Grads

I would like to remind all MALS alumni of the annual luncheon and meeting of the MALS Alumni Association on Wednesday, July 13. The event will be held at noon in the Hayward Lounge at the Hanover Inn. All MALS alumni, faculty members and current students are invited to attend, eat, chat and listen. Please call the MALS office for a reservation: (603) 646- 3592. This year's speaker will be Barbara Kreiger. She is well known to most MALS alumni for her nearly 20 years of teaching creative writing in the program. Dr. Kreiger recently returned from Rome, where she spent a year working and studying on a Fulbright grant. We are all looking forward to hearing Dr. Kreiger s subtle insight and humor applied to her experiences of living in Italy and teaching at the University of Rome, while working on her own nonfiction project. A business meeting will follow the program. If you are interested in hearing about or helping with the activities sponsored by the alumni association, please plan on joining us.

The following Saturday, July 16, Frank Anthony (MALS'84) will present his New England Writers' Conference in Windsor, Vermont. This annual event is a stimulating day of workshops and talks by writers, poets and educators. The public is invited. For details on this year's theme and speakers, contact Frank: newvtpoet@aol. com.

My most prolific correspondent has been Seth Podolsky (ECS'98), past president of the Arts and Sciences Graduate Alumni Association of Dartmouth. Seth had kept me abreast of his plans to graduate from medical school at the University of Vermont and begin a residency in emergency medicine. Suddenly I received an e-mail from Seth in Thailand. He composed a haiku for each day of the week he was there. This was followed by a message, in iambic pentameter, from Vietnam and then a message from Cambodia, back to haiku. Seth reports that the wentto Southeast Asia both to work and play. He was enjoying the scenery, elephant rides and kite fights but was very frustrated that his efforts to volunteer his help in both Vietnam and Cambodia were rebuffed. I don't know where his travels are taking him next or whether his beard will be coming along; but I do know that when he returns, he intends to begin his residency in emergency medicine at the New York Medical College.

Lois Kerr (MALS'84) turned her lifelong fascination with China into a class for juniors and seniors at Lebanon High School in Lebanon, New Hampshire. The idea for her course, "China: History, Culture and Language," took form in 1997 with funding from the Freeman Foundation, which helped her develop a curriculum and assemble materials to teach about China to high school students. Her efforts culminated in a trip to China in 1998, and Lois began teaching the course in 2000. In addition to teaching history, culture and language, she has brought in an art teacher to help the students with calligraphy, landscape painting and modeling terra cotta figures. Lois is still excited about her course and its development, which she describes as "the opportunity of a lifetime." With an undergraduate major in Asian studies, Lois came to Dartmouth for Chinese language courses and then entered the MALS program. She wrote her MALS thesis on the history of the women's movement in China. This contains an annotated bibliography of source materials, which Lois fondly points out was compiled before the era of the Internet. It is obvious to me that her students are fortunate to be benefiting from Lois' enthusiasm for China and her long journey in bringing her favorite subject to them.

175 Greensboro Road, Hanover, NH03755; (603) 643-3789; m.janewelshadv98@alum.dartmouth.org