A differentiated dean
Living cells divide, develop, and differentiate themselves. Biologist Ralph Quatrano ’62 has made a livelihood studying that process. Development and differentiation are also apt metaphors to describe his career path, which has led him to his new job as Washington University’s dean of engineering and applied science.


(photo by Joe Angeles, director of photographic services, Washington University)

    Quatrano always knew he wanted to be an educator. He played football and lacrosse while taking biology courses at Colgate, intending to coach and teach at the high school level. But as he ran on the turf and studied in the lab, he caught the research bug — “the excitement of knowing something that no one else knows at a particular time,” he said.
    He earned his bachelor’s degree in botany, then went on to Ohio University to work on a master’s, still convinced that his future was waiting in a high school classroom. But an adviser convinced him to make one last stop: the PhD program at Yale. Quatrano packed his bags for New Haven, and a scientist was born.
    As Quatrano’s understanding of biology and botany developed with each new degree, he began to differentiate himself from his peers by embracing interdisciplinary research opportunities and excelling at the role of scholar-teacher.
    He took his doctorate to Oregon State University, where he earned the Carter Award, given annually to an “Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher of Science.” This was just the first of many honors that decorate Quatrano’s walls.
    “I always had undergraduates or high school students in my lab,” he said, “because I feel that’s where you get your first taste of the hills and valleys of research.”
    Quatrano has surveyed the terrain from a number of perspectives: as a professor and founding director of the Center for Gene Research and Biotechnology at Oregon State University in the ’70s, as molecular biology research manager at Du Pont in the mid-’80s, and as biology department chair at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and at Washington University in the ’90s. More recently, he has served as interim dean of arts and sciences at Washington University.
    In his new role as engineering and applied science dean, Quatrano is preaching the gospel of close cooperation, noting that the ties between engineering, physical sciences, and life sciences are becoming tighter every semester. He knows it from his experience in private industry, and he has seen it on campus while coordinating a longstanding Washington/Monsanto research partnership.
    Quatrano is also cooperating with Colgate. Using funds from a National Science Foundation grant, he has established a link with his alma mater and with former protégé Ken Belanger, Colgate’s Raab Family Associate Professor of biology.
    “Ken was one of the best post-doc fellows I ever had at Chapel Hill,” said Quatrano. Collaboration between their labs brings Colgate undergrads to St. Louis to do research and Washington University professors to Hamilton to deliver lectures.
    For Quatrano, it’s a perfect way to perpetuate the cycle that has allowed him to distinguish himself from other biologists of his generation. “I was an undergrad at Colgate in the early ’60s, and now one of my students is teaching similar undergrads at Colgate. It’s a wonderful reward to see something like that happen.”

— Mark Walden


Simple twist of fate
While running a cross country race in high school, Frank Meyer ’73 slipped and fell, hitting his head. When he got up, his vision was blurry, but Meyer thought he would shake it off. His vision dissipated, and after a visit to the ophthalmologist, he learned that his retinas were dislodged. Meyer went blind. But the limitations he experienced because of his vision loss have led to his strength as a guitar player — a pastime that has come to strike a major chord in his life.


Frank Meyer ’73 and partner Siobhan McGuire are the folk duo Meyer and McGuire

    “There are a lot of activities that I can’t do, so I’ve devoted more to music than most other people because I have more time to do it,” said Meyer, who is half of the folk-music duo Meyer and McGuire. 
    Growing up in Saugerties, N.Y., right up the road from Woodstock, Meyer and his friends caught the music bug and were captivated by performers like Bob Dylan and The Band, who often hung out in the area. After learning a few chords from his high school buddies, Meyer continued to hone his musical talents at Colgate while living in the Theta Chi house. “I was a social person, but I wasn’t a partier, so I had a lot of time that I spent learning music.” 
    The growing popularity of anti-war folk songs during the heat of the Vietnam War shaped Meyer’s repertoire. Strongly influenced by Dylan, Meyer also learned to play the harmonica, which he uses to fill in the melody while playing acoustic guitar.
    A literature major, Meyer was inspired by the transcendental writers, such as Emerson and Thoreau. He describes the first song he ever wrote while at Colgate as “Emersonian acquiescence.” The song, called “Crystals,” is about the flashing stars that he constantly sees. Those “crystals” can change hue, as he sings in the chorus: “Sometimes the crystals they come up blue; sometimes they come up gray.” Meyer explained, “Because my optic nerve is still alive, light is refracting off of the tiny bits of retina that are still along the back of my eye and sending those light impulses to my brain.” 
    Meyer said his fraternity brothers took notice of his musical abilities, and word spread to the proprietor of Agora Coffeehouse, which was located in the chapel basement. Although he had never performed live before, he accepted the offer to play at Agora. “That night, I learned that, for me, nothing tops being able to use music to open the hearts and souls of people,” he recalls in the autobiography on his website.  What became regular gigs at the coffeehouse were the start of Meyer’s performing career.   
    After graduating from Colgate, Meyer accepted a position teaching high school English at Canandaigua Academy in New York. He took a hiatus from performing, but still played his guitar and used it as a teaching aid in the classroom. Again, word of mouth got Meyer back into performing when one of his students recommended him to a local venue, Marymac’s Fish Shanty. “One thing led to another, and I just kept doing it on weekends all through my teaching career,” said Meyer, who retired from Canandaigua Academy in 2006.
    Since 1982, his act — and his life — have been completed by his partner Siobhan McGuire, who plays acoustic bass. Like a good harmony, they complement each other when writing music. Meyer carves out the verse and chorus, and McGuire refines the song with suggestions on word choice and other adjustments. Modern technology has made life much easier for Meyer, who uses a laptop and synthesizer to compose before the duo fine-tunes a song on their instruments. 
    Meyer and McGuire are booked every weekend at performance venues in the Canandaigua area. They have released three albums and numerous singles. Their newest CD, The Road Less Traveled, can be heard and downloaded at www.meyerandmcguire.com.

— Aleta Mayne


Daily special: a play
Two evenings a week for several years, Josh Faigen ’75 drove his son from Newburyport to Rowley, Mass., to study with a tutor who lived near the Agawam Diner. During the session, Faigen would go in for coffee.



    “This is the best place you can spend an hour when you don’t have anything else to do,” Faigen said in an interview at the diner.
    “He used to sit there and drink coffee and have pie and not say much,” said Angela Galanis Mitchell, an Agawam waitress for 21 years and part of the family that has owned it since 1940. She didn’t know much about Faigen, but, she said, “I knew he was observing.’’
    Faigen is a playwright. And, yes, he was taking note of everything going on in the 54-seat diner, so that he could write about it. His play, The Agawam, was performed at The Actors Studio in Newburyport April 8–25.
    “This is an infinite resource for writers,’’ Faigen said. “Everybody here is really welcoming and they have never been surprised by anything, ever. Stuff happens in here. It’s the zeitgeist of this place.’’
    He recalled an older man who was asked by another patron if he still played the tuba. “He brought it in from his car and played Christmas carols to rousing applause and then put it back in his car,’’ Faigen said.
    Tuba Man is one of eight characters in the play, but the only one based on a real person. Others are composites or fictional. Set entirely in the diner, the play also features a waitress, cashier, cook, salesman, an old man and his girlfriend, and the Man of God.
    What it is about, Faigen is at a loss to say. “I couldn’t tell you what it’s about, and I wouldn’t even if I could,’’ he said. “I only wrote the play,’’ he continued. “It becomes a whole layer cake, of my work at the beginning, Stephen Haley’s work as the director, the actors’ work, and then the audience’s work. By the time it gets on stage, there are so many more layers of meaning, emotion, and story.’’
    Promotional material for the play describes the plot: “People drink coffee. They eat pie. Someone dies. A miracle happens, maybe two. Then everyone’s life shifts a few degrees in a better direction. Or maybe not.’’
    Faigen, 55, grew up in New Mexico. He majored in piano performance and philosophy at Colgate. For almost 25 years, he lived in Pittsburgh, where he met his wife, Penny Lazarus. He had a traditional typesetting business, but as the industry waned, the couple decided to move, choosing Newburyport in 2000 because it’s near the ocean. In the 1990s, he worked for a high-tech company. He was laid off but now works as a consultant for the same company, which builds large composition equipment.
    With neighbors who are playwrights, the couple soon tapped into Newburyport’s fertile theater community. At a party, Faigen was introduced to Marc Clopton, founder and executive director of The Actors Studio, and mentioned he was interested in plays, although he had never written one. He said Clopton told him, “Anyone can write plays; you just have to have lived.’’
    A few months later, Faigen started writing, and he also joined an authors’ group. His first play, Our Nation’s Capitol, was inspired by a visit to a local assisted living facility. He has since written comedies, dramas, and experimental plays. And he has received recognition, from winning the New Works Festival at the Firehouse Center in Newburyport several times to having his work staged in theaters elsewhere.
    “Theater is really, really fun,’’ Faigen said. “It was never my lifelong dream, but it is very habit-forming.’’
    Now the entire family, including the couple’s sons Adlai, 16, and Max, 10, are involved in theater and the arts.
    Clopton said because Faigen is “not steeped in [theatrical] tradition, he plays outside the box. His plays are unique and unexpected, and therefore exciting and refreshing.
    “He has a great sense of humor and ironic eye for human nature and a great soulfulness,’’ Clopton said. “He sort of speaks to that part of us that is hard to define; a part of ourselves we hesitate to share in casual conversation that is deep, mystical, and puzzling.’’

