As Greece prepared for this summer's Olympics, Ariadne Papagapitou '02 (or, if you choose, Papagapitos) is swamped with work.
“It's incredible that for the first time since the modern Olympics were revived in Athens in 1896, they are returning to their birthplace,” she said in June, taking a brief break from mountains of work. “It's significant that they will take place against the backdrop of the Acropolis, along the original marathon route, and in the stadium that was built for their revival, among other Classical remnants of the era of the original Olympics.”
Preparing for the games, Athens was one big construction site, as venues were built, buildings and sidewalks resurfaced, and roads repaired. A new tram system went in and the Metro was expanded. “It's a very small country,” says Ariadne, “and still in many ways undeveloped, so it's been a huge rush to get ready, which is why to many it looks as though it's not going to happen, especially considering what is going on in the world politically.
“Security is a great concern. It's unfortunate that Greece's modern Olympic debut has to fall within this uncertain context. Over $1 billion is being spent on security, and I am truly not worried. Luckily, Greece has good relations with its neighbors (including Turkey), and the seas will be heavily patrolled by Greek and NATO forces.”
Ariadne's job is in the Media Villages Planning and Operations Department. When she started, in the summer of 2003, she was in the planning section, where she helped organize, create, and determine how the seven media villages of Athens will run. Most recently she was a duty manager at the National Technical University of Athens, one of the media villages, which will house 10,000 reporters, camera people, photographers, and media support staff from all around the world. The media villages are like large hotels, with special services that cater to the daily routine of the press. Ariadne, who was born in New York City and who spent her early years in both Greece and New York, has dual citizenship and grew up speaking Greek at home. “Both of my parents are from islands in Greece,” she explains, “my mom, from Andros, and my dad, from Rhodes. They immigrated to America in their twenties, when things here were not so good.”
After Ariadne graduated from Union, she found a temporary job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Human Rights/ Women's Rights Division. She left after a few months and started working at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Athens Branch, in the Public Information and Social Services Departments. “I loved working there, but as the office is slowly being closed down, I began looking for something else and thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to work for the Olympics Organizing Committee. It is a ton of work and sometimes feels overwhelming, but it has been really rewarding and a lot of fun. And I have gotten to know Athens and Greece very well.
“I love living in Greece,” she adds. “It's a beautiful country, warm people, and it upholds a combination of modern and traditional in a very harmonious way. It's very lively, and there are myriad unique activities you can partake of any time, like trips to islands, ancient sites, old-fashioned tavernas and towns.”
She also enjoys moving around, “seeing what life is like in new cities. I did my Union term abroad in Kenya, and I really hope to go see more of Africa at some point, hopefully in the context of work.” Her Union degree is in Classics, which she is still passionate about (“I try to keep reading ancient texts and going to ancient theaters here.”)
In September, Ariadne will attend the London School of Economics and Political Science to study for a master's in human rights. “Human rights is the field I would really love to get involved in; working at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees really encouraged me to seek entry into the field on an academic level.”
Now, if you're wondering about the two versions of her name:
In Greek, all nouns, including names, are conjugated, so they vary by case and gender. “Since in English this is not the case, most Greek women abroad retain the male version of the name, that is, the one with the –os ending. Papagapitou (with the feminine -ou ending) is the name I use in Greece, even though Papagapitos is what my American credit cards and passport say. So I have acquired two names, depending on where you are and what documents you're looking at!”
Executive by day, Statistician by night
It's all in the numbers for Eric Hornick '86-mild- mannered actuary by day, stats man for the New York Islanders by night.
Many alumni will remember Hornick as the impassioned “Voice of the Dutchmen” when he was the College's broadcaster on WRUC, calling both hockey and football while reporting everything from national championship games to “Final Four” competition. What you may not know is that even his four years away at college did not deter him from his duties with the National Hockey League's Islanders. Despite his academic and WRUC work, he still found time to attend many games to serve as the team statistician. Hornick's love for the Islanders began when he was still in grammar school on-where else-Long Island. He was eight years old when the team was formed, and it was love at first sight. He began reeling off statistics for the team's announcers when he was a senior in high school, and his big thrills have included the Stanley Cup playoffs, a ride in the victory parades, and “touching the Stanley Cup,” he recalls.
