Life After Connecticut College

I recently started a program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design called Career Discovery. I’m studying Landscape Architecture for 6 weeks of my summer. The first grueling two weeks are over. I almost did not make it. I’ve learned a lot, but am getting flash backs of Conn. Coll. finals everyday.

The program is interesting because it draws people with different backgrounds, in all different parts of their career paths. There are high school seniors and folks who’ve been out of college for 10 years. It’s an engaging environment with lots of cool people.

While I’ve been in Boston I’ve had the pleasure of running around with Dalin Chan and Sara Jayanthi (housefellow Teammate) playing trivia in bars and checking out DNA splicing machines, but not at the same time (unfortunately). I also crashed into Jamie “”the” Pepper. With all the Conn. people, and the work, and Bars as my only save haven, I feel like I’m right back in college. Unfortunately, I’ve not had anytime to really explore Boston. Harvard keeps me chained to my drawing desk, hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll pick the lock and hit up some Boston music scene.

Just before coming to Boston I stopped at Northfield Mount Hermon in western Mass. for my 5th year reunion. I was most scared of not recognizing some one who had been a good friend and having to pretend I remembered them the whole weekend. Luckily I did pretty well. I felt old, because 5th year reunion always seemed so far away, and then there it was. Nevertheless, it was a blast. I ran in to folks I had not seen in 5 years. Oddly, most people had not changed at all. No one I knew had kids yet or was married. But it turned out to be a great time catching up with some people who had dramatically changed my life before I came to Conn.

Lessons learned: Harvard is an academic boot camp, 5 Year reunion is about maintaining dignity.

Posted by Ross Jordan at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey Guys,

We've made some very nice progress with our giving drive since my last post! We're up to 41.6% and only need gifts from 40 more people in order to become the first class EVER to break 50% participation our first year after graduating! Don't forget to visit http://giving.conncoll.edu by June 30 in order to be a part of the success. Just like last year, even a dollar will do it, and this goes for all the alums out there, not just Class of 2007!

New Class of 2007 donors since my last update:

Eve Bertin-Lang
Nate Borgelt
Jessie Cheitlin
Christine Cruz
Vickie Curtis
Justin Eddings
Emily Gagen
Sam Garner
Rose Golder-Novick
Sara Jayanthi
Daniel Layfield
Jenny Madden
Neil McGowan
Jon McManus
Alexis Meisels
David Owyang
Tyler Pace
Jaime Pepper
Caeli Rubens
Melissa Skolnick
Zach Smith
Elaine Weisman

Posted by Chris Reilly at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey Everyone,

It's that time of year! Conn's fiscal year is closing in about 3 weeks, and I want every member of the Class of 2007 to visit http://giving.conncoll.edu and make a gift before that time so that we can show the College that we're serious about creating a new tradition of consistent young alumni giving. Fortunately, we're still all about the participation, so keep those $1, $5, and $20 gifts coming in! Currently we're at about 37% participation, which is good, but we can DEFINITELY hit at least 50%!!! Here's a list of everybody in the class who's already made a gift:

Keith Anthony-Brown
George Arab
Sarah Armstrong
Lucy Arnold
Leah Barison
Emily Barry
Meghan Barry
Peter Baum
Laura Bernardi
Jessica Bethoney
Michelle Blankenship
Avery Block
Meredith Block
Chris Bothur
Katherine Brant
Caitlin Bresnahan
Laura Brown
Sarah Butler
Indy Buttenwieser
Kathleen Callaghan
Jason Carey
Kristin Chapman
Elizabeth Charpie
Solomon Choge
Ben Clopper
Katie Coats
Tes Cohen
Jess Comras
Chrissy Cooper-Vince
Caley Corsello
Liz Cryan
Rachel D'Agostino
Sophia Day
Zumara De la Cruz
Daniel De Sousa
Jed Dederick
Andy Deitz
Dani DeLaurentis
Adam Deligianis
Maria Dewees
Tina Dietrich
Jennifer Dillon
Kip Doble
Connor Donohue
Scott Faber
Brittany Fallon
Alex Feinstein
Sarah Felch
Bailey Fidler
Kevin Finefrock
Amber Fitch
Sophie Fitzgerald
Soren Gabrielsen
Rachel Gallitto
Henry Gaud
Joanna Gillia
Christiana Glas
Ally Glassman
Megan Glendon
Molly Goettsche
Art Gould
Lindsay Graff
David Greenidge
Liz Greenman
Marissa Grey
Jess Grossi
Ga-Nesha Hamilton
Cornelius Hardenbergh
Emma Haritos
Pat Heffernan
Sara Helstowski
Jake Henry
Yeslan Hernandez
Nate Hinman
Kristin Hocevar
Tana Hoffman
Grant Hogan
Emily Honstein
Dana Hoyt
Laura Irizarry-Garcia
Vassi Ivanova
Hans Jensen
Ross Jordan
Ryan Kelley
Fred Kemper
James Knurek
Bob Kyne
Donna Lanphear
Alex Lanstein
Amanda Laramie
Michele Lefkowitz
Robbie Logan
Whitney Longworth
Matt Magida
David Markham-Gessner
Amy Martin
Mike Materasso
Alex Maybury
Craig McCarrick
Megan McCarthy
Andrew McCullough
Meg McLaughlin
Justine Miller
Alissa Minot
Justin Morrow
Brenna Muller
Rysia Murphy
Visna Ngov
Micki Oliva
Kyle Olson
Mike O'Neill
Matt Ostrach
Andrea Packard
Soraya Palmer
Elizabeth Parillo
Natalie Paris
Ellen Paul
Beth Pearson
Teresa Pereira
Cammie Phelps
Adam Phillips
Evan Piekara
Jon Pisarski
Amanda Poe
Alex Rehnberg
Chris Reilly
Allison Reynolds
Mollie Reznick
Kimberly Richards
Alyson Ricker
Nick Rivera
Adam Robbins
Melanie Roberts
Beth Rodgers
Adam Romanow
Justin Rosenberg
Alexander Rotolo
Amanda Rowell
Nick Roybal
Rosemary Rutan
Amy Samuel
Meaghan Seelaus
Benjamin Sheldon
Ilya Simakov
T.J. Sliker
Allie Smith
Nicholas Socha
Seth Solway
Greg Sowa
Christopher St. John
Peter Sterling
Alex Stillson
Steven Strauss
Charley Struse
Brenna Sulat
Erin Sullivan
Cait Sweet
Jesse Szafarz
Alyssa Tartaglione
Sasha Terris-Maes
Will Thayer
Katie Tripple
Marissa Velarde
Amanda Wallas
Lisa Warren
Alice Watson
Alan Weene
Stefanie Weiss
Ingrid Wenzler
Katy Whitney
Katie Williams
Gerald Wols
Bradley Wray
Laz Yiannos
Tyler Youngblood
Allison Zelman
Jessica Zhao

Thanks for your support, everybody! If you're not on this list, BREAK OUT THAT CREDIT CARD AND GO ONLINE TO http://giving.conncoll.edu TODAY!!!

Posted by Chris Reilly at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since my last blog I have finished up my semester, taken a ten day break at home, started up a new semester, and had someone pee on my car...while I was in it. As always, it has been pretty eventful.

My semester ended up well, but I can't say that I absolutely love exam time. I had three sizable papers and a 48-hour take-home final for my law class. My first paper was on the ethical obligations of television dramas to portray accurate scientific and medical information to the public if it's conceivable to do so. Meaning, that if the information exists television dramas cannot just make things up because, in many cases, it becomes a hazard to public health. It was certainly a fun and interesting paper to write, but it had it's shortcomings. The take-home message of our paper is that television dramas, at the very least, have an obligation to offer a balanced view of controversial issues so as to not completely misinform the public. The reason why this is so important is because a significant portion of Americans do not have the reading comprehension levels to get information elsewhere and are essentially at the mercy of what the television tells them. And, especially with TV dramas, people think what they're seeing is an accurate portrayal of what actually happens.

