Reunion 2014 Reunion

Saturday, May 31, 2014

During Part 2 of this double session, Cyril M.(Kim) Hetsko ’64, M.D., clinical professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, will discuss 50 years of health care reform, from Medicare’s adoption in 1965 to the Affordable Care Act. Following his presentation, the panel will offer additional perspectives on health care reform and will engage the audience in a discussion of other changes in medical care over 50 years. Panelists include Dr. Thomas P. Jacobs ’64, professor of medicine, Columbia University; Dr. Appleton (Tony) Mason ’64, associate professor, Albany Medical College, family medicine, geriatrics, hospice and palliative care; Robert M. Krughoff ’64, president, Consumers’ CHECKBOOK; and Charles (Smokey) Stover ’64, former commissioner, Massachusetts Rate Setting Commission. Topics will include Tom Jacobs on other significant changes in medicine; Tony Mason on anticipating end-of-life care with living wills, health care proxies and explicit goals; and Smokey Stover on health care reform from the Massachusetts perspective. Presented by the Class of 1964.

Friday, May 30, 2014

Friday, May 30, 2014

An exploration of how five members of the 50th Reunion class have invested their time and talents as they continue to pursue their passions. What they are doing now and why? The panel includes Steve Downs ’64, executive director, National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms; Bank Greene ’64, pastoral counselor; Donald Lombardi ’64, CEO, Institute for Pediatric Innovation; Barry Palmer ’64, visiting instructor, University of Toledo; and Chuck Lewis ’64, chairman, Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation (moderator). Presented by the Class of 1964.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Our environmental legacy will include major climate change. The Class of 1964 has challenged itself to address this by forming a “problem-solving team” to discuss options and make recommendations. Team members will frame the issue and report on their discussions. Jim Brassord, Amherst’s director of facilities, will share with us what Amherst has been doing to “green” the campus, including initiatives undertaken through the efforts of two members of the Class of 1964. The panel includes Jesse Brill ’64, chair of NASPP and CompensationStandards.com and publisher at Executive Press; Gordon Richardson ’64, principal, TechRich Consulting; Burt Sonenstein ’64, former chief financial and investment officer at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Wellesley College and Wesleyan University; and Paul Stern ’64, senior scholar, Board on Environmental Change and Society, National Research Council. Presented by the Class of 1964.

Friday, May 30, 2014

This program explored the last 50 years of struggle for the rights of the individual. Tom Kelley ’69 discussed the protection of satire, noting, among other cases, the Hustler Magazine v. Falwell Supreme Court case. Dan Goldstein ’69 addressed disability rights with respect to access to technology—”the hidden civil rights battle.” Dr. Tuffy Simpkins ’69 addressed patient rights in health care reform and the special role of the physician-patient relationship. The panel was moderated by Michael Kraemer ’69. Presented by the Class of 1969.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

The sketches of his patients and the poetry he creates based on their histories have made Dr. Alan Blum '69 a popular speaker at previous reunions. Composer Emory Waters '69 has created a quasi-operatic piece using stories and sketches from Dr. Blum's books Ladies in Waiting, Gentle Men and Seeing Patients. See and hear the piece performed live with musicians, narration and video images. Presented by the Class of 1969.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Specialists in orthopedics, cardiology and neurology discuss advances in their fields that have made growing old a little easier than it used to be—and they look ahead to developments already on the horizon. Speakers include Dr. William L. Healy ’74, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Newton-Wellesley Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital; Dr. Robert P. Reichsten ’74, assistant clinical professor, cardiology, Mount Sinai Hospital; and Dr. David F. Long ’74, Brain Injury Program, Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital. Presented by the Class of 1974.

