Poet Christine Montross ’06 MD, ’07 MMS entered medical school as one of the oldest students in her class. She didn’t know what to expect. And she certainly didn’t think her first and best teacher would be a cadaver.

 

On September 1, 2001, Christine Montross held a human heart in her hands for the first time.

The first motion pictures are older than you think. [Finally]

A.J. Jacobs ’90 spent twelve months trying to follow the Bible’s every edict.

A farewell to Judith D. Wilkenfeld '64

A farewell to Margaret Gray '59

In the May/June issue (“The Haggadah and Gays,” Mailroom), Lawrence Jurrist ’70 writes: “Very few Jewish scholars ... have interpreted the sin of S’dom as primarily one of homosexual behavior.”  I would like to point him to Genesis 19:4-5: “... all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, ‘Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.’”

Frank Tarney ’72 accuses senator Rick Santorum of “focusing on only a few atypical Islamic ideas and the actions of only a few Muslims” (Mailroom, July/August). A recent Pew Research Center poll showed that 26% of young Muslim Americans (under age thirty) justify suicide bombing. This means that a few hundred thousand young Muslim Americans justify suicide bombing, not a “few.” Only 9% of older Muslim Americans justify suicide bombing.

I imagine that many readers would be interested to know the identity of Mr. or Mrs. Van Wickle, who presumably donated Brown’s famed Van Wickle Gates. As a person who grew up in Princeton, N.J., whose local college also has a set of Van Wickle Gates, I’m doubly curious! Can someone enlighten me?

I’m sure there were deadline pressures involved, but there is an error in your caption of Robert Papenhause sliding home against Wake Forest (Sports, July/August). Brown was eliminated by their second defeat of the regionals, but the first loss was Friday, June 1, to the host school, the University of Texas. In fact, Brown led briefly on Friday night, much to the dismay of the 9,000 orange-clad Longhorn fans in attendance.

I guess the acrostic is a thing of the past, and I can’t say that its demise was a surprise to me. Not many readers would have been doing the puzzle, I always thought, so it probably wasn’t worth the space and cost for you to print it.

The article on Mona Lisa Schulz’s work as a “medical intuitive” (“Brain Power,” The Classes, May/June) highlights a practitioner potentially defrauding those who are vulnerable to her claims of being able to provide a “healing process” to individuals over the phone. While intuition is a valuable component in the practice of clinical medicine, it is but a part of a constellation that includes interviewing the patient, physical examination, appropriate objective testing, and treatments based upon evidence-based medical practices.

In horse racing lingo, I finally broke my maiden with my first reunion—my sixty-fifth (The Classes, July/August). Personal problems always popped up at inappropriate times. I am also grateful for the persistence of Bernie Bell ’42, and it’s gratifying to see that the class set a sixty-fifth-reunion record in both participation and donation.

I was happy to see some acknowledgment that what is now the Haffenreffer Museum in Bristol, R.I., was once the seat of government—perched appropriately high upon the Mt. Hope promontory—of the one Native American group in seventeenth-century New England that gave European colonists a run for their money in a literal sense.

A reporter should consider a source’s motivations in addition to confirming whether the information is reliable (“Telling Secrets,” July/August). This is true, regardless of whether the source is a leak or an official pronouncement.

Not enough can be written about public education. Its inadequacies are more complex and nebulous than they appear in books and films that feature unorthodox, shapely teachers, impervious to cynicism, touching the hearts of hardened city teens. Fortunately, there are talented, serious people in some of our nation’s most beleaguered districts laboring after real change . . .

How do you tailor a camp to help Katrina’s youngest victims? [Profile]

A cautionary tale about crystal meth. [Profile]

Fighting diabetes among the Cherokees, she foresees its explosion among the larger U.S. population. [Profile]

What the ivory-billed woodpecker can teach us about science and faith. [Faculty P.O.V.]

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s, he turned to Churchill for guidance. [Profile]

A grandmother finds a metaphor for the life unraveling around her. [Alum P.O.V]

When Alex Frankel got a job at Starbucks, he thought it might be fun serving coffee to friendly customers all day. Then he put on the green apron and got a lesson in corporate control and uniformity.

As cofounder and president of Mad River Canoe, Kay Wilson Henry ’67 manufactured some of the most innovative canoes of the past generation. Now retired, she’s dedicated herself to saving the rivers that inspired them.

Eric Jay Dolin ’83 offers a whale’s-eye view of American history.

In his latest film, Nat Moss ’87 tells three stories of lonely New Yorkers whose lives collide.

Paige Rien ’97 is turning her obsession with home renovations into HGTV’s most popular show.

The Office heartthrob John Krasinski ’02 hits the big screen and edits his first film. 

The award-winning documentary Lumo traces a hospital’s efforts to save rape victims in the Congo.

Rookie coach Tara Harrington ’94 hopes field hockey is a winner.

Under veteran coach Mike Noonan, men’s soccer is hot.

With an inexperienced offense, the football team is looking to a veteran defense to hold its ground.

Rhode Island’s two biggest health care companies propose a marriage that could bolster the medical school’s planned expansion.

An 1868 building, home to half the history department, relocates to make way for a new walkway connecting the Brown and Pembroke campuses.

Walking gets easier for amputees —just in time for returning Iraq War veterans.

More incoming students are the first in their families to attend college.

Obituaries from the September / October 2007 issue.