His first thirteen seasons were spent at the side of Hockey Hall of Fame broadcaster Jiggs McDonald,and for the past nine seasons he has worked with Howie Rose on Fox Sports New York, who says of Hornick, “Quite simply, he is the best at what he does.”
Hornick also is a reliable source for sports reporters and contributes two regular columns for the Islanders' website, newyorkislanders.com-“The Skinny” and “This Week on the Isle.”
Eric and broadcast buddy Scott Wykoff '85 were back on campus twice in the past year. They handled the introductions for the twentieth reunion of Union's national finalist teams in both football and hockey, and also reunited in the broadcast booth for a Union hockey victory over St. Lawrence.
The Goal
In an article written this past winter for the Union hockey program, Eric Hornick '86 and Scott Wykoff '85, the WRUC broadcast team during the 1983-84 season, recreated “The Goal.” Here is a recap:
Of all the goals in Union's hockey history, only one was scored after midnight. Only one can be called “The Goal.”
It was 12:40 a.m. on St. Patrick's Day, 1984, and Union was in an epic battle with RIT at Ritter Arena in Rochester for a berth in the Division III national championship game. Union was a decided underdog as RIT had gone 28-1.
The game ended at 4-4 and went into overtime-overtime after overtime, thanks largely to remarkable goaltending by Wayne McDougall '86, who was to make 61 saves that night, 25 of them in overtime. “Doogie was making saves that did not seem possible,” remembers Union co-captain Jamie Knight '85. “Wide open shots, breakaways… it was one of the greatest games I have ever seen a goalie play at any level.”
At 3:26 into the fourth overtime, Gavin Morton '87 had the puck behind his own goal. “Gill [Egan '85] was breaking and I hit him on the fly down the left wing. He stepped in across the blue line and hit an amazing slapshot to the top right corner, just under the crossbar, just inside the post. I was the first to Gill to congratulate him. He said 'just hold me up and don't let go.' ” Egan had played that night with the flu.
The Cinderella story did not have the perfect ending-Babson beat an exhausted Union team later that night for the national title-but nothing would take away from “The Goal” that brought Union to the national championship game for the only time in its hockey history.
Union and RIT would meet again in the playoffs in both 1985 and 1986. In 1985, Union won the ECAC title but RIT won the national championship at Achilles, defeating Union in the semifinals. RIT also beat Union in the 1986 ECAC and NCAA playoffs.
Urban developer with a difference
If the stereotype of a New York City developer is someone who puts up big towers, meet a different kind of developer. Richard Kahan '67 is building schools.
Kahan is co-founder and president of the Urban Assembly, a nonprofit organization that over the past seven years has opened four small public high schools-the Bronx School for Law Government and Justice, the Academy for Careers in Sports, the Bronx Academy of Letters, and the New York Harbor School. This September will bring five more-a high school for architecture, engineering and construction; a high school of history and citizenship; a high school of media; a second high school for law, government and justice; and a sixth- through twelfth-grade school focused on applied math and science.
The Urban Assembly works in partnership with the New York City Department of Education and New Visions for Public Schools. Each school they have created has a compelling theme that serves both to engage students and to connect the school to a network of partners in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. The theme is integrated into the core curriculum, and through field trips, classroom visits, internships, and mentoring programs. Through ongoing interaction with the school's partners, students establish a link between what they learn in the classroom and their collegiate and professional futures (partners come from the worlds of culture, commerce, and public service, and they range in size from the Bowery Poetry Club to Harper Collins).
Kahan graduated with a degree in history and went on to earn his law degree from Columbia University. He joined the administration of New York Gov. Hugh Carey, eventually becoming head of New York State's Urban Development Corp., managing such difficult and large-scale projects as the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and Battery City Park. In the 1980s, he established Take the Field, which rehabilitates athletic fields at public high schools in the five boroughs of New York (to date, some forty have been revitalized).