My next paper was for my narrative ethics class. For this paper I designed a medical ethics teambuilding program for clinical teams in a hospital setting. The goal of the exercise was to build a positive and respectful atmosphere for everyone on a clinical team and teach everyone on the clinical team to value the varied moral perspectives of others in order to expand the narrative of the patient. The exercise essentially involves clinical teams reading and discussing short doctor or patient narratives and attempting to glean all the possible moral considerations that may or may not be in the narrative. Hopefully, the members of the clinical team will use what they learn and apply it to the hospital setting. This is just a rough sketch of the teambuilding exercise, but you get the idea.

My third paper was for my moral philosophy class. I'll spare everyone the details on this one (because they weren't my own ideas!). Basically, what we had to do was discuss the narrative movement in bioethics and how understanding narratives and stories contributes to medical ethics. Interesting and important stuff, so good thing I took a whole class on it.

AND finally, my 48-hour champion law school exam. It was a typical law school exam (or so I'm told) that involved a fact pattern question and theory question. The fact pattern question involved analyzing a fake public health policy, offering all the legal objections, and making policy suggestions to make the policy legally and socially more acceptable. The theory question allotted us 2500 words to create a coherent theory of public health and two examples of this theory in action. As my professor later told me, if you can come up with a legitimate theory of public health in 2500 words then you have the potential for a bright career in public health! Well hooray for that. Naw, I like public health, and so do you! Next time, she should probably give us something that's possible within the word limits.

THEN, I went home and had some fun in the Midwestern behemoth, Chicago, with former camel Emily Gagen. There was also a sizable amount of merriment in my Midwestern gem, Milwaukee! That's right, it's my gem. More on that next time.

Oh yeah, someone really did pee on my car in Philly, but I'll talk about that next time too. It gives everyone something to look forward to. Stay smelly camels!

Posted by Sam Garner at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After an entire year of preparation, countless conference calls, endless planning sessions, and an innumerable number of hiccups and obstacles, Reunion 2008 has finally come and gone! It took place this past Friday through Sunday, and it was even more hectic and busy than I remember from last year (it could also be that I was actually getting work done this time around). I somehow managed to put in 41 hours over the course of the three days, and in fact I was so busy that I didn't get a chance to have even a single drink with any of the alumni!

Despite my complaining, there were many more positive things about the weekend than there were negatives....

....Squarely on the positive side was that I finally got to meet the four-month-old baby of Molly Taylor '98, one of our most dedicated and reliable alumni volunteers. Though I had already seen pictures of him, I was still taken aback by how cute the little guy was! All in all there was a sizable number of children of alumni on campus, including quite a contingent of teenagers. I don't claim to have all the answers when it comes to parenting (although I am raising Mitch and Julia Stiles's lovechild Moonglow pretty much single-handedly), but it seems obvious to me that bringing a fifteen-year-old or two along with you as you get drunk with the people you used to get drunk with 30 years ago isn't going to turn out to be fun for anyone involved. Another plus of the weekend is that I scored about 100 free beers to take home! The College is able to return any unused beverages to the liquor store but only as long as they are still in the original packaging. That means all individuals bottles of beer that have exited their 6- or 12-pack boxes were up for grabs! Hauling all of them up a flight of stairs when I got back to my apartment wasn't fun, but my hard work has definitely been worthwhile; drinking for free on a deck definitely tastes like freedom!

WIth Reunion behind us, 4:00 hours have officially started in our office, which means that we get to leave a little early and dress more casually until the students return to campus in August. That means I'm wearing jeans right now (shh, I'm not blogging at work, don't be ridiculous) and will be headed for home in a mere 94 minutes. I proposed earlier today that we instate 2:00 hours for the summer, but unfortunately the idea has yet to gain any momentum.

This weekend, I've got a couple WTF shows (Portsmouth, NH tomorrow and NYC on Saturday) as well as a new apartment party that Mitch and I are throwing on Sunday. If you're in the area for any of them, I hope to see you there!

Posted by Chris Reilly at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)