Amy Blum Alamar ’97 and her husband, former philosophy minor Ben McGrew Alamar (economics, ’96) were featured in an article in the Winter CLA Today publication. Amy made a donation in support of this year’s Woodbridge Scholarships and together Amy and Ben, through the Eugene Lang Foundation, made a donation to the John Dolan Professor of Philosophy Fund. Today they live in San Francisco. Ben has a Ph.D. in economics from UC Santa Barbara and works as an accountant specializing in international pricing of goods transferred within multinational corporations. He is also a post-doc fellow at UCSF. Amy works part time as a teacher and writer, and she has been writing reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle. She also is a full-time mom to Alexander, 2 years old. The Alamars are expecting a new baby in May.

Johanna Askegaard ‘98, now Johanna Askegaard-Giesmann, graduates from the Chicago Medical School in June 2004. She reports that it has been a challenging and exciting four years of medical school. She was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society this past year, and considers herself fortunate to be entering into the General Surgery residency program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN. She will be there for five to seven years. Johanna was married in December 2001. Macalester Bell was her maid of honor. Johanna particularly remembers the assistance and encouragement of Sarah Holtman, and Johanna hopes to bring some ethical and moral philosophy into the realm of surgery.

Jessica Bailey ’03 will has completed her first year of graduate work in the program in philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Annie Baril ’01 will enter the Ph.D. program in philosophy at the University of Arizona in Fall ’02.

Carl Barron ’03, double major in mathematics and philosophy, will go to the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks in fall 2003 to earn another degree in Forensic Science.

Jeff Bauer ’99, philosophy minor, is now the executive director of the Youth Farm and Market Project. The Minneapolis project, which helps young people to develop urban agriculture skills and leadership qualities, recently raised more than $25,000 for the Homeland Project, which enabled five Hmong-American high school and middle-school young women to travel to Thailand and Laos to learn about the culture from which their parents and grandparents emigrated. Jeff was one of the leaders for the travel group. An article in the December 12, 2002 Minneapolis Star Tribune described preparations for the trip.

Kelly Bekker has graduated from law school and is working for West Publishing.

Macalester Bell ’98, who is in the graduate program in philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is working on her dissertation on forgiveness and negative emotions under the supervision of Thomas Hill Jr.

Tim Betts, double major in Philosophy and Music Performance, will go to Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York next fall to continue his studies in viola performance.

Marc Bjurlin ’01 has been accepted to medical school at the Midwestern University Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine to do a joint medical degree and graduate degree in philosophy. He will do his philosophy work at Loyola University, which offers a graduate degree in health care ethics.

Chris Buonamia, double major with Religious Studies, won an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program grant from CLA for work during Fall of 2001. His project title was “An Analysis of Rabbinic Hermeneutic Approaches to Truth.” His faculty sponsor was Azzan Yadin of Classical and Near Eastern Studies. For the next two years Chris will be in Americorps as part of the New York City Teaching Service. He will teach in an understaffed school in New York City.

Brian Carlton ’00 is currently the Senior Accountant at the Digital Technology Center at UMTC. He enjoys competing in amateur strongmen contests, and is enthralled with the philosophical implications of the television program Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Aaron Cavaleri ’03 spent the summer in Fort Collins, Colorado working on a community project that his brother Micah initiated. Aaron and his group met weekly with homeless people and people from the larger community to raise awareness about homelessness and issues such as livable wages, abuses by authorities, and affordable housing. Aaron also worked at a community garden which used donated land, seeds, equipment, and labor. The money from the sale of produce from the garden was donated to charities, and the extra food was donated to a local women’s shelter. Aaron is moving to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the fall, and hopes to work on similar projects there.

Jeffrey Chaffin ’02 will attend the Holmes Institute in St. Louis, Missouri, to get an MA in Divinity as a step toward entering the ministry in the United Church of Religious Science.

Adam Colberg ’02 will move to Italy after graduation to get a certificate as a teacher of English in Rome in the Via Lingua program. He will then teach English in Rome.