— Wendy Killeen (Editor’s note: This is an abbreviated version of an April 4, 2010, article from The Boston Globe, reprinted with permission.)


Making music and memories in Buffalo cathedral
What’s the best part about working in a cathedral?
    “It’s the music,” said Tim Socha ’81, the organist and choir director at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Buffalo, N.Y. “There are evenings when I come to the cathedral to practice, after a long day, utterly devoid of energy, and then after playing a piece or two I feel very much renewed,” Socha said.


(photo by Derek Gee/The Buffalo News)

    He finds working with the choir to be equally as refreshing. “We’re blessed with a group of very talented singers, including at least half a dozen music teachers. They are experienced sight-readers and terrific singers. They are so willing to try new things. They’re flexible and good humored, an absolute delight to work with.”
    Socha recalls playing piano in church for the first time when he was in fifth grade. He continued studying piano with highly regarded Buffalo organist Cecil Walker, with whom he began to study organ as a senior in high school.
    At Colgate, Socha took many courses in theology and church history and became immersed in church music as a course of study, “and a way to practice a very rewarding art form,” he said. He studied choral conducting with Professor Marietta Cheng and spent a semester in Germany helping his adviser, Professor Joyce Irwin, write a book on 17th-century church music.
    “It takes mental focus,” Socha said of playing the organ, “but once you get your head in the right place, it takes you out of yourself — and any problems you might have — and puts you in a better place.
    “I love practicing in the quiet of an empty cathedral,” he said. “But I also love hearing a congregation sing and give back of themselves. Despite what you hear, most organists really don’t want to hear just the organ. They want to hear that we’re all part of this together.”
    He admits loving it when people are “won over” to the pipe organ. “I had a bride-to-be last year who lived outside the area,” he recalled, “and our initial conversations were exclusively on the telephone. She kept saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know about the organ.’ And, with disdain, ‘You know, it’s — organ music!’
    “I kept assuring her that everyone loves the St. Joe’s organ, and I told her I looked forward to playing it for her the next time she was in town,” said Socha. “She came, and after about 10 seconds of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, she broke down and started sobbing, ‘That’s
so … beautiful!’ I love moments like that.”
    When not at St. Joseph’s, Socha is also chorus director for grades 9 through 12 at
Nichols School and a member of a handbell quartet called “The Royalton Ringers.” “We cover four octaves — just the four of us,” he explained. “It gets a little harried at times, but it’s great fun.”
    Last Christmas, Socha directed the Cathedral Choir during a special event called “A Service of Christmas Lessons & Carols.” Bishop Edward Kmiec presided over the service, which also included performances by the Royalton Ringers and Nichols students.
    “My students at Nichols are really good kids,” Socha said. “I wish everyone could spend time with them. They make me more hopeful about our future. And the cathedral is such a great place to be. Someone told me recently they thought that St. Joe’s, with its predominantly white-and-gold decoration, looks like a giant wedding cake.
    “What a great place to celebrate.”

