Last summer, exactly 30 years after I graduated from ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝, my favorite professor retired, which led me to think about my early experiences with interdisciplinary thinking and international awareness — and how these tools prepared me for work and life.

To prepare for Steve Kemper’s retirement party, I dug through a box of college notebooks and papers that I had moved unopened from one apartment and city to the next for the past three decades.

Seen circa 1981, Steven Kemper joined the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ faculty in 1973 and retired in 2019 as professor emeritus of anthropology. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

I found a pastel-pink exam book, with my name in pencil on the cover. Inside, I saw my handwriting, no different from today’s.

As I began to read, I didn’t remember writing or knowing any of what was on these pages. My 19-year-old self possessed deep specific knowledge that is long gone from my memory, 30 years on. But I did recognize that this exam was for an anthropology course Steve taught my sophomore year, on culture and politics in South Asia.

Steve’s name doesn’t show up anywhere, but his handwriting is unmistakable. A cursive like no other: loopy, ornate, enthusiastic, and generous, with tails on letters like x, p, and y flowing down with a flourish. Steve had written comments in the margins, including a correction when I wrote “bride price” instead of “dowry.”

I learned from my exam that back when I was only 19, I knew a lot about what might be considered pretty esoteric things. Before this class, I knew nothing about South Asia. I enrolled by accident, thinking “South Asia” referred to what I now know is Southeast Asia. My father is a Vietnam War vet, and I wanted to learn more about Vietnam.

Instead, on the first day of class, Steve had pulled down a map from a roller above the chalkboard and drew me quickly into learning about India and its neighboring countries — including Sri Lanka, where I eventually spent many years and learned two of the languages spoken there.

Back then, I was focused on the details of the societies Steve instructed us about. I am sure I didn’t appreciate what was at stake, why this kind of learning matters so much.

Memories can be triggered by a whiff of an odor, a snippet of a song, or a taste of food: events, experiences, and emotions long ago tucked away spring up at a resonant prompt. Holding the exam book in my hand, I suddenly remembered working in the college library; studying for hours for Steve’s tests; re-reading books, articles, and lecture notes; taking new notes and writing practice responses to questions he had provided in advance.

When I remembered the library study sessions, I had an epiphany. There was something about the esoteric nature of the exam topics, and my absence of memory of the details of the materials but clear memory of studying for the test, that led me to really understand — just in time for my 30th Reunion — what I learned in college.

Professor of Anthropology Steven Kemper poses in his office in Pettengill Hall on Sept. 27, 2017. (Samuel Mironko ’21 for ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ College)

Back then, I was focused on the details of the societies Steve instructed us about. I am sure I didn’t appreciate what was at stake, why this kind of learning matters so much.

I now see that Steve helped me to have a genuine interest in people unlike me, and to understand the necessity and value of the hard work of reading, researching, interviewing, seeing, feeling, talking, listening: all in the interest of making sense of how we live in the world, what matters most for people, and why.

From Steve, I learned how to identify what I know and what I don’t know.

In learning about the efforts toward justice by Mahatma Gandhi or by unionized workers in Calcutta, or in learning about menstruation practices among Tamils in Sri Lanka, I developed a lifelong attention to the values, customs, aspirations, and struggles of people near to and far from my daily life. Steve taught me that this kind of learning and understanding is hard but essential work.

Nowadays, I use that conviction to learn and understand, and to make sense of everyday conversations, first-hand experiences, and news items — say, about the Indian government’s revocation of special status for Indian-controlled Kashmir, debates about the separation of migrant families at the U.S.–Mexican border, or the causes and impacts of last spring’s Easter Sunday bombings in my beloved Sri Lanka. From Steve, I learned how to identify what I know and what I don’t know. I learned why it matters that I spend time to learn, humbly and with deep curiosity and respect.

Today I’m an anthropology professor, like Steve. I teach my students how to understand and respect people unlike themselves, and I teach them how this is the road to creating experiences of equity and justice.

Steve has retired from 45 years of transformative education. And yet, his work is not done. During this moment in American life where misunderstanding across communities reigns, educators of my generation and the next must step up and do more of this work.

Caitrin Lynch ’89

About Caitrin Lynch ’89

Caitrin Lynch is a cultural anthropologist at Olin College of Engineering.

In 2018, she delivered a TEDx talk about how in their work to create product and system designs that solve problems and enhance people’s lives.

An analytics whiz kid who grew up idolizing the Capitals is now helping coach them — The Washington Post

 
Tim Ohashi’s amazing journey, writes , took him from “obsessing over sports as a kid in Bethesda to studying psychology and mathematics at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ to landing an internship and then a full-time job” with his favorite hockey team, the Washington Capitals.

Tim Ohashi ’11 is the hockey operations analyst for the Washington Capitals of the NHL. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images)

Ohashi is the hockey operations analyst, a multitasking job comparable to “an NFL quality-control coach,” Steinberg writes.

“I could have told you probably 20 years ago that this was exactly where I’d like to be,” Ohashi says. “I never in a million years would have guessed I’d be here.”

He got his gig the old-fashioned way, blanketing the team with resumes after getting a master’s in sports industry management at Georgetown.

And though he scored just one career hockey goal, in an 18-2 win for the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ club team, Ohashi has proven to be “a genius” in his work, says Jay Beagle, a Capitals center. “Statistically, he’s the best.”

Signs with a message of love to combat hate, and maybe start a conversation — The Philadelphia Inquirer

 
After the presidential election, Kate Haesche Thomson ’00 and Mark Thomson ’03 “had been alarmed by the stories” of harassment and intimidation, of the The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Some incidents were close to their home a few miles north of Philadelphia in Glenside, Pa.: “swastikas scrawled in bathrooms at Council Rock High School North and racist text messages sent to University of Pennsylvania students.”

Since then, the Thomsons have become a distribution hub for a phenomenon: the “Hate Has No Home Here” yard sign that had appeared in 29 states as of late December.

Kate Haesche Thomson ’00 poses with some of the signs that read “Hate Has No Home Here” in several languages. (Photograph by David Maialetti/Philadelphia Inquirer)

It started when Kate posted a Facebook note asking if anyone wanted one.

A “Hate Has No Home Here” sign, printed in several languages, stands in the Thomson home.

A few signs became a lot more, and at the time of the Inquirer‘s story, they’d handled local requests for more than 1,800 signs that now “dot the roads in clusters” in their community.

“It just blew up so fast,” Kate says. And as of Jan. 13, their number is more than 5,000 signs.

Putting a sign out or wearing a pin won’t stop hate, Kate says, but as a marketing consultant she knows that “exposing people to a simple, memorable message can help it stick in their minds,” writes Whelan.

Kate hopes the signs can help facilitate conversations. “Having conversations about what constitutes hate is progress. Feeling empowered to do more is progress.”

Practical and life lessons from a textile mill — South Coast Today

 
In an , anthropologist Caitrin Lynch ’89 described how she “shelved” her college-professor routine and “went to work in a textile mill” in 2016 to do research for her new book.

Caitrin Lynch is a professor of anthropology at Olin College in Needham, Mass.

As an anthropