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CLASS NOTES
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
the process. In addition, New York
would not be the place I call home
without the friends who make this
city seem a little bit more normal
and a little bit less anonymous,
and who fill it with a lot more love.
Gracias por todos.
“So, without further ado … the
big news is that I am now a father.
In the many ways I am untraditional,
I have once again decided to
forgo the system and do it my own
way. The week before Thanksgiving,
God brought into this world
Jackson Carman Yim, weighing
in at 8 lbs., 3 oz. (And yes, he is
named after the dorm.) He’s a
beautiful lad with my hazel eyes
and his mother’s mocha skin tone.
I couldn’t be happier and do truly
feel like a different man. I don’t
suggest this for all, but sometimes
a baby does solve all problems.”
11
Colin Sullivan
c/o CCT
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
casullivan@gmail.com
I hope this note finds everyone well
and enjoying these early months
of 2013.
As many of you may know, we
lost a member of our class and the
Columbia community a few months
ago. On November 6, Gelseigh
Karl-Cannon passed away in
Denver, after she was hit by a truck
Answers to Lit Hum Quiz
on Inside Back Cover
1. Humanities A.
2. The Iliad, Homer; Inferno,
Dante; Oedipus the King,
Sophocles; and Oresteia,
Aeschylus.
3. Confessions, St. Augustine
(off syllabus in 1942–43);
Essays, Michel de Montaigne
(1960–61); History
of the Peloponnesian War,
Thucydides (1937–38); and
Aeneid, Virgil (1952–53).
4. Jane Austen, whose Pride
and Prejudice has been
taught since 1985–86.
5. Lysistrata, Aristophanes.
6. The Medea, Euripides.
7. Plato and Shakespeare.
8. Bible, Job was added in
1940–41.
9. Metamorphoses, Ovid.
10. Shakespeare: Hamlet, Henry
IV Part I, Henry IV Part II,
King Lear and Twelfth Night.
while cycling. From Hartford,
Conn., Gelseigh majored in environmental
sciences at Columbia
and co-founded the sustainable
cooking group 4local. After graduation,
Gelseigh moved to Denver
to be a nanny for a family with a
disabled father. At this difficult
time, our thoughts are with her
friends and family.
Other members of our class sent
updates on their recent activities.
Nirav Chheda has been “flyin’
high Bombay-style,” living the
good life since he moved to India
several months ago. He works for
MicroEnergy Credits as the program
manager on Bank of India’s
nationwide clean energy project,
which involves providing rural Indians
with loans to purchase clean
energy products (solar lanterns,
efficient cook stoves, water purification
systems) for the generation
of carbon credits through pollution
offsets.
Simone Foxman enjoys her
new job as a financial journalist at
Quartz (qz.com), a new global, digital
business publication from The
Atlantic. She and Benjamin Clark,
who’s a 2L at NYU law, decided to
finally ditch Manhattan and move
to Williamsburg, which they love.
Nicole Catá is in her second
year at The George Washington
University Law School, where she
is a member of The George Washington
International Law Review and
a research assistant for professor
Thomas Buergenthal. Although
she will be in school for a few more
semesters, she hopes to devote
her career to advancing the rights
of women and girls throughout
the world. This summer, she will
marry her high school sweetheart,
Ben Theodore, in their home state
of New York.
Congratulations to Nicole!
Also in Washington, D.C., is
Josefina Aguila, who is a 1L at
Georgetown Law.
Keeping the theme going is Zila
Acosta, who left Goldman Sachs to
attend the Law School. At the time
of writing these notes, he was in
the midst of first semester finals.
Luanda Garcia is a secondyear
corps member in Teach For
America, teaching kindergarten in
Atlanta.
Lety ElNaggar writes, “I’ve
been in Egypt since late October on
a Fulbright Scholarship to study
the nay and kawala, reed flutes
that have been performed in traditional
Egyptian/Arab music since
the age of the pharaohs (they have
actually found these instruments in
ancient Egyptian tombs, and they
are played from Morocco to Iraq).
