Class News: 2007********************************** Sunset in Portugal '52 Equestrians Ride the Atlantic Coast of Alentejo by: J.C. ("Chips") Chester '52 This year's annual horseback ride took place in Portugal during the first week of May. While "April in Portugal" has been immortalized in song, we recommend early May, when the weather was close to perfect, and all of the spring flowers were in bloom. Alas, we are down to two classmates for this traditional exercise: Bob Jiranek and the author. Our esteemed classmate, the late Arthur Collins, was sorely missed, as was our Class widow, Margo Fish, who now focuses her awesome energies on running the Boston Marathon, as she did again this year. This time we arrived a week prior to the commencement of the ride-for purposes of pure tourism. Our guide, Ilona Thykier, is a longtime resident of Cascais, an upscale suburb of Lisbon, and my close friend. Her oldest son, who lives in London, is my godson. Ilona took us all over Lisbon by tram and then to nearby Sintra by car. As
the the guidebook accurately proclaims: "Sintra's stunning setting on
the north slopes of the granite Serra, among wooded ravines and fresh
water springs, made it a favorite retreat for the Kings of Portugal." Of
special note are the "tall conical chimneys" of the Palacion National
de Sintra and the unusual Palacio de Pena. In short, Sintra is a must
for all visitors.
While most Lusitanos are grey, the Alter Real are pure bred bay or brown. They are also much larger than the Lusitanos we rode the following week-with thick necks and deeply muscled legs. We were told they were bred primarily for dressage and bullfighting-two rather distinctively contrtasting disciplines. We were guided through the various stables by Mr. Luis Lupi who had been a major official at the World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany last August (where my horse participated-alas unsuccessfully). Mr. Lupi's father had been a famous bullfighter, as Ilona recalled from her youth. On our return to Lisbon, we stopped at a winery run by two brothers-both friends of Ilona's for decades. The Portugese wine is evidently of high quality, but it is considered expensive for the current European market. Cheaper wines from South Africa and elsewhere have undercut sales from Portugal. To casual outside observers, like Bob and myself, the Portuguese economy appears to be thriving-with many new and expensive cars on the road. Principal exports are cork, olive oil (we were to see vast numbers of cork and olive trees on our ride), and in large quantity: shoes. There has also been a recent emphasis on tourism development-a program in which we were pleased to participate. However, all local residents told us the same story: the impression of affluence is misleading: there is actually very high unemployment, especially among the highly skilled and educated, and everyone is living on a mountain of debt-a not unfamiliar problem in the Western World. Much of the funding provided to Portugal by the EU has been invested in football stadiums, which have not been notably income-producing, at least so far. Finally, a week after our arrival in Portugal, our ride began in a section of the country known as Alentejo-the larges, mainly southern region of the country, just above the Algarve in the far south.
************************************************ Carpenter wins top award By: Andrew Kurtzman, Brown Daily Herald Professor of Medicine Charles Carpenter - admired for his humility, compassion and unassuming demeanor - received the Robert H. Williams Distinguished Chair of Medicine Award, the nation's top award in academic internal medicine, March 3. The award recognizes Carpenter's 51-year career in medicine - teaching students, chairing departments of medicine and endeavoring to help the disadvantaged through medicine. The
award is presented annually by the Association of Professors of
Medicine to a "distinguished physician who has demonstrated outstanding
leadership as a current or former chair of a department of internal
medicine," according to the APM Web site. Carpenter
is widely admired for his teaching ability and patient interactions.
"He teaches his fellow physicians medical care and how to deal with
patients," said Kathleen Hittner, president and CEO of Miriam Hospital,
where Carpenter was physician-in-chief from 1986 to 1998. "His
interaction with patients is remarkable - he has an ability to
communicate with patients in words and expressions they can understand." "He is an incredibly generous mentor and a remarkably humble person given the magnitude of his achievements and the impressiveness of his international reputation," said Assistant Professor of Anthropology Daniel Smith, who works with Carpenter to improve treatment for HIV patients in Nigeria. "(Carpenter
is) a real humanist who really cares about people and about the
consequences of injustice and inequality, and he (is) inspiring to see
for me and for his colleagues," Smith added. After
graduating from Princeton University and attending the Johns Hopkins
University Medical School, Carpenter's career began with an internship
and residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. After
completing his residency, Carpenter had aspirations to work abroad. "My
wife and I decided that we would work overseas," Carpenter said. "It
was 1961, and we went down to Washington to join the Peace Corps.