Then, believing that schools are investments in the future (“if you change education, you change everything else”), he turned to the challenge of improving the city's educational system. This multi-faceted task combines repairing the crumbling infrastructure, strengthening educational systems to prepare students for college or employment, and uniting communities to optimize economic potential. The work reflects his gospel-“Urban growth can be socially responsible, ecologically sustainable, politically participatory, and economically productive.”
Kahan, who is described by colleagues as “intense,” “determined,” “smart,” and “innovative,” once received the Thomas Jefferson Award from the American Institute of Architects for his efforts to “set new standards in the practice of urban design and planning.” Today, he measures success in the impact his organization has on children. “You want to excite children about education and expose them to a world they rarely see,” he told the New York Times recently.
Big Ten Coach of the Year
Four years ago, the Northwestern University men's basketball team was winless in Big Ten play.
This past year, the Wildcats were 8-8, and Coach Bill Carmody '74 was honored by media voters as the Big Ten Coach of the Year-the first time a Northwestern coach has been so honored.
Carmody was recognized for leading a very young squad (starting with only one senior, three sophomores, and one freshman) to the university's best Big Ten record since 1968. Additionally, the team had its best finish in the conference standings since 1969, tying for fifth place with Michigan.
This most recent accolade for Bill is no real surprise. As a three-year starter at Union, he led the Dutchmen to a 59-11 record and broke all the team's assist records. He was team captain during his senior year and was named first-team All-ECAC as well as Union's Most Outstanding Athlete.
After graduation, Bill served as head coach for Fulton-Montgomery Community College in Johnstown, N.Y. After a 17-10 record and a conference title, he returned to Union as an assistant coach. In 1982, Bill left for Princeton, where he served as assistant coach to famed coach Pete Carrill for fourteen years before becoming head coach for four years, leading the Tigers to a record of 92-25, an Ivy League mark of 50-6, and a Top Ten national ranking and the second round of the 1998 NCAA tournament. In his first two years, he was named the U.S. Basketball Writers' Association District II Coach of the Year and the New Jersey Coach of the Year. He is one of only four to coach a team to a perfect Ivy League record and the only coach to attain such a distinction in his first two years.
In September 2000, Bill moved to Northwestern to revive a moribund program. He instituted the offensive system that brought success at Princeton and a match-up zone defense that consistently flummoxed opponents. The stats tell the result: 5-25 in 1999-2000 prior to his arrival; 11-19 in his first season; and 16-13 in 2001-2002. Sports Illustrated wrote that he was the “best offensive coach in college basketball,” and during the 2001-2002 season, the magazine's basketball writer voted him “one of the fifteen best coaches in the college game.”
Bill and his wife, Barbara Dewey Carmody '75, live in Wilmette, Ill., with their sons, Michael (12) and Edward (10).
Drawings from the underground
Many artists struggle to find models. Not John Donohue '90. Each day more than four million people pose for him. Donohue draws while riding the New York City subway system. His models often aren't aware that they are being drawn-many are deep in a book, lost in thoughts, or have nodded off (the subway, ironically, is one place where the city that never sleeps catches up on its shuteye)-but Donohue doesn't trespass on his subjects' dignity. Despite the constant motion of the train and the need to work quickly, he captures their essence with an intense yet benevolent eye. This spring his work was exhibited at the Big Cat Gallery in the East Village.
When Donohue closes his sketch pad, he goes to his job as editor of The New Yorker's “Night Life” listings. He joined the magazine's staff in 1993, starting as a staff assistant. That, he says, is a fancy title for the job of messenger. After eighteen months “shepherding artwork and manuscripts around the city,” he was promoted to assist the editor of the “Goings On About Town” department. Five years later, he took over the “Night Life” section.
If making subway portraits seems daunting, try keeping track of New York City's cultural and entertainment scene. Each week Donohue sorts through the city's offerings to cover the best pop, jazz, and world-music acts. Part of his job is going out on a regular basis. “One of my favorite shows was the sixty-eight-year-old Brazilian singer Tom Zé,” he says. “In his youth, Zé helped found the tropicalia movement by mixing psychedelic and Afro-Brazilian music. When I saw him a few years ago, he was still up to his innovative tricks. At one point, he broke out a grinding wheel and sent sparks flying as he laid down a beat. Another great night out was watching Ryan Adams last year, as he strode across tabletops in a downtown café, belting out Rolling Stones covers.”
