisconsin. My favorite memory, however was in 1952. We were Ivy champions, but I’ll never forget the 7-7 tie with Notre Dame on opening day. The band used to turn its hats around to signify a victory on its march from Franklin Field to Houston Hall, and we did so that day in an atmosphere of excitement I’ll long remember.

Bob Johnson and his wife Pat are currently retired and living in West Chester, Pa., for the past three years. They moved back from northern New Jersey and have enjoyed participating in more activities on campus, including sporting events, plays, concerts, and helping to plan their 50th Reunion in 2005.

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John C. T. Alexander W’56
Presidents, a Princess, and Flying Flashcards

While the Eisenhower years are usually thought of as uneventful, some exciting changes took place during my class’s time at Penn: Dr. Gaylord P. Harnwell Hon’53 succeeded Harold Stassen Hon’48 as president. The Ivy League was formally instituted. Franklin Field had its first and probably last student-section flash-card presentations at the Navy and the Notre Dame football games: the letter N turned out well in both games but by the time the Penn fans got to the D in Notre Dame, the effects of screwdrivers and other libations had taken over and the cards came sailing out of the stands like frisbees.

Grace Kelly, aka Princess Grace of Monaco, met the Penn cheerleaders on Franklin Field, and Dietrich Hall—now Steinberg-Dietrich Hall—opened for business. Finally, the trolleys stopped running above ground through the campus; this development will be commemorated by the Class of 1956 with a trolley-inspired sculpture to be dedicated during our 50th Reunion in 2006.

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Sally Wendkos Olds CW’56
Two Critiques

In 1953, just before my junior year, in a job I had found through student placement, I received the first poor evaluation I had ever gotten in anything in my life. A couple of years later, in my last semester, I received the harshest academic critique in my school career. The first of these was devastating, the second a blessing.

The summer job had sounded perfect for me: I would be a counselor at a children’s residence in Cleveland. A psychology major, I planned to become a child-guidance counselor. But that job turned out to be a failure. I had had no training or experience with any children, let alone youngsters like these who were so disturbed that the courts had removed them from their families. At summer’s end I sat in my supervisor’s office and nodded silently as, point by point, he focused on my inability to motivate, discipline, and inspire these troubled children.

I don’t remember his exact words; I do remember tearing up the evaluation and coming back home to Philadelphia desperate to change my major. Having no idea what I wanted to do, I opted for my favorite subject, English Literature. The choice was perfect. I loved my classes and was inspired by my professors.

In the fall of 1955 I sat in another office, Room 111 in Bennett Hall, where I dared to show Dr. Richard Bozorth C’42, my instructor in creative writing, a novella I had written the year before while on leave from Penn. His encouraging comments (like “good—you get pathos without sentimentality”) spurred me on. His comments about my other writing were mostly favorable, but the one I remember most vividly almost reeked with the smell of deep disappointment. I no longer have those words before me (I must have thrown them out, too), but I remember their gist: “This is unworthy of you.” Amazing! He thought I was capable of better things! He had faith in me.

I have often heard Dr. Bozorth’s clear voice over the years, as I embarked upon one writing project after another (“Show, don’t tell,” “Take your reader with you,” “Give specifics”). I would picture him leaning back in his chair and reading my current work, and I would wonder: “What would he think?” I never had any contact with him after graduation. Last month, after a fellow alumna in a Kelly Writers House online group mentioned his name, I contacted Penn’s archivist, Mark Frazier Lloyd, to help me find him.

I wanted to tell my teacher that, even though I may not have lived up to the high expectations he had had for me, I did indeed forge a career in writing. In the not-so-mysterious circles that often chart our paths in life, much of my work has dealt with child development, the field I seemed so unsuited for as a clinician but able to make contributions to as a writer.

In 1983, after a distinguished career at Penn and elsewhere, at the age of 63, Dr. Bozorth died. And yet for me he still lives on, as I continue to respond to his imagined critiques. Twenty years after his death, he is still nurturing this student.

Sally Wendkos Olds has written 10 books and many articles (some for the Gazette).

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Edwin M. Epstein C’58
Magic Moments in a Dismal Period

My four years at Penn encompassed many memorable moments, not the least of which was meeting, wooing and subsequently wedding my wife of 43 years, Dr. Sandra P. Weinstein Epstein Ed’60. However, the two events on which I wish to focus are football related. During my tenure at Penn, I was at various times a sports reporter for The Daily Pennsylvanian and sports editor of the now defunct magazine, the Highball.

