Janet
Carpenter Deckert '42, an RCA engineer for 30 years, now shingles
roofs at the age of 78. As the sixth female engineering major to
graduate from Swarthmore--and now the president of Habitat for
Humanity in Martin County, Fla.--Janet has also helped build a church
near Mérida in the Yucatán and traveled with a medical
team to Pucallpa, Peru.
"I was from a family that always helped the poor," Janet said. The Quaker influence at Swarthmore, where she remembers the "good dialogue" at meetinghouse services, reinforced the giving attitude that Janet's father imparted to her. When they ate at restaurants, her dad always left disproportionately large tips and said, "I have enough."
After World War II, Janet helped rebuild orphanages in Holland, Luxembourg, and France. "I saw small children with missing limbs, and that tears your heart out," she said.
These experiences remained in her mind until 1993, when Janet's husband died. She decided, after caring for him for five years, that "it was time to give my energy, ability, and money" to the community. "I was always fortunate," she said, "and I wanted to give something back."
Janet became an elder in her Presbyterian church and helped raise about $4,000 for the Mayans in the Yucatán peninsula. The money was sent ahead to Rev. Dr. Ricardo Santana, president of the Yucatán presbytery, to buy building materials, including trusses, nylon rope, and concrete blocks.
A week later, Janet then traveled with her church group to the Yucatán. They worked alongside the Mayan Presbyterians to build their church, "La Hermosa." Janet has now visited this area in southeastern Mexico four times and said it is "as close as Atlanta to my home," in Palm City, Fla. At construction sites on various trips, she has helped build roof structures, poured a concrete slab for children to play, and constructed bathrooms.
In March, with United Servants Abroad, Janet traveled to Pucallpa, Peru. By motorboat on the Ucayali River, they visited the Shipbo Indian villages. Storms caused by El Niño had flooded the Amazon basin, many crops didn't survive, and the homes of rough wood on stilts were like islands in the water. "These five days made me realize more about God," she said.
Janet, who has also helped build a 9,000-square-foot hospice residence in Florida, continues to use some of the engineering skills she learned at Swarthmore--where she was active in athletics, including hockey and swimming. Over the years, she has helped build 25 houses, with 6 Habitat for Humanity homes completed in 1999. "I can build a house, and I know all of the state codes now," she said. "I can't lift a wood truss, and I have macular eye degeneration, a heart valve replacement, and a birth defect resulting in the partial loss of my left lung, but I can in-struct others from start to finish."
Completing a house is deeply fulfilling for Janet, who marvels at the transformation of "starting with land and then having a house to put people in," she said. Her efforts often inspire others, which is another part of the motivation behind her work. "When the men see a gray-haired woman with wrinkles picking up a block, they work a little harder," she chuckled.
Her latest trip, in November, took her with a group of 13--all older than age 50--to Skivjan, Kosovo. In this village of 5,000, including 600 families, 300 homes were completely destroyed. The two-story farmhouses just had bits of roof hanging and no windows or doors.
Just before leaving for her trip, Janet had bought a 68-pound generator to take on the plane for their work. Even though friends worry about her safety, Janet doesn't give these concerns much thought.
"When God wants me, he'll take me," she said. "As long as I can, I'm going to keep doing this work."
--Andrea Hammer
Remember
feeling bored at a family dinner and running your finger around the
rim of a water glass only to get a squeaky sound, which, with the
right pressure, suddenly became a lovely ringing tone? Your parents
would then admonish you to "stop it now," and all the guests shifted
their eyes in your direction without turning their heads.
Instead of that squeaky sound being an annoyance, it could have been viewed as the beginning of a musical career. In the case of Ann Stuart '65, this sound was the beginning of an avocation that has created a musical bond with her 16-year-old son, Jonathan. They began playing glasses when he was 5 years old and made their first public appearance when he was 11.
Stuart also uses her glass-playing talent in her career as a researcher and professor in the medical school at the University of North Carolina&endash;Chapel Hill, where she has taught since 1979. "I give lectures on hearing and bring some of the glasses in to make various points in the lecture. I also go to elementary and middle schools, where I play the glasses and talk about music and hearing," she said.
Stuart says she has always loved music and throughout her life has played the piano, French horn, and cello. But while an assistant professor at Harvard in neurobiology, Stuart showed her social spirit at a department holiday party and played glasses, also known as a glass harp. The sounds they create when played are surely what a choir of angels must sound like. No squeaks. No shrill notes. Just light, airy tones.
The hobby is not an inexpensive one. There are 68 glasses representing two arrays, each roughly three octaves. Each glass may cost as much as $50. Stuart and her son travel in a minivan with the glasses, three tables, and other paraphernalia. The packing of glasses and setup time for each performance requires four hours and a two-hour breakdown.
The only roadie is Stuart's husband, John Moore, who constructed the series of pedastals to which the glasses are secured. A glass is chosen only after Ann has listened to the specific tone it makes with water in it. "I've been known to go to Crate and Barrel, for instance, with my jar of water and newspaper clippings showing who we are and explain to the manager what I am doing. I'll ask if there's a place I can sit on the floor or a back room and listen to 30 or so glasses. I stroke them and listen to the sound," she said. "Sometimes I'll ask the manager if the background music in the store can be turned down so I can hear the tone better. Sometimes they're understanding. Usually they're intrigued."