I’m studying these flutes as they’re
performed and taught in folkloric
and classical music contexts and
have been keeping a blog about
my experiences: letymakesmusic.
tumblr.com.”
12
Sarah Chai
c/o CCT
Columbia Alumni Center
622 W. 113th St., MC 4530
New York, NY 10025
sarahbchai@gmail.com
Class of 2012, our amazing classmates
are making big moves both
abroad and in the United States.
In late November, Rebecca
Chan attended the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change
Conference of the Parties in Doha,
Qatar, as a delegate with Sustain-
US, an organization focused on
youth and sustainable development.
There, she was proud to be a
part of modern Qatar’s first public
protest and the first climate rally
in a gulf state. She also co-wrote a
speech delivered on behalf of international
youth before the full plenary
of ministers from around the
world. Rebecca worked with her
team to use the international stage
to highlight the issue of climate
change here at home, recognizing
that building a domestic climate
movement is the most promising
way to shift the United States’ currently
obstructionist stance in the
negotiations.
David Zhu is working in Hong
Kong for Goldman Sachs IBD.
He attended President Lee C.
Bollinger’s Hong Kong reception
in October. He is involved with
the Columbia University Alumni
Association Hong Kong, already
having organized a recent graduates
gathering with CUAAHK
V.P. Danny Lee ’95 as well as the
annual Christmas Party. David
invites anyone in the Class of 2012
in Hong Kong to reach out to him.
Jesus Madrid reports from
Puerto Rico: “Since leaving our beloved
alma mater, I’ve been working
with the Cayo Santiago colony
of free-ranging rhesus macaques
in Puerto Rico, where I’m a field
manager for a project from the University
of Chicago investigating
variations of maternal behavior.
One of the advantages of living on
a Caribbean island is that I get to
host friends such as Chithra Venkatesan
’12E, Shoshana Spellman
’12E and Anna Brown ’12 Barnard
in my beachfront apartment. With
that, I urge friends to please visit
me before September!”
Nora Dooley is spending a year
in South Africa as an intern for
Grassroot Soccer (GRS), an NGO
that uses the power of soccer to
stop the spread of HIV, both by
working in communities all over
sub-Saharan Africa and with partners
across the globe. She encourages
classmates to explore ways to
become involved by checking out
her blog (dooley-noted-southafrica.
blogspot.com), which she runs for
GRS (grassroot-soccer-kimberley.
blogspot.com) and her Twitter
feed, @GRSKimberley.
Gillian Rhodes’ plan to stay in
Cambodia for eight months is becoming
a much longer adventure,
as she now has a job choreographing
for the Cambodian Television
Network, the No. 1 television
company in the country.
Detroit has become an unlikely
home away from home for the
Class of 2012. Derek Turner and
Todd Nelson are “living it up
downtown as Venture for America
Fellows and hosting such luminaries
as Jason Han (interviewing for
medical school as of this writing)
and Mark Hay (before he hopped
across the pond to start his studies
at Oxford). Our doors remain open
for those 2012ers curious about the
Motor City!”
In the months leading up to the
presidential election, Dominique
Mann was hired to work on President
Barack Obama ’83’s re-election
campaign in communications at the
national headquarters in Chicago.
She was in charge of the national
Hispanic media operation. She
shares, “I landed that job because
Columbia’s Alumni & Parent Internship
Fund supported my stay in
Washington, D.C., so I could intern
at the White House during summer
2011. I want to show my gratitude
by including this in Class Notes.”
Brenda P. Salinas was accepted
as one of three Kroc Fellows at National
Public Radio. She is proud
to be among the WKCR alumni to
pursue a career in public radio and
encourages us to listen for her.
Pat Blute is excited to be the
Harwich H.S. (Cape Cod, Mass.)
graduation speaker this summer.