Early in my sophomore year (fall 1955), I interviewed Steve Sebo, the relatively new football coach and he graciously invited me to sit on the Penn bench with the team during games. One of the first games of the 1955 season was against Notre Dame, then in its salad days as a national power with several All-Americans among its ranks. In the dressing room immediately before the game, Coach Sebo addressed the players. He told them that playing Notre Dame before a sell-out crowd and a television audience was “an opportunity of a lifetime” and to go out there and do themselves and the university proud.

The Penn team charged from the locker room to the field—in today’s parlance, totally “pumped.” Notre Dame kicked off and my sophomore classmate, Frank Riepl W’58, took the ball two yards in the end zone and ran through the entire Notre Dame team for a touchdown: 102 yards. The noise was deafening, truly a magic moment in a dismal period of Penn football. Alas, if the truth be told, Penn lost the game decisively. Riepl went on to have a fine career at Penn.

My second football moment at Penn was the 1956 win over Dartmouth, after 17 straight losses, which involved my fortuitous appearance in the picture of the victorious team (reprinted in the May/June 2002 issue). You can imagine the unrestrained joy among both the players and the fans. Another magic moment of Penn football, circa mid 1950s.

A side note, I grew up with Penn football. My father, Jacob C. Epstein WEv’29, bought a season ticket which I shared with an older brother. I saw over the years, such Penn stars as “Reds” Bagnell C’51, “Skippy” Minisi C’48 L’52, George Savitsky Ed’48 D’54 GD’59, Eddie Bell C’54, Bernie Lemonick W’51, and my personal hero Chuck Bednarik Ed’49; indeed, in seventh and eight grade, I wanted people to call me Chuck. Well, enough nostalgia; back to work and today’s world.

Edwin Epstein chairs the peace and conflict studies group and is an emeritus professor in the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Dr. Leonard N. Lapatnick C’58 Gr’66
Watch Closely

The Class of 1958 was hit with a slogan in September of 1954, intended to spur support for the football program which was in the process of de-emphasis into the Ivy League format. That slogan was, Watch Penn score in ’54. Unfortunately, the team was still playing a bigtime schedule. Not only did they go winless that season, but the slogan proved prophetic in that one had to watch every play in order not to miss the few scores Penn accomplished.

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George M. Jenner W’60
Penn Poem

At the U of Pennsylvania,

They tried real hard to make us brania—

Stuffed that knowledge in our crania

Until you’d develop some terrible mania.

Then before graduation it got even zania,

As they’d spoonia and spadia and bowlia and cania!

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Wendy E. Powell GLA’61
A Frustrating but Exhilarating Journey

I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on the liner Queen Mary to a country I had never visited and where I had neither friends or relatives. I was fortunate to have been awarded a scholarship to follow a two-year course for a master’s in landscape architecture. Were my expectations too high? Would I be disappointed? I found the course everything I had hoped for, with an enthusiastic, experienced staff led by Professor Ian McHarg, who was an inspiring teacher. The encouragement in stretching a student’s design abilities to levels not previously envisaged was at times very frustrating, but an exhilarating journey. The opening up of new approaches to designing landscape, particularly large scale spaces was a rewarding search.

I recall other moments too, remembering with pleasure the long summer days, away from the heat of the city, spent at the Morris Arboretum with fellow students and the director, Dr. John M. Fogg C’25. The mornings were spent identifying and drawing plants, and often in the afternoon one found a student asleep under the canopy of a giant shade tree.

After the enlightment of my studies, the most memorable aspect of campus life was the generous friendship extended to me by everyone I met; I was regularly a weekend or vacation guest in family homes.

My first year was as the only graduate student among undergraduates (mostly seniors) in Sherwood Hall, a three-storey house on Locust Street. The next year was spent as one of the first residents in the new women’s dormitory [now Hill College House] in the role of a graduate advisor. It was a privilege to be invited to become one of eight advisors to live and work in such a superbly designed building; its severe external appearance contrasted with the lightness and functional simplicity of the interior spaces. I found it to be an extremely comfortable living environment. And I continue to have regular contact with friends from Sherwood. The remaining graduate advisors held a 40th reunion and plan to meet biennially to exchange news of our lives and careers.

Wendy Powell GLA’61 is a landscape architect.

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Mary Ellen Mark FA’62 ASC’64 Hon’94
I Had Found My Future

I always wanted to attend the University of Pennsylvania. I remember the day that my acceptance letter arrived. I was overwhelmed. My time at the University was extremely positive, although the first few years I definitely spent too much time partying and probably missed a lot in the classroom. By my senior year, I started to be a more serious person. I studied painting and art history, but always felt that being a painter was too isolating, so when I found photography through the Annenberg School for Communication, my life totally changed. I had found my future.

Some of my first real assignments were for the Gazette. Dusty Rhodes, who was then the editor, gave me several assignments. This was a wonderful learning process that helped prepare me for when I started to work for national magazines. The picture of the Class of 1911 alumnus was one of my first published pictures. To this day, I like the picture and wonder if the old alumni at Penn still have such character. James Fry Strong certainly had an amazing look. The other photograph was taken some years later, in 1973, when I did a story on how Penn had changed. I don’t remember taking this particular picture and I wonder what I was thinking at the time. Now, when I look at it I can read many things into it.

Without Penn and the Annenberg School, I would not have had the amazing life that I live as a photographer. I would not have met all those very special people, both famous and not famous, that have allowed me to photograph them. I am extremely grateful to the University for the great opportunities it gave me.”

Mary Ellen Mark’s photography has won numerous awards and has been exhibited worldwide. Her work has appeared in dozens of magazines and in 12 books. A new book, Twins, isdue out in Fall 2003.

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Mary Ann Greenawalt CW’62
Moving Day

The changing face of our campus began in earnest in the early sixties. When I first was on campus and joined a sorority, Delta Delta Delta, the sorority house was a lovely, historic property on McAlpine Street. I wonder if anyone other than Tri Deltas and a few St. Andrews members could even recall today where McAlpine Street was: the Tri Delta House and the street were demolished to build the Annenberg Center.

Just around the corner on Locust Street was a great greasy spoon called Grand’s. Since no meals were served at our small house, we ate many breakfasts and lunches at Grand’s. I don’t recall anyone ever having, or at least admitting, that they had dinner there. It was a place for a quick meal and for running into other students to plan weekend activities and set up study dates. Many a romance and many a rumor started at Grand’s.

During my junior year when the house on McAlpine was about to be knocked down, we were given 3906 Locust Street as our new residence—gone too, and in its place is the Steinberg Conference Center. The brick structure on Locust became the Wharton Graduate Center, after Tri Delta lost its charter in about 1968.

Moving day, from McAlpine to Locust Street (not Walk), was quite a day. To save money the members had to carry lamps, books, chairs, TVs, anything that we could lift, to the new house. It was a gorgeous day, and we were having a good laugh at having to do this handyman work. I spotted one of the little trucks with two facilities-and-maintenance workers chugging up the street and flagged them down. At first they were reluctant to assist, but how could they refuse all of us lugging all this stuff down the street? We enrolled these two guys into our moving program and used the little truck most of the afternoon.

Isn’t it interesting now, all these years later, my recollections are of friends and funny incidents. I can remember going to classes, I can recall a few good professors and I can laugh many times thinking of them.

Mary Ann Greenawalt is president and owner of B&B Specialty Foods in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

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Mireille Lellouche Key CW’62
Never Stop Learning …

To ask me to single out one memory from all the ones that crowd my mind when I think about Penn would be like asking a mother to name her favorite child. But I’ll try … When I think beyond the friends, the extracurricular activities, Philadelphia, the campus, everything I loved about Penn, I always return to this: Penn taught me how to learn and to love learning. It taught me to explore, not only my own inner workings, but those of the world around me.

These gifts have stayed with me all of my life, enabling me to take on challenges that I might never have attempted otherwise. I lived in two different foreign countries, perfecting one language and learning another. I explored new cultures and tested my intellectual, social, and emotional skills.

Always eager to learn, I fulfilled a lifelong desire to work in the creative arts and enrolled at the University of Maryland’s graduate program in theatre. In 1992, I received a Master of Fine Arts in Costume Design. After a successful career as a professional costume designer I have returned to my first professional love, languages.

Thank you, Penn, for showing me that learning is, indeed, a life-long experience, meant to continually challenge our minds and enrich our souls, all the while broadening our horizons so that we may see beyond what is immediate, recognizable, and safe.

Mireille Key is a freelance Swedish and French translator.

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