Friday, May 30, 2014

National Geographic adventure photographer Gordon Wiltsie ’74 describes the profound challenges he has faced adapting to digital imagery, the Internet and social media. His pictures and stories have been a perennial Reunion favorite. Presented by the Class of 1974.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Catherine Sanderson, the James E. Ostendarp Professor of Psychology, presents both surprising and not-so-surprising information on the science behind happiness. What role do money, marriage, friends, children, weather and religion play in making us feel happier? Is happiness stable over time? How can happiness be increased? Professor Sanderson describes cutting-edge research from the field of positive psychology on the factors that do (and do not) predict happiness, and provides participants with practical (and relatively easy!) ways to increase their own psychological well-being. Moderated by Jill Wilcox Still ’79, managing consultant for The Savitz Organization in Philadelphia. Presented by the Class of 1979.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Ranging from the film Gravity to the Toronto Film Festival, from Margaret Thatcher to Plato, Richard Ledes ’79, award-winning American filmmaker and writer, will look at the present state of independent cinema and democracies around the globe and propose ways we can think of them as connected. Founding his argument on Plato’s allied critiques of poetry and democracy, he argues that oligarchies of wealth are suppressing experiments in the reinvention of democracy and, likewise, the democratic role of the arts, cinema in particular. He looks at film as a form of production that is being decimated as a means of making a living at the same time that video cameras have become ubiquitous. By supporting a viable cultural life for cinema, Ledes argues, we can assist in the liberation of our democracy from the stagnant hold of a self-defeating oligarchy of finance capital. Amelie Hastie, professor of English and film and media studies and chair of film and media studies, will serve as moderator. Presented by the Class of 1979.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

NASA’s High-Altitude Balloon Program provides game-changing access to near space. Balloons as large as a cubic football field can carry heavy payloads to altitudes of 125,000 feet, above 99.5 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere, for less than 5 percent of the cost of a traditional rocket launch. One recent balloon mission was BRRISON (Balloon Rapid Response for Comet ISON), a $12 million mission to study the composition of the sungrazing comet ISON. Dr. Eliot Young ’84 was the principal investigator of the ultraviolet and visible instruments on the BRRISON payload. He will talk about what went right and what went wrong with the BRRISON mission, and some possibilities for what might come next. Presented by the Class of 1984.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

As a knowledge expert at McKinsey & Co., Jeff Thompson ’84 has been part of McKinsey’s effort to understand the societal and business implications of self-driving car technology. Max Hall ’84 is an engineer and high school science teacher. Join them to find out more about self-driving car technology, the roll-out period (it’s already started), the projected year of the first fully autonomous vehicle and how self-driving cars might affect us all. Presented by the Class of 1984.

Friday, May 30, 2014

Five Class of 1984 alumni in the arts, who every day confront the clash, compatibility, exhilaration or insignificance of technology in their work, will consider the role technological advancement has played in their professional lives. Panelists are Ezra Barnes, actor and director (Breakfast with Mugabe); Harlan Coben, author of mystery novels and thrillers (Tell No One, Six Years); Susannah Grant, screenwriter and director (Ever After, Erin Brokovich); Allan Rosenfeld, clarinetist (Charlotte Symphony Orchestra); and Perrin Stein, curator (Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art). Brooke Kamin Rapaport, senior curator (Madison Square Park Conservancy), will moderate. Presented by the Class of 1984.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Pam Allyn ’84, founding director of LitWorld, and Kate Seelye ’84, senior vice president of the Middle East Institute, will draw upon their experiences working with and reporting on youth in countries from the Philippines to Saudi Arabia to examine how new media and digital storytelling have empowered long-marginalized communities and allowed them to shape alternative narratives. Amherst College Professor Marisa Parham, who is also director of Five College Digital Humanities, will moderate this discussion. In the Arab world, new tools like Twitter and Facebook have allowed young people to organize and stand up to authoritarian regimes. In countries like Kenya, Haiti and Pakistan, access to the Internet and online learning are helping to eradicate illiteracy and to raise the power of young people’s voices to campaign for gender equity and children’s rights. Allyn and Seelye will examine how young voices for change are contributing to reform in developing countries, while at the same time continuing to struggle against long-standing challenges like authoritarianism, corruption and injustice. The speakers will examine the power and limitations of narrative in the digital age, as well as the role that the West plays in validating certain voices and communities. Presented by the Class of 1984.

Saturday, May 31, 2014

A workforce strategist in the CIA, a foreign aid executive from the U.N. and a security studies professor from Georgetown walk into a bar—a panel, that is—had a lively discussion about myths and misperceptions in the world of foreign policy. Panelists were Abbey Marks Gardner ’89, who serves as senior adviser on aid delivery for Dr. Paul Farmer’s Aid Delivery Support Initiative; Kristin Bertelli ’89, the deputy chief of workforce strategy and planning in the Central Intelligence Agency; and Daniel Byman ’89, professor of security studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the research director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Presented by the Class of 1989.