However, they would not take couples, and so I came back to Hopkins and
asked my chief to see if we could go overseas. He suggested Calcutta." Carpenter
arrived in Calcutta - now Kolkata, India - in the middle of a
widespread cholera epidemic. While working in a hospital on the edge of
the city, it became clear to him that proper hydration for afflicted
patients was one of the biggest obstacles. "These
people just needed fluids to survive. However, there was no water
without (fever-causing) pyrogens. People who had over a liter or so of
fluid would get fever and chills, and some patients needed over 12
liters per day," Carpenter said. Between
1962 and 1964, as director of the Johns Hopkins Research Program in
Calcutta, Carpenter successfully implemented a method of oral
rehydration that allowed patients to ingest filtered fluids free of
pyrogens. Though Carpenter left in 1964 to become the director of the
division of allergy and infectious diseases at Hopkins, his program
would continue to fight cholera in Calcutta for another decade. Carpenter
moved to Ohio in 1973 to take on the posts of director of the
department of medicine at the University Hospitals of Cleveland and
professor and chairman at Case Western Reserve University. He came to
Rhode Island in 1986. "After
13 years at Case Western Reserve, I wanted to do more patient care and
treatment and less administrative work. Brown's program was very young,
and it seemed like a very exciting place to come to," Carpenter said. Carpenter
was appointed physician-in-chief of Miriam Hospital in 1986 and
established the immunology center there the following year. "
'Immunology center' is actually a euphemism," Carpenter said. "It is an
HIV clinic, but to call it that at the time would have been a
stigmatizing thing. At that time, in the mid 1980s, HIV was pretty
stigmatizing. It still is, to some extent." Carpenter
began his work with HIV because he felt that - like cholera - it was
another serious problem not being addressed adequately. "I started
seeing people with HIV infections when I moved to Rhode Island, and so
began research. We worked pretty well with that and with the community
to get rid of obstacles to effective treatment. Because of (the) small
state size and eager legislature, we have been able to do a great deal,"
he said. In
the 1980s, Carpenter worked to reform and improve HIV treatment as well
as extend treatments to communities where it was not typically
provided. These outreach efforts included Rhode Island's poorer
communities and the state prison system. "At
one point, one of my earliest HIV patients was imprisoned. The guards
had her in a bright orange jumpsuit that had 'biological hazard' written
on the back. This inmate was discharged several days later, but other
patients were infected and similarly mistreated," Carpenter said. Carpenter's
HIV research continues today. Currently, he said, he is working to
develop a microbicide for women in Africa to use to protect themselves
against HIV. "The
idea behind this is that, in the areas of densest HIV in Africa, the
vast majority of transmission is heterosexual, and females have no way
to force men to use condoms," he said. "This method will allow women to
protect themselves and their partners without needing to force their
partner to use a condom." But
despite his global work and research, Carpenter said he gets the most
satisfaction from training interns and residents. "You see what they
accomplish, and they stay in touch with you for years. It's wonderful to
hear from and watch these guys and girls and see how they handle their
medical careers." ***********************************************
Members
of the Class met Janet Dickerson at our Class dinner in February 2003,
when she participated in a panel session with the student leaders of
Sustained Dialogue. She has continued to foster this innovative program,
which has spread to the campuses of fifteen other colleges and
universities as a successful method of improving interracial
understanding. Vice President Dickerson has oversight responsibility for campus life, including the Office of Religious Life, the Department of Athletics, Princeton University Health Services, the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students (which is responsible for matters relating to the conduct and discipline of undergraduates, as well as extracurricular activities), Frist Campus Center, and the Pace Center, which promotes civic engagement. Janet works closely with the dean of the college in matters related to the residential colleges and with the dean of the graduate school on specific issues of concern to graduate students. She is a member of the Presidents' Cabinet and serves as secretary for the Student Life, Health and Athletics Committee of the Board of Trustees; has policy responsibility for the housing and dining programs as they affect undergraduates; and represents Princeton in the Policy Committee of the Ivy League. She co-chairs the Undergraduate Life Committee, which reviews policies and makes recommendations about undergraduate nonacademic life. She is a member of the Committee on Examinations and Standings and the Council of Masters. She served as co-chair of the Task Force on Health and Well Being and the four-year College Planning Committee, and is currently co-chair of the Diversity Working Group. She is a University representative to the Boards of the McCarter Theatre and the Princeton-Blairstown Center. Before coming to Princeton, Vice President Dickerson served as vice president for student affairs at Duke University for nine years. She was dean of the college at Swarthmore College from 1981 to 1991, and associate dean and director of Academic Support Programs from 1976 to 1981. She was the founding director of the Supportive Services program at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana, where she also was an associate dean of students and assistant professor of education from 1971 to 1976. Vice President Dickerson received a B.A. in English from the Western College for Women in Oxford, Ohio (now Miami University), and a M.Ed from Xavier University in Cincinnati. She did advanced graduate study in counseling psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and received honorary degrees from Xavier and Swarthmore. She has traveled and studied in the Middle East and was a Fulbright administrative fellow to Germany in 1997.
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