— Adapted from an article by Louise Continelli of The Buffalo News

In the know: Social networking for your business
It takes much more than establishing a Facebook page for a business to successfully use social media. Danielle Shelton-Walczak ’95, a practicing attorney–turned–social networking strategist, assists business and organizational clients in identifying, customizing, strategizing, monitoring, and marketing their social networking platforms through her business, Popular (http://findfollowme.com). Shelton-Walczak also uses Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to network and promote her own business.
    Here is some of the advice Shelton-Walczak shares with her clients.

1. Why a business should start social networking. It sounds cliché, but — everyone is doing it. This may conjure memories of your mother saying: “If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you?” But, today, your answer should be “Yes.” There are more than 500 million active Facebook users who spend about 55 minutes a day on the site. Twitter has at least 105 million registered users. People watch billions of YouTube videos (in comparison to making millions of Google search inquiries). This is the tip of the iceberg. Social networking provides businesses the most cost-effective opportunity to communicate their brand, services, and information to more people than ever before.

2. Choose wisely. There are more social networking platforms than people realize; go with those that highlight and fit your business’s personality. Start by researching as many social networking platforms as you can find; the process is akin to rushing a sorority or fraternity, or finding the perfect specialty house. As a freshman, you may have had a preconceived idea as to where you wanted membership. But you still had to visit all the houses to understand what each had to offer and whether you’d fit in. Finding a suitable social networking platform for your business should be done the same way.

3. Being unique gets you everywhere. Although it may have been social suicide to be too unique from your peers at Colgate, it’s the opposite in the digital universe. Originality draws viewers, so it’s important to customize the look and content of your business’s social networking sites, such as the image sizes, tabs, colors, and banners. Some customizations you can do easily, others take serious research hours, and some will have to be done by a programmer. Make sure to have individual content on each of your platforms so they can drive traffic to one another, giving viewers a reason to visit them all.

4. If you build it, they will not necessarily come. Societal basics do not change with social networking. You didn’t sit in your residence hall freshman year and make friends by waiting for people to come to you; you ventured out and introduced yourself. The same applies to your business’s platforms. Promote them in a variety of ways: enthusiastically tell everyone, place widgets on your website to drive traffic to them, print the URLs on your business cards, and hire a web expert to make them more visible to search engines.

5. If you never talk, you never gain an audience. If you stop talking, you lose your audience. Many businesses are afraid of social networking because they don’t know how to make it work past the building of the platform. Platforms gain audiences through consistent discussion. To start the discussion, “meander” through the digital universe, listening to what people are saying about you or your industry. Then, respond in an interesting way. Eventually, your audience will respond to you. It’s like being at a cocktail party where you mill around the room, find a conversation, and join in with interesting commentary or questions. Then a dialogue ensues. But, in the digital universe, no one ever leaves the cocktail party. More importantly, you’ll never get to enjoy the party or make new connections if you don’t accept the invitation.

What do you know? If you’re an expert in an area of your field or avocation and would like to share your sage advice, e-mail scene@colgate.edu or write to the Colgate Scene, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346.


Emergent interests
How do individual neurons work together to create consciousness? No one is sure — but it is a classic example of emergence, a scientific phenomenon in which many individual parts function together to produce results not expected from the constituent pieces alone.


(photo by paulswortz.com)