Seth Cornell ’00 worked in Alaska at a resort in ’00-’01. He has now moved to Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

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Anthony de Sam Lazaro will go to Hyderabad, India for Fall Semester ’02 to study. He will take Hindi and a seminar on contemporary India.

Emily Dolan '00 has completed her fourth year of doctoral studies in musicology at Cornell University. She won fellowships that enabled her to conduct research over the summer of 2004 at the British Library and at museums and libraries in Utrecht and Berlin. Emily, whose studies focus on musical aesthetics and such figures as Herder and Kant, read papers at Oxford University, Columbia University, Cornell, and the American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies conference in Boston. She had a paper accepted for the Musicological Society of America's annual convention in Seattle.

Tara Douglass ’04 will be marrying Christopher Strong in June 2004.

Jeff Dreher is currently employed at American Express in a strategic planning role. His professional interests include information technology security, telcollaboration, the future of work, consumer privacy, complex adaptive systems theory, and knowledge management (which he thinks of as applied epistemology). He will apply for the Carlson School of Business Management, and hopes to begin work on an MBA in Spring 2003. His long-range career aspiration is to be a futurist. He will be married in the fall of 2003. In his off-hours, he designs video games, and does some community service. Currently he coaches chess and works with the Future Problem Solvers of America.

Megan Dunn ’04 will be attending NYU in Fall of 2004 to work toward an MA in Performing Arts Administration. Megan was a professional ballerina for two years before she became a philosophy major.

Sari Eckhoff ’04 will be attending Washington and Lee Law School in Virginia. She was also accepted at the University of Minnesota Law School, but decided to go to Virginia.

Stephanie Mirocha Ellison '86 is a full-time, fine arts painter, acrylics and watercolor, working out of her studio/gallery in Aitkin. She also writes poetry and fiction, and so has taken her philosophy training in a creative direction, which has been very fulfilling!

Matt Eshleman ’95 is writing his Ph.D. dissertation on Sartre and Foucault for Duquesne University. His tentative title is “Freedom, Power, and Subjectivity.” Matt received a McAnulty Dissertation Fellowship for 2004-05 from Duquesne University to finish his philosophy dissertation, titled "Subjectivity, Freedom, and Power in the French Historical Context: Sartre and Foucault on a 'post-modern' problem of agency." Congratulations, Matt.

Christopher W. Folkes ’95 has left his own practice to join the Minneapolis office of the law firm of Bowman and Brook, LLP. Mr. Folkes will focus primarily on products liability defense and corporate representation.

Nena Fox ’01 is the Legislative Intern for Hunger Solutions Minnesota, a group advocating for and providing solutions to hunger in Minnesota, such as food shelf funding and food support for immigrants.

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Christopher Gehrke ’02 will be teaching English in Rome, Italy , probably for two years. He has spent time in Italy before, and he looks forward to returning. He plans to attend graduate school in philosophy eventually.

William Goodall ’02, philosophy minor, will get married in the summer and continue working in the youth ministry program of the Five Oaks Community Church. He will apply for graduate school or seminary in 2003.

Kim Grocholski ‘99 and her husband, Peter Lesperance, have spent the 2003-2004 year in Japan as Assistant Language Teachers. They have had many cultural and travel adventures. Pictures of their travels – for example, to Mayalsia, Hong Kong, Kyoto, and Hiroshima -- are on their website at http://www.unspoken.org/tsuruoka. They plan to spend another year teaching in Japan.

Gerd Groenewold ’02 has very much enjoyed his first two years in the graduate program in philosophy at Yale University.

Pam Groscost ’85 is the Department Administrator for the Philosophy Department at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She finds the logic courses that she took as an undergraduate of continuing relevance.

Joshua Haberman ’03 was a teaching specialist in the Kinesiology Department this year. He was employed as a racquetball teacher for 3 sections per year.

Takeshi Hamamura, double major with Philosophy, won a UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) grant for research in Fall ‘01. His project title was “The Internet and Well-Being.” His faculty sponsor was Shigehiro Oishi of Psychology.

