Letters

News About The Vassar Quarterly from the AAVC Board President

As part of Vassar’s response to the current economic downturn, AAVC — along with each of Vassar’s departments — has been asked to cut its budget by 10 percent for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. One of the most reasonable and achievable scenarios involved Vassar, the Alumnae/i Quarterly (VQ), one of AAVC’s largest budget items.

Beginning with this issue, AAVC will publish three issues of the magazine per year, rather than four. There will be a fall issue in September, a winter issue in January, and an expanded spring/summer issue in June. This new schedule will allow significant cost savings.

Vassar is certainly not the only college to face this difficult choice. As costs for printing and mailing magazines have risen in recent years, the financial strain has been felt across the world of higher education. Many colleges have reduced the frequency of their publications. 

Rest assured that keeping you informed about and connected to your alma mater is of the utmost importance to all of us at AAVC. In addition to providing the excellent features, news, and class notes you’ve come to expect from the magazine, AAVC will continue to publish its popular monthly eNewsletter and will enhance its website with interactive editorial content that will allow you even greater access to news about Vassar and its alumnae/i. AAVC is also harnessing the power of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to help you keep in touch with your classmates and the college in “real time.”

Finally, a word about our name. We are going to resist the suggestion by one class correspondent to rename the magazine the Threely. Many of the country’s finest journals and magazines consider themselves monthlies while publishing a summer issue combining July and August. So we join our peers in publishing a spring/summer issue and remaining your Quarterly.

Best,

Margaret Venecek Johnson ’84

Re: "The Importance of Earning Interest: Ben Mangan '92," Summer 2009

Congratulations, Ben, on your vision and work helping low-wage workers lift themselves up out of poverty. The Bay Area is a terrific location for your venture. Congratulations, Amy, on your moving article, "The Importance of Earning Interest: Ben Mangan '82."

I agree that Vassar changed my life, and as your article claimed, put a premium on intellectual discourse and ideas, dynamism, social justice, and more, infusing enduring values that enabled and motivated each of us to pursue the path that would make a difference in other people’s lives — and in so doing, fulfill us. Thank you, Vassar, for vision and purpose.

As a high school teacher, I have witnessed the joy as less fortunate students achieved. As a physician, I have enjoyed the appreciation as patients felt recognized and helped. Their smile is my reward.

Your example is “right on” with President Obama’s “Yes, We Can!” Thanks for sharing and inspiring.

Alice Mellors Kozar ’67
Menlo Park, California

Digging Deeper

I  read with interest the recent letter from Eleanor Livingston ’41 headed “Artifact Check” [Letters, Summer 2009; re: Vassar Yesterday, Spring 2009]. 

I wanted to add the information that Dr. Mary Butler, who received her Ph.D. from Penn, was also Mary Butler ’24, which was probably why she was directing the archaeological project at Vassar in 1939.

Her principal expertise was in the Maya culture of the Yucatan, I believe.

Her daughter, Eleanor Reed Lewis, was Vassar ’64, and thus a classmate and friend of mine.

Jane Shadel Spillman ’64
Corning, New York