    Emergence is tough to comprehend, so when the Institute of Complex Adaptive Matter (ICAM) — an organization that studies the phenomenon — needed help making the concept more approachable for young people, Suzi Tucker ’84 was a logical choice.
    Tucker holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of Minnesota and achieved the rank of full professor at the University of California, Davis. After 14 years as a professor, Tucker left to begin a second career in the field of educational exhibit design, devising exhibits and signage at venues such as museums, parks, and visitor centers. When working with clients like ICAM, Tucker often draws on her scientific background. “Having been a scientist for many years,” Tucker explained, “I realize quite personally the importance of science outreach, and how we have definite issues with science literacy in this country.”
    Tucker’s proposal to ICAM was to build a virtual online museum to make the subject of emergence more accessible. After more than two years of development, the website emergentuniverse.org, which Tucker designed with the help of programmer Stephen Hartzog, went live in October 2009. The site’s interactive, Flash-based design approaches emergence from many angles, exploring its relevance in everything from traffic patterns to proteins causing Alzheimer’s disease. The site’s users investigate these many applications of the concept with features like a manga (a Japanese style) comic and a 3D model of the brain.
    Perhaps most impressive is that Tucker worked alone to research the incredible array of content on the site, mastering the varied subject matter herself before designing each exhibit. “Every month, I’m doing something different than what I was doing last month,” explained Tucker. “On the one hand, that keeps it from getting dull, but on the other, every time I come into work, it’s a challenge because I have no idea what I’m doing!”
    Each exhibit has also impelled Tucker to invent new and interesting means of presentation, often taking her well beyond the scientific world. Currently, she is researching videogame design as she develops an educational game about superconductivity for the site. In the past, she has even collaborated on an interpretive dance video. “I had never been involved in doing a dance video before!” Tucker exclaimed. “That was a total blast. Everything I do is a new challenge.”
    Tucker was seeking such challenges beyond the purely scientific when she entered her new field. “I changed careers because I wanted more art and design in my life,” she explained. Tackling the ICAM project independently “was an opportunity to build something from scratch, and to bring together artistic elements with the scientific elements to make science appealing to non-scientists.”
    Tucker hopes to roll out her superconductivity work in 2011, and then is eyeing another change. “I’d like to get back to the three-dimensional world, as opposed to the Internet,” she explained. “I’m not sure what’s next, but I never seem to quite stay put.”

— Jason Kammerdiener ’10


After class: A meeting with the president
When Erin Majewski Flynn ’00 looks around the “science showcase” she has coordinated for the John D. Philbrick Elementary School in Boston, she does not judge. Rather than holding a competition to see who has made the best project, “it’s about celebrating students’ hard work and what they’re learning,” said Flynn, a science specialist who teaches grades K-5 at Philbrick. That way, “every student’s project is valued.”


Students and staff at Erin Majewski Flynn’s ’00 school wear college T-shirts one day each month to remember the importance of higher education.

    Support for Flynn’s teaching strategy became clear when she traveled to Washington, D.C., in January to accept the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Recipients of the award visited with President Barack Obama, watched him deliver a press conference on science education, and participated in several days’ worth of professional development and networking. “It was so amazing to meet educators from all over the country and to hear a little bit about what they’re doing in their classrooms,” Flynn said. “And meeting the president was such an honor.”
    After meeting President Obama, Flynn and the others participated in an in-depth discussion with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “He actually asked us questions and listened to our responses,” Flynn marveled. “It’s not often that someone in his position really takes the time to listen to teachers’ opinions about national education policy.”
    Duncan’s hands-on approach is similar to the educational style for which Flynn was being honored. “The focus in my classroom is on inquiry-based instruction,” Flynn explained. Rather than explaining to students what she is going to teach in a given class, Flynn leads with a question, challenging them to explore possible answers. “It’s a lot of fun for me,” Flynn explained, “because I also pretend I don’t know the answer. They’ll keep asking me, and I will say, ‘Oh, I’m not sure! Maybe you should keep trying new things to figure it out.’”
    Flynn also strives to help students see the relevance of their education. “We use science as a jumping-off point for integrated units that connect science with reading, writing, and math,” she explained. “We’ve found that when you get the kids really engaged in a science topic, they are more willing to read and write about that topic.”
    The approach is effective, as fifth-graders’ scores on the MCAS (state science exam) have risen each of the six years Flynn has taught at Philbrick. At least partly, Flynn attributes that success to the continuity she can achieve as the students’ only science teacher from kindergarten to fifth grade. “It’s really nice, because in the fall, teachers often spend a lot of time with students talking about rules and procedures and getting to know each other, but when I come back in September, I can hit the ground running. The kids already know me.”
    Flynn is not one to hog the credit, though. “The Philbrick is a special place. A lot of urban schools really struggle with parental involvement, but we have a very active and dedicated group of parents.” It is an advantage that Flynn appreciates even more after having had her first child, Allison Anna, just over a year ago. “I always knew that we were lucky to have really involved and devoted parents, but now that I have my own child, I’m really amazed that some of these parents work full time, and also devote so much time to our school.”