Dean Harvey, philosophy minor and Political Science major, won a Judge Earl and Mrs. Cecill Larson Scholarship for 2001. The scholarship is awarded to outstanding political science majors to support their research projects. Dean is applying to law schools.

Aaron Hendricks ’04 and some friends have opened their own pizza and smoothies restaurant in Mentor MN. It is the Rhombus House of Pizza, named after the original shape of the building that houses it. Aaron will be back in Mentor this summer to help run the restaurant.

Kate Huber ’96 works as a public defender in New York City. Kate graduated from NYU Law School some time ago. She reports that she likes her work, but that it is very time-consuming. At one point she had slightly over 100 clients with open caseloads. The fewest clients she has had at a time was 70. Usually her caseload is somewhere between 70 and 100. She sees senior attorneys suffering from burnout, but she has been able to deal with the pressure so far because she has only been at her job for a year and a half.

Karen Ilvedsen ’02 spent last year in California working for Greenpeace and also writing a screen play, which she has recently submitted to several contests. She says that her screenplay has powerful female characters and quite a bit of philosophy. She is in Minneapolis for the indefinite future and is at present bartending on the Paddleford Riverboat.

Randall Irwin '04 has been doing missionary work in youth ministry in Australia and in orphanages in Jamaica. He will work at youth ministry in the United States in the next few years.

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Erica Jacovetty ’03 was awarded a Fall ’02 Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant to work on her project, “Comparison of Triglyceride versus Free Fatty Acid to Label Dietary Lipid in a Human Feeding Study.” Her faculty sponsor was Elizabeth Parks of the College of Human Ecology.

Jon Jakoblich ’04 double major in Philosophy and Religious Studies, will continue his work in youth ministry after graduation. During his senior year he was an intern in youth ministry at St. Lawrence Catholic Church and Newman Center. He will be married in August ’04. Since March ’03 he has been the Technology and Communication Assistant for the Career and Community Learning Center, working on their website and their bi-monthly newsletter.

Brent Kalar ’93 got his Ph.D. from Harvard in Philosophy and is now an assistant professor in philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He specializes in Kant, 19th century German philosophy, aesthetics, and ethics.

Brian Keogh spent four months starting in February ’03 working at the Chicago Tribune's Washington Bureau as an intern. The internship program is conducted through the Washington Center for Politics and Journalism and involves biweekly seminars on political topics and a full-time gig at a news organization's Washington bureau. Brian found DC “a wonderful place to live”, and he enjoys being a reporter.

Jai Kissoon ’01, philosophy minor, has started a business: Ourfamilywizard.com. It is a website to help divorced and separated parents plan, schedule, and organize their lives. You can visit the site at http://www.ourfamilywizard.com.

Justin Knoepfler was awarded an Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant for Spring 04 to work with Debra DeBruin of the Center for Bioethics. His project title is, “The Fast Food Dilemma: Bioethical Implications of Three Modern Notions of Addiction”.

Nate Kramer'00 has been attending Northeastern University School of Law. He is taking a year off to work for a labor and civil litigation firm, Jermain Dunnagan & Owens P.C. in Alaska.

Chacko Kuruvilla ’02 is in the Carlson MBA program. His studies concentrate on Strategic Management and Management Information Systems. He continues to read Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, and Kierkegaard.

Joshua Larson ’03 received his teaching license in June. He did student teaching last year at Patrick Henry High School in Minneapolis.

Gunnar Liden ’00, the program director of the Youth Farm and Market Project on the west side of St. Paul, was one of the leaders (along with Jeff Bauer, mentioned above, and Kate Kelso Liden, Gunnar’s wife) of the Homeland Project—the trip that five St. Paul Hmong-American teenagers made to Laos and Thailand. A January 17, 2003 Star Tribune article described the trip, during which the young people visited Hmong villages and the sites of former refugee camps. They also spent time with relatives. Their goal was to understand better what their parents had experienced in immigrating to the United States.

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Peter Marshall has spent the 03-04 academic year studying in Graz, Austria at Karl Franzens University.

Sandra Menssen ’75, now an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, has co-authored a book with her colleague Thomas Sullivan. The book is The Agnostic Inquirer: Rethinking the Question of Revelation.

Natala Menezes is an Account Manager at Google in California in its strategic partnerships group. She continues to do volunteer work. She is currently working with the East Palo Alto Charter school on a new character development program for junior high students. She writes, “I always think back to the work I did in Professor Wallace’s classes; I think those classes really helped to shape how I choose to volunteer my time.” .

David Midtvedt ’03 has completed his first year in the graduate program in Philosophy at Purdue University.

Todd Millenacker ’01 graduated in December. He will be looking for work in the computer industry in Minneapolis and greater Minnesota.

Colin Miller won a UROP (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) grant for Fall 2001 for his project, “Jesus the Prophet in the Gospel of Luke: A Literary and Historical Study”. His faculty sponsor was Philip Sellew of Classical and Near Eastern Studies.

Jasleen Modi did an ECLA summer course in Germany. She will be applying to law schools and plans to combine study for a law degree with study for a philosophy Ph.D.

Austen Morris ’03 has completed his first year in the graduate program in Philosophy at Ohio State University.

Andrew Morrow ’02 (double major in English) is in a rock and roll band named, “No Doctors”. A website, www.nodoctors.com is dedicated to the band, which has a CD forthcoming. The band is based in Chicago. Andrew has been in the band since 1999, and has done two tours with the band.

Justin Murawski is spending the summer of ’02 in Alaska. He plans to take a job in Barrow, Alaska, for the winter. It is 1300 miles from the North Pole, with “absolutely no sun and no heat.”

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Samantha Pace spent a year attending school in Denmark. She took classes in biomedical ethics, history, and pre-medical studies.

Marie Pannier ’96 has accepted a job as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Marie finished her Ph.d. at the University of Notre Dame in 2003. Her dissertation title was “Presentism.”

Adam Pautz ’98 has completed his sixth year of graduate studies in philosophy at New York University. He will start a tenure-track position at the University of Texas at Austin in Fall 04. His dissertation is on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, with a tentative title of “Essays on the Problem of Phenomenal Character”. He reports that he misses the Wittgenstein discussion group at the University of Minnesota.

Saren Pedersen ’98 has completed her studies at the University of Chicago Law School and has applied for admission to the Illinois Bar.

Ryan Rangitsch ‘02 will go to Taiwan to teach English. He plans to move to mainland China in 2004.

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Sharjeel Sabir ’01 was accepted to present a paper at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research at the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater in April 2002. The paper is part of his Summa thesis, “Death in Life: A Dialogue.” Sharjeel did research with Carl Elliot in the 2001-2002 academic year. Professor Elliot and Sharjeel were awarded an NIH Minority Supplement Grant for their work on Dr. Elliot’s ongoing project , “Ethnicity, Citizenship, Family: Identity after the HGP”. The major purpose of the grant was to bring together scholars from science and medicine and those from the humanities and social sciences to think about the meaning of gene mapping for identity. Sharjeel will be in Americorps next year at work for the Hennepin County Office of Multicultural Services.

Matt Sanford '88 was featured in a Star Tribune article in the Variety Section on June 22, 2004. The article reports that Matt "has founded Mind Body Solutions, a nonprofit Minnetonka yoga studio dedicated to showing others the benefits of awakening the connections between mind and body ... Mind Body Solutions conducts childrens' programs and teaches health care professionals locally and around the country." Matt uses yoga in programs that he conducts at Courage Center in Golden Valley. Matt also teaches yoga at his two year old yoga studio. Matt is married and has a 4-yr old son.

Libby Schultz ’03 has moved to California to work for a year while reflecting on what she wants to do in graduate school. She is working at a medical device manufacturing company training to become a clinical research associate working on procedures to put fluid into the body to regulate the body temperature during heart attacks or brain surgery. She reports that the logic courses on her transcript impressed the company Vice President who hired her. She has a new puppy, Yukiko.