The Stuarts' sparkling glasses are lined up on two levels and divided by octaves, like a piano, in a linear pattern. A change in octaves is indicated by a glass filled with colored water, which further adds to the glass harp's attractiveness. The base, also built by her husband, holds the glasses steady and sits on top of a silver, padded tablecloth.
Stuart and her son were featured on a segment of PBS's Scientific American Frontiers, which aired in 1998. She believes they were chosen because they were the only mother-and-son duo playing at the Glass Music International Festival in 1997 that the TV show covered. But she also stated that their attractive glass setup caught the producer's eyes.
Stuart is similarly proud of an invitation they received to perform in the Duke University Chapel during the Christmas holiday season in 1998. "It's a well-known chapel that can seat about 1,000 people. It was an enormous high to be able to play there," she said. Stuart equated her experience in Duke Chapel to what it must feel like to play in Carnegie Hall. "It has fabulous acoustics and a prolonged echo." The team has also been invited to perform at the Glass Music International Festival in Philadelphia in April 2000.
Stuart and her son play sacred music that easily lends itself to glasses as well as Broadway show tunes. Their repertoire includes music from Les Misérables and West Side Story. They choose pieces with descants, harmonic structure, and ones in which she and Jonathan can have musical conversations. Occasionally, they do have squabbles over which music to perform, but, once settled, Stuart arranges the music for the glasses.
"Our duo will stop when Jonathan goes to college. Although it will not be the same as playing with my son, I guess I will look for another partner," Stuart said. "Playing the glasses brings me immense joy."
--Audree Penner
One
of the critical issues in public education is the increasing
disparity in funding for urban and suburban schools. Delvin Dinkins
'93 makes sure his students are aware of the problem.
"It's very much a conversation piece," he says. "I'm very open with them about their relationship to the world and getting them to see that not all the world is quite this privileged."
"Privileged" is a word often associated with Conestoga High School, where Dinkins has taught and developed courses in English, world literature, and modern American literature since 1995. The school is located in Berwyn, Pa., just beyond the Main Line; almost all of its graduates go to college.
But the numbers are what really distinguish the area. Conestoga and the other schools in its district spent twice as much per student last year than the schools in the Chester-Upland School District less than one hour away--a difference of more than $5,000.
Diversity, however, doesn't reach many faculty lounges in suburban high schools, and Conestoga is no exception. When Dinkins was hired, he was the only African-American person there to teach an academic subject.
Although Dinkins is not alone in that role now, he continues to see its importance. "Getting the students to see multiple perspectives gives them much more of an understanding of the world around them," he explains. "Often people have the habit of existing within themselves.
"Typically, our discussions are very open," he continues. "They want to learn and understand, but it's hard for them to learn that the world doesn't work for everyone."
So how can public education work in places less privileged than Berwyn?
"Yes, more money is one answer," he says. "To close the gap, three to four times as much money won't cut it. You have to overfund and keep it overfunded to bring the level up. Furthermore, he says that money alone won't offer a long-term solution to urban schools' dilemmas."
"People want simple solutions for complex problems," he adds. "It doesn't work that way. The culture of the school, of the neighborhood, of the city--there are so many layers. This is not to say you can't succeed, but there are a lot of subtleties."
Dinkins grew up in Chester and is a 1989 graduate of Swarthmore Academy. As part of the Upward Bound program during high school, he fondly remembers coming to the College for several weeks each summer. "It was very appealing," he says. "It really armed me with an almost idealized version of what Swarthmore was like. I remember it as almost a paradise of learning and wondered what it would be like to be there."
Once enrolled at the College, Dinkins wasted little time before getting involved. Subsequently, his numerous athletic, musical, and community-oriented activities proved to be a central part of his Swarthmore experience.
"The Black Cultural Center [BCC] sustained me," he says. "I very much found being part of the BCC gave me entry into the activism on campus. The Swarthmore African-American Students' Society was also at the center of my experience."
Dinkins credits the atmosphere he found on campus with reinforcing his sense of social re-sponsibility. "It gave me a sense of urgency," he says. "What I observed around me validated what I really wanted to do--and that was to teach. There was an almost spoken voice saying, 'it's OK; it's feasible.'"
Although he graduated in 1993, his connection to the College is still strong. "I've been able to incorporate pieces from my Swarthmore courses into my own courses," he says, "even from some of my notes, and I've called professors for input in classes I'm designing."
Dinkins' connection to the College isn't only professional. He met his wife, Davirah Timm-Dinkins '93 and now Swarthmore's coordinator of student activities, during the summer before their freshman year. Dinkins says they've been best friends ever since.
At Conestoga, Dinkins' reputation precedes him. "I'm pegged as one of the hardest teachers in the school," he says proudly. "I hold my students to very high standards."
As high as those standards are, they are no less than those he expects from himself. In addition to teaching five courses, all of which are at the Honors or Advanced Placement level, Dinkins coaches both the girls and boys indoor and outdoor track and field teams.
"I really love it," he says. "I try to be cooperative as a coach. I hope that's how I come across in the classroom."
Dinkins will get a break from the classroom next fall when he begins an administrative internship at his school district's central office. He believes this step is the next one toward his goal of becoming a high school principal.
"I'm getting 100 percent support and a lot of opportunities from that district," he says. "I'm teaching at the level I've always envisioned.
"This is the path I have chosen."
--Alisa Giardinelli
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Swarthmore College 1999. All rights reserved.