— Jason Kammerdiener ’10

Road taken



Lance Cromwell ’93(-ish)
Private tutor, writer/director, owner/creator of LCurve.net, waiter; Portland, Maine

Colgate Class of ’93 … no, wait, ’94. Well, I participated in Torchlight in 1994 and walked the stage in 1995. Let’s just say my Colgate experience was somewhat nonlinear. And … excellent.

It should come as no surprise that my post-Colgate path has been any-thing but linear. My last year in Hamilton saw me taking my final classes, teaching, working at the university bookstore, and waiting tables at the Hamilton Inn. Sounds like a lot, but it was flexible, and it allowed a lot of time for writing. It seems that this wearing of many hats suits me. It has been the rhythm of my life, for the most part, to date.

Fast forward to present day, Portland, Maine. Still writing (mostly for film projects, but some other stuff, too), still teaching/tutoring, still working in the restaurant industry (an amazing spot: Fore Street) ... but add in my family (my wife, 3 kids, and several animals), and a website that I just created, and you get a sense of my world.

I have done many things along the way. Taught HS English. Taught extensively for the Princeton Review. Took a break. For the past 10 years, private tutoring and home-schooling. Have taught writing at the Telling Room, a nonprofit writing center in Portland (co-founded by Sara Corbett ’90). Wrote and directed a couple of short films. Co-hosted a radio show, reviewed movies. Got to be a screener for a film festival for a few years. Served on the Maine Film Commission. Traveled a bunch. Volunteered at the Center For Grieving Children and also in the Maine prison system helping kids with substance abuse problems. Designed websites. Current web project is www.LCurve.net, which is a free resource for standardized test prep.

I still wear many hats — not everybody’s thing, but I like it. Life is full. Life is excellent. Thanks, Colgate!

My picture of Colgate


(photo by Andrew Daddio)

I lived in the Class of 1934 House during my senior year, and I would walk up Oak Drive and onto campus almost every weekday morning. The view took my breath away every single time. I looked forward to those quiet moments I had to appreciate the extraordinary place I had called home for four years. The rays of sunlight shining through the trees glittered on the pavement, and I could hear the birds chirping. Often, on colder or snowy days, the Colgate Cruiser would stop and open its doors for me, but I would always wave it along because those days when the snow was falling softly on the oak trees and making tiny splashes on Taylor Lake were particularly spectacular.

With fond memories,
Erin Silver Piccola ’06

Share your own favorite verbal “picture” of Colgate: scene@colgate.edu or Colgate Scene, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346

Shirt tales
 


Paikin Leung ’11

Paikin’s shirt features an outline of Madison County and encourages people to purchase local goods. He nabbed it from his friend Mike Palmer ’10, who acquired the shirt at last year’s “Buy Local Week,” sponsored by Madison County Agricultural Economic Development.

Where we found him: an office in Wynn Hall, conducting chemistry research with Professor Rowlett
Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y.

Colgate seen

The spirit of alumni sporting their Colgate gear is seen here, there, and everywhere around the globe. Where was your latest spotting? On a Machu Picchu trek? At a mini-reunion in Pocatello? An election polling site in Houston? We’re collecting photos of Colgate sightings around the world. Send them to scene@colgate.edu.



While shooting on board the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower for a pilot episode of their TV series Intersections, Paul Verbitsky ’94 (left), John Dabrowski ’99 (second from left), and Nick Verbitsky ’91 (far right) discovered that the ship’s commander was Peter Matisoo ’88. The Speed Channel series is produced by the Verbitskys’ company, Blue Chip Films.



The Vintage Thirteen took a trip to Walt Disney World, where they sang beside the Princess’s Castle at the Celebration Central Pavilion. The 28 alumni, who as students had sung with the Thirteen in the 1960s, gathered with their families for a long weekend in Orlando, Fla., last spring.