Despite its name, The New Yorker is a national magazine (there are more subscribers in California than there are in New York). “I'm writing and editing for people who may never realize that a certain lower Manhattan thoroughfare is not pronounced like a major city in Texas,” he says. “The goal is to make the section a reading pleasure that offers a vicarious New York experience.”
Donohue graduated with an English degree and decided to pursue journalism, looking for a career that would take him out into the world. After getting his job at The New Yorker, he started to freelance for other publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Village Voice. A few years ago he had a realization. “All my life I worked with words,” he says. “I once read that words are processed by the brain's left side. I wondered what would happen if I started working with images. Being literal minded, I opened a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and made a fascinating discovery-I love to draw. I am most happy when I have a pen or pencil and I am sketching.”
He gave up his freelance writing career to devote time to creating art. He has studied at the Arts Student League, the School of Visual Arts, and the New York Academy of Art. “When I'm not taking classes, I'm drawing at home or on the subway. I've been drawing on my daily commute for about three years now.”
His artwork and New Yorker job are a nice fit. “Last fall I covered a benefit concert for an underground music-and-arts magazine called Yeti. I met the publisher and showed him my drawings. He called a few months ago and asked me to be in a group show he was putting together. I was thrilled because it was my first New York City show.” Last summer he started submitting cartoons to the magazine, and he recently sold his first one.
Donohue says his goals are to grow as an artist, constantly altering the way he sees the world, and changing the vision of those around him. He takes to heart the advice from his father-in-law, a former Penn State professor and successful investor: “You should never let your education get in the way of your career.” Reflecting on those words, Donohue says, “Union gave me a solid liberal arts background that helped me see his logic. I couldn't agree with him more.”
To see more from John Donohue, go to www.johndonohue.com
Following his bliss
If you'd asked Tony Pallone '87 in 1987 where he saw himself in five years, the answer would have been an anxious “I have no idea.” He had some wonderful college experiences, from involvement with Mountebanks to a term interning in the U.S. Congress. But, as he puts it, “I had yet to truly find myself.” Now a visual artist with the Albany Times Union, an acting teacher with the New York State Theatre Institute, an actor with the regional Pentimento Playback Theatre, and a faculty member at Albany's Glass Lake Studio, he feels like he's finally arrived.
“It was Mountebanks that gave me my first taste of the acting bug-unless you count experiences in grade school!” he laughs. “College allowed me a wide range of choices-I'd started as a mechanical engineering major, then switched to political science when I realized I was more interested in the way systems of people worked. [Professor] Bob Sharlet was a wonderful mentor, and more than anyone else, he helped me learn how to organize my thoughts and create a focus.”
After college, Pallone moved to Northampton, Mass., where he furthered his pursuit of the arts by appearing in as many shows as he could, and where he also first became interested in working
with children (he received an elementary teaching certification in 1992). The relaxed and culturally vibrant atmosphere of the town was just what he needed. “My creative spirit really flourished there,” he notes. “For so many years I had heard-and believed-that I needed to have a certain kind of career, to achieve a certain status to be successful in life. Northampton's message to me was simply: Be yourself.”
After returning to the Albany area in the early 1990s, Pallone volunteered his time to join the still-fledgling Pentimento Playback Theatre improvisational troupe. Though part of an international organization of similar companies, the group's mission was relatively unique to the Capital District: not simply to entertain, but to honor the stories of the community. Playback is an interactive art, inviting true-life experiences from audiences, which are then enacted spontaneously on stage.
One of Tony's most memorable performances was at Greene Correctional Facility, where he later taught for a semester. “The atmosphere was wildly intimidating at first,” he notes. “Once we started using the Playback form, however, I realized that inviting stories was just as valid here as anywhere-maybe even more so. Eventually I found myself performing in a scene with three inmates, all drawn from the audience, as actors.”