He currently is in Seattle doing
freelance movie editing.
Veronica Hylton, who has
returned to Columbia as a coordinator
in the American Studies department
and lives with Columbia
roommates, attended her department’s
staff and faculty holiday
party in December. She also ran in
President Lee C. Bollinger’s Fun
Run for the first time, writing,
“Glad I finally had a chance, as I
was too lazy as a student!”
Paul Hsiao lives with Eric Tang
’12E and Eric Chung ’12E on the
Upper East Side. They live near
Haenna Lee, Anupriya Kohli and
Sarah Gordon ’12E. Paul invites
the class to let him know if anyone
is in the neighborhood.
Some of our classmates have
returned to school.
Willie Avendano ’12E has
enrolled at Florida International
University in Miami for a second
bachelor’s (this time in elemen-
tary education). He’s working
part-time with La Camaronera
food truck so he invites the class
to “stop by if you’re in town!”
Willie is looking forward to a trip
to Orlando next summer.
Celine Pascheles started her
first year at Stony Brook University
School of Medicine. She loves it
and is living her dream of becoming
a doctor.
Kelicia Hollis sent an update
from Ann Arbor, Mich.: “Transitioning
from the bustling vibrancy
of being an undergraduate in
New York City to my suburban
college-town graduate student life
in Ann Arbor has been smooth. I’m
definitely caught in the maize-andblue
fever that other UMich fans
have, and I love my department in
the School of Education.
“Yet, even as I’m adding another
layer to my identity, Columbia
still leaves its mark through the
friends that I (try to!) catch up with
from time to time, the Columbia
backpack that I’ve finally started
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using after four years of sitting
in dorm room closets (I was a
shoulder-bag kind of girl) and the
Columbia crown pendant that I got
as a freebie at a senior 2012 event
and which is hanging on a chain
around my neck as I type.
“My Columbia experience was
a mix of the good, the great, the
bad and sometimes the I-don’teven-have-the-words-to-dealwith-this.
But it was an experience
that certainly contributed to my
personal development, furthered
my sense of independence and
added a complexity of thought
and experience both inside and
outside of the classroom. I pray
that all is well with my classmates,
and that our lives are not only
full of good intentions but filled
with love, respect and compassion
for ourselves and others. I look
forward to witnessing the greatness
of our impact in the coming
years!”
1. Plato
2. Swift
3. Goethe
4. Sophocles
5. Montaigne
6. Sappho
7. Ovid
8. Rabelais
9. Austen
10. Euripides
11. Dostoevsky
12. Thucydides
13. Voltaire
14. Cervantes
15. Virgil
16. Aeschylus
17. Herodotus
18. St. Augustine
19. Woolf
20. Dante
21. Shakespeare
22. Homer
23. Alma Mater
ADVENTURES
RUNNING TRIPS NORTHWEST leads all-inclusive trips in WA state. Check us
out at runningtripsnorthwest.com!
RENTALS
Historic Jekyll Island, Georgia. 4BR cottage near beach. Weekly. Bingham ’65
CC. 732-571-0552, jekyllrental.com.
Naples, Fla: Luxury condominium overlooking Gulf, two-month minimum,
802-524-2108, James Levy ‘65CC, ‘68L.
ACADIA NATIONAL PARK: 8 bedroom 7.5 bathroom waterfront estate in
Northeast Harbor with pier and deep water moorings. Monthly, May through
October. neh2012@hmamail.com, 650-450-8413.
FOR SALE
RARE set of 14 Lenox Columbia plates, mint condition, $950. ‘52CC grad,
845-534-9317.
SERVICES
MUSIC THEORY/COMPOSITION ASCAP Award recipient (Columbia/Mannes)
available to teach/tutor in NYC. All ages welcome. References on request.
Please email teddypoll@gmail.com.
Key to Alumni Corner
on Page 96
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SPRING 2013
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SPRING 2013
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