Tom Schuster ’82 now has a daughter (who is also the niece of Matt Schuster ’97) who took a freshman seminar in philosophy, on Socrates, in Fall ’02.

Jeffrey Seltz ’02 will travel to Europe with friends after graduation.

Saroj Sharma ’03 plans to work for prison reform, especially by encouraging the University of Minnesota not to invest in businesses such as Lehman Brothers that support private prisons for profit.

Daniel Silvermint ’04 has been an assistant Lincoln-Douglas Debate coach for Mounds View High School for the past year, and has now been hired as the head coach for 2002-2003. This year he worked with 20 students.

Isis Stark ’97 is advocacy coordinator at the American Cancer Society, where she works on grassroots organizing and lobbying for local, state, and federal health issues. Currently she is busy lobbying and organizing for the smokefree workplace ordinance in Minneapolis.

Matthew Strieker is working for West Publishing.

Jennifer Stromer-Galley has a Ph.D. in Speech Communication from the University of Pennsylvania and is now a faculty member at SUNY Albany.

Anne Swanson ’01 has a job for the New York Pops Orchestra as a Development and Marketing Assistant. She works in Carnegie Hall on the 9th floor, about 80 blocks from ground zero.

Justin Sytsma ’03 has completed his first year in the graduate program in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.

Darryl Thomas '05 is a staff accountant at City Pages.

Janna Thompson ’64, who is a Professor of Philosophy at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, participated in the Pacific Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association in 2004. Some recent papers by Janna, including a draft of an essay titled, “Is There Such A Thing as A Rogue Nation?” are on the web at http://www.csu.edu.au/faculty/arts/cappe/wps.htm.

Joseph Turgeon, a current major with interests in ethics and political philosophy, was an intern with state Senator Leo Foley during the Spring ’03 session. Joseph primarily helped to administer the Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee, in addition to researching related topics. During summer 2003 Joseph will be employed at the Minnesota Population Center working on the 1880 census project.

Joel Turnipseed’s memoir of his experiences transporting munitions and other supplies through the desert during the Gulf War, Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir , which was published in April 2003 by the Minnesota Historical Society Press has had critical and commercial success. Joel met readers for discussion at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore in Edina at an event in Fall 2003.

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Michael Valle '95, received his MA in philosophy from the University of Illinois, Chicago in 1997. In 2002 he became a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Arizona State University. His dissertation, "Divine Abandonment and the Evidential Argument for Evil," was supervised by Norbert Samuelson (chair), Stewart Cohen, and Steven Reynolds. He is currently teaching philosophy and religion at Scottsdale Community College.

Asher Waldfogel ’79, after receiving his MA in Philosophy from MIT, went on to a career in the computer-networking industry. He co-founded Redback Networks, Inc., a California company that has done very well. Asher lives in Palo Alto with his wife Helyn, and their daughter Emma. In honor of Professor John Dolan, who encouraged Asher as an undergraduate, Asher has established the John Dolan Professor of Philosophy Fund to promote faculty research. The fund is approaching its goal of $500,000. The money will support an endowed professorship.

Maggie Wander was featured in a September 2003 article in the Minnesota Women’s Press under her performance name for poetry slam competition, ‘Dessa Darling’. The article reports that Darling has competed in national slams and performs regularly as a spoken word artist. She has also rapped with the local hip-hop group, Doom Tree. She is ‘an emerging female voice in the male-dominated hip-hop scene’. She is inspired by utilitarian theory and by the writings of Martha Nussbaum and Peter Singer.

Marta Wernikiewicz ’04 has had a paper accepted for publication in Prolegomena, the undergraduate journal of the University of British Columbia. Her paper is titled “Primate Virtues: a Cross-species Study of Morality.”

Patti Williams ’81 works in discrimination law at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction as a consultant in the Pupil Non-Discrimination area. She talks to schools about practices that might be unfair to students with special circumstances, such as new non-native English speakers.

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