As actor and publicity coordinator for Playback for the past ten years, Pallone has seen the group through many transitions, and today uses the work in his classes for teenagers at the New York State Theatre Institute, in Troy, as well as ongoing acting workshops for adults at Glass Lake Studio, in Albany. His workshop series uses theatre and the dramatic arts to tap into the creative resources of average people from all walks of life who are interested in the arts and in cultivating their artistic selves but have not necessarily been trained.
“It's really rewarding for me when someone, of any age, comes through the door with a feeling of 'I'm not sure why I'm here,' and then leaves with a sense of how their personal story, large or small, is important to the world.” The arts, he feels, are the most vital link to this sense of importance in the big picture “because they exist largely on a plane that transcends the day-to-day realities of our lives, of what we do for a living.”
Not that making a living isn't important. For Pallone, it was the business of commercial art. Starting from the humble beginnings of the “cut-and-paste, enlarge-and- reduce-on-the-copier” method when he produced flyers for a band he managed in Northampton, Pallone now is a sought-after graphic designer for many local businesses and has a full-time job in the art department of the area's largest newspaper.
Still, he reminds himself, “My answer to the question of where I will be in five years hasn't really changed-what has changed is the tone with which I respond.
The only truly important thing, I think, is to follow your bliss.”
Good works in paradise
While at Union, René Maduro '62 was an active member and later president of Hillel.
During his four years, he received several leadership and activity awards.
Since then, he has continued his volunteer activities on the island nation of Curaçao in the Caribbean, amassing a growing list of leadership awards for his community service with organizations Jewish and non-Jewish, such as B'nai B'rith and Lions International; he even has been decorated as an Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau by Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands.
Like most of the island's Jewish population, Maduro is descended from early Sephardic Jewish settlers who arrived in the seventeenth century from Holland after being expelled from Spain and then Portugal when the Inquisition began. Born in Panama, he was reared on his mother's native Curaçao until he was sent to boarding school in the U.S.A. and then to prep school at Trinity-Pawling School in Pawling, N.Y. While he was at prep school, his family's finances changed, and he came to Union because the College offered him a work-study position and an education loan. He lived in Professor of English Harold Blodgett's house for his room, worked in the cafeteria for his meals, and mowed lawns and tutored for extra income. “I needed a great deal of financial assistance, or else no college,” he says.
After graduation, René was recruited by IBM World Trade Corp. Not only did he have a degree in economics, specializing in management and international trade, he also was fluent in four languages-English, Spanish, Dutch, and Papiamento (Curaçao's native dialect). He took a systems engineering position in IBM's Caribbean territory, traveling to Suriname, British Guiana, Trinidad, and Aruba from his home base on Curaçao. Since then, he has been involved in several international enterprises (including IBM), land development, the beauty/health industry, retail/wholesale distribution, data processing, entrepreneurship, and human resource development and management training. However, he cut back on his activities in 2001 after triple by-pass surgery.
He and his wife, Debora, will be married forty years this August. Their daughter, Rosalie, attended high school in Israel and the U.S.A., then college in the U.S.A. She and her family emigrated to The Netherlands six years ago. Their son, David, lives on the island with his family.
A longtime leader in Curaçao's Jewish community, Maduro muses that his decades of activism, starting with Hillel, is
“Perhaps it is in my genes?” In 2001, the island's Sephardic Mikve Israel-Emanuel Congregation celebrated its 350th anniversary while Maduro was serving his eighteenth year as president of the congregation. The congregation is the oldest active one in the Americas, and the synagogue is the oldest in continuous use in the Americas, according to a website featuring its history.
Reading about Curaçao, viewing its natural beauty, and experiencing its welcoming culture, it is easy to imagine how one might think it is a utopia. Maduro concurs, but he also acknowledges that there can be trouble even in paradise: “This is a wonderful place to live. Sure, we have our social, political, and economic problems, but we have over forty nationalities/groups living in almost perfect harmony on this island, and we work very hard at it. It does not come easily. Yes-outside influences do have their impact, most certainly when our children come back from their university studies in a cultural environment that is different from our own here. Also, the Internet generation is making distance and time almost invisible; this is not always an advantage, nor is it good in many cases.”
Still, the little country of Curaçao and the good works of people like Maduro set powerful examples that resound beyond borders and nationalities. Their message is universal and worthy of emulation.
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