Perhaps more than any other campus activity, folk dance has a remarkable history of keeping its members in close contact with one another long after Commencement. Years after leaving the College, many alumni still count folk dancing as a major factor in their lives.

“There are a whole lot of activities at Swarthmore that people get involved in—political, community service, and tutoring. Inevitably, each activity touches certain lives. I think it’s extraordinary that a program like this can keep people together so many years later. Dancing becomes a permanent part of people’s lives,” says Geoffrey Selling ’71.

An elementary school science teacher, Selling is also a certified Scottish country dance instructor, an active member of the Delaware Valley branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, and husband of Cecily Roberts Selling ’77—one of many folk-dance romance stories. Dancing, he says, has kept him in close contact with the College. “I’m 53. and my daughters are in college [including Sarah Kate Selling ’03], but I’ve still known dancers in every Swarthmore class.”

“Folk dancing has been a really important part of Swarthmore for many of us,” Cecily Selling adds. “Our main contact [with] the College is through dancing.”

Some folk-dance alumni select their locale, their friends, even their spouses through or as a result of their folk-dancing connections. Andrew Peterson ’93 met his wife, then a University of Delaware student, at a Scottish dance class in 1989. “I remember being bowled over by her then, and I still am now,” he says. The couple return to the College once or twice each year for dances, always enjoying the company of old friends they’ve kept close. “The friendships I made with dancers in the area have proven some of the most enduring of my life,” Peterson says.

Fran Poodry ’92 chose to stay in the Philadelphia region after graduating just so she could maintain contact with the close friends she has made through dancing. Yet, even for some of those far away, folk-dance roots prove hard to forget. Kira “J.C.” Goetschius ’00, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, now dances regularly with the Honolulu branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. She expects never to stop.

“I know that Scottish dance will always be a part of my life, and, as many will tell you, it’s not just an activity, but a way of life,” she says.

—E.R.