1990
Many thanks to Monica Davis, who wrote me a wonderfully news-packed letter from Stanford, where she continues her work in the electrical engineering department. She writes, "The light at the end of the Ph.D. tunnel is getting brighter daily, I'm happy to say! I'm hoping to graduate this year with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, focusing on all optical switching in fiber devices." What exactly does that mean? For those of us who majored in history or English, Monica kindly explains: "The basic explanation is that I'd like to have a black box with two optical fibers going into it and two more coming out, and I'd like to send in a signal (message) on one fiber and decide which of the two output paths it takes by sending in a second control light pulse which does stuff inside the black box. Of course, there are lots of requirements on what the black box should really do, which is why it has taken six years to get stuff working out here, but we appear to have gotten at least some of those requirements down, and it looks like they'll let me out sometime soon!"
When Monica is not playing with her black box, she is on the water. She has been rowing with the Stanford Rowing Club for the last five and a half years. At the Golden State Indoor Rowing Championship in Sacramento, she qualified for a free trip to the Boston C.R.A.S.H.-B. World Indoor-Rowing Championships, where she placed fourth overall in the age 30-39 division and second among the lightweight women in that division. (Monica credits turning 30 with part of her success, noting that the qualifying time is approximately 19 seconds easier in the lightweight 30-39 category than in the 19-29, where she was last year.) She also recently purchased sculling blades, which are appropriately painted green and white. Monica filled me in on several of our classmates whom she has seen on her trips back east. Nancy Staab has moved to Boston and is an apartment with her sister Janet '93. She recently began work at an architectural firm in Boston as a writer and is completing her thesis English literature for UNC-Chapel Hill. Cindy Richards was due to graduate from UVA Medical School this spring and move on to a residency in family practice. In December she and Monica and their families completed their annual Christmas tradition: a walk/hike/run in the Hastings, Ardsley, Irvington, N.Y. Cindy recently adopted a three-year-old "border collie-something" mix, which she is training to keep up with her on runs and hikes.
Monica also informed me that Kathy DeWeese is engaged to a lucky guy named Mark (they will be married in June) and will be moving to Atlanta at the end of the school year. She has been working as a middle school librarian in Connecticut for the past two years.
Tracy Gleason writes that she has achieved her dream job as the next assistant professor of the Welleslely College psychology department, "where the people are nice, the terrain is lovely, and the study participants are all just about four years old. Yes indeed.' She adds, "For those of you who live in the Boston area—move over! There goes the neighborhood. As for those of you who ever hope to hear from me again—change your minds. My dissertation is not quite done...(oh, my!)." Congratulations, Tracy!
Finally, I am saddened to report the death of David Blanton. David was the compiler and editor of Queer Notions, a collection of quotations about gayness and gay life, published by Running Press in 1996. The book rose to number one on the Advocate best-seller list, where it remained for eight weeks. David was a political on-air correspondent for Gay USA with Andy Humm on the Gay Cable Network. He was also a frequent guest on such TV and radio programs as PartyTalk, Compose on the Tone, Hard Work with Mike Feder, and Music and More with Leo Stella. At the time of his death David was working on a book tentatively titled TwiceBlessed, meditations, memoirs, and guidance on being both black and gay. At Dartmouth David was part of the World Affairs Council and World Outlook and a member of Alpha Theta/Theta Chi.
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David Blanton was working on a book of meditations and memoirs on being black and gay. ANNA CATHCART HARVEY '90
