'80's McGrath and Brody Keep Things Hopping at The New Yorker

Doug McGrath and Richard Brody contributed hot-topic essays over the past month at The New Yorker (edited by David Remnick '81, keeping the Tiger spirit alive there).

McGrath got the party started in the January 18 issue with a piece titled "We Have a Serious Problem," in the Shouts & Murmurs section. McGrath provides a fanciful diary of key dates in imagined discussions between Donald Trump and a key aide in his presidential bid. One except:

JANUARY 12, 2016: Trump slumped in his chair. He’d been holding the last slice of an extra-large everything pizza for an unheard-of five whole minutes without eating it. Jeff’s applications to work for calmer, nicer men—Rahm Emanuel, Robert Durst, the new social-media guy at ISIS—had so far not come through. He hardly slept anymore, and even though he was only thirty, his hands shook as if he’d just survived a plane crash.

 In the February 3 issue, Brody gives a highly positive review to "Hail, Caesar!" the new comedy by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen '79. Brody found a lot to like in the film, noting:

“Hail, Caesar!” is a comedy, and a scintillating, uproarious one, filled with fast and light touches of exquisite incongruity in scenes that have the expansiveness of relaxed precision, performed and timed with the spontaneous authority of jazz. Hollywood has been ripe for lampooning from the start, but, for all the movie’s incisive humor, the Coens don’t so much mock the movie colony as look on with an unusually benign astonishment at the contrast—only superficially a contradiction—between the absurd wonders of the movies that were made at the time and the even more absurd stories of their making. 

Brody's other articles so far this year looked at the 2016 Oscar nominations and the Star Wars saga.

Danny Quah Keeps an Eye on the Global Economy

From his perch as Professor of Economics and International Development and Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre at the London School of Economics, Danny Quah closely observes global economic trends and comments on them at his blog, www.dannyquah.com, and for leading business publications. 

His latest think piece reprinted at the Fair Observer website has the provocative title, "China's Economy is Not Collapsing." Quah works his way through the statistics, assumptions and politics of China, in a way that's difficult to summarize here and should be read as a whole. His conclusion is:

Indeed, recent events in China’s economic trajectory have set off alarm bells for many observers. But these same incidents, set against a slightly more textured background, are actually nuanced in their implications.

China is not imminently in meltdown.

None of this is to say China’s economy will continue growing at double-digit rates forever. Nor does it argue that China’s policymakers have consistently done the right things. But neither are those policymakers obviously guilty of incompetence or excessive interventionism.

Steep challenges lie ahead. China’s pile of debt is a tricky mix of privatized, local governmental and national obligations, and there remains considerable uncertainty how this debt hangover will work out. China’s industrial restructuring, its anti-corruption campaign, its transition past the Lewis Turning Point and out of the middle-income trap, and its environmental and demographic challenges all remain daunting. These challenges are substantive and long-term, and China’s policymakers will have to deal with them in a properly measured and considered way.

But China’s exchange rate and stock market gyrations? They have likely already attracted far too much attention relative to substance.

'80 Members Take Part in PAW's "Lives Lived and Lost" Issue

The February 3 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly features members of the Class of 1980 throughout, especially in its cover theme on "Lives Lived and Lost: 2015."

The section opens with a two-page photograph of Nancy Sullivan, an anthopologist who lived in Papua New Guinea for 24 years and died on July 16,  The article about her says,

She used those years to become an advocate for the country’s indigenous people and their culture as well as a beloved mother figure to more than a dozen children from the jungle.

An essay about E. Alden Dunham '53, who served at Princeton's director of admissions starting in 1962, quotes his daughter, Ellen Dunham-Jones, who recalls her father sometimes was called to Nassau Hall to explain his admissions decisions. Following Princeton, he continued to work to expand opportunities in higher education. Dunham-Jones said,

“He wanted to make sure that my siblings and I didn’t grow up as Princeton kids, with the expectation that everybody is ... well-educated and has all these opportunities,” Dunham-Jones says. “[He made sure] we had a chance to meet and learn to love people who had a lousy education and limited opportunities, but were wonderful and smart people. He always wanted us to be aware of that.” 

Marc Fisher, senior editor of the Washington Post, wrote an essay about his Post colleague Don Oberdorfer '52, describing him as "a phenomemon that today is very much in danger of fading away entirely: a journalist who was an expert in his own right." Fisher wrote,

Oberdorfer spent the bulk of his career at The Washington Post, where he covered the White House, the State Department, and foreign policy, and served as the paper’s Tokyo bureau chief. Rare is the reporter whose notebooks are worth saving, let alone becoming part of Princeton’s Mudd Manuscript Library, where 17 boxes of Oberdorfer’s notes chronicle his time as what legendaryPost editor Ben Bradlee called “a foreign-affairs expert who could and did peg even with the very best foreign-affairs experts.”

Beyond the memorials, '80 members contributed in other ways to the issue. Scott Willenbrock contributed a letter to the editor identifying people in a 1976 photo with basketball coach Pate Carril, and a short article about February 20 Alumni Day notes that Gen. Mark Milley will be receiving the Woodrow Wilson Award.

Dr. Cato Laurencin to Receive National Medal of Technology & Innovation

Dr. Cato Laurencin of the University of Connecticut, a world-renowned surgeon-scientist in orthopaedic surgery, engineering, and materials science, is being honored by the U.S., as a recipient of the NationalMedal of Technology and Innovation from the president of the United States. The award is the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement that is bestowed by the president on America’s leading innovators.

According to a story published by UConn Today,

“I am excited to be honored by President Barack Obama with this highest award in our land for scientific innovation,” said Laurencin. “I need to thank my family, teachers, mentors, colleagues, and students for inspiring me each and every day. What has been accomplished on this journey is in large part due to them.” Laurencin will receive the medal at the White House (in 2016). This will mark the third time he has received White House honors. He is also the recipient of the Presidential Faculty Fellow Award from President Bill Clinton for his work bridging engineering and medicine, and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Math, and Engineering Mentoring from President Barack Obama.

At UConn, Dr. Laurencin serves as the eighth University Professor in UConn’s 130-year history. He is professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering; professor of materials science and engineering; and professor of biomedical engineering. He is also the chief executive officer of the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (CICATS), UConn’s cross-university translational science institute. At UConn Health, he is director of the Institute for Regenerative Engineering; the Albert and Wilda Van Dusen Distinguished Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery; and director of The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Center for Biomedical, Biological, Physical, and Engineering Sciences. Laurencin is an elected member of both the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering.

Edie Canter Reflects on Push for a Women's Studies Program

In the latest installment of its podcasts with Class of 1980 members, the Princeton Alumni Weekly spoke with Edie Canter about the push for a program in Women's Studies. The interview's introduction says, "As undergraduates, Edie Canter ’80 and her friends had many discussions about women’s issues, but rarely in an academic setting. That realization led them to push for a women’s studies program." Canter recalls the organizational efforts:

After a lot of reluctance, the University did respond to some of the advocacy by creating a student-faculty committee to examine whether or not to have women’s studies. They populated the committee on the faculty side, at least in part, with a bunch of faculty members who were known to be in opposition coming into it – either in opposition to women’s studies or generally negative about interdisciplinary programs. It wasn’t completely stacked, but there were definitely people known to have a negative opinion that were on that committee, which meant that it felt to those of us who were advocating for it like a bit of a set-up. Nevertheless, it wasn’t exclusively that, and there was the opportunity for students to have a voice in this committee.

After Princeton, Canter attended law school and practiced commercial litigation before shifting her focus to the nonprofit sector. She is the executive director of the Chicago Debate League and Chicago Debate Commission.

Tim Koons-McGee Goes for the Cold (Ice Cream)

The December 2, 2015 issue of PAW featured Tim Koons-McGee and his peripatetic career path, along with his evolving family structure, in its "Life: 35 Years Out" section.  The article read:

Tim Koons-McGee ’80 tried “a million” careers — he owned a swimming-pool company, trained thoroughbred racehorses, and restored historic homes — but nothing stuck. “All of them were successful, but there was always this burning desire to do something else,” says Koons-McGee, who lives in a suburb of Louisville, Ky. 

Then, at the age of 40, he came out as gay. He explained this to his 10-year-old daughter (he was divorced from her mother), who soon decided to live with him full-time. Several years later, his romantic partner of 10 years died of a brain aneurysm, and within the next year his father and brother also died. Koons-McGee became, he says, “a high-functioning alcoholic.” One night he found himself in a bar in Louisville and asked himself, “What am I doing?” He went to Alcoholics Anonymous the next day and has been sober since. 

He met Roy McGee at an AA meeting. The two were married in Montreal in 2007 (they changed their last names to Koons-McGee) and resolved to embark on a career together: running an ice cream shop. “We went to the bank at the height of the Great Recession,” Koons-McGee says. “They thought we were insane.” 

After friends and family offered help — and a different bank offered a loan — the pair opened The Comfy Cow in Louisville in December 2009. “We had lines out the door, even though it was winter,” he says. The shop has an eclectic vibe, with recycled church pews and ice cream scoops hanging from the ceiling. There are now eight Comfy Cow shops in three states. 

At 57, Koons-McGee has found success, in more ways than one: “I’m very comfortable in my own skin, and that’s a good place to be.”

President Obama to Nominate Beth Colbert to Lead Office of Personnel Management

On November 10, 2015, President Obama announced he would nominate Beth Cobert to serve as the Director of the Office of Personnel Management. In a press release, President Obama said,

“Beth will bring tremendous depth and quality of experience to her role as Director of the Office of Personnel Management. As Acting Director, Beth has effectively pursued strategies to strengthen cybersecurity and improve the way the government serves citizens, businesses, and the federal workforce both past and present. I thank Beth for her commitment to serving the American people and look forward to working with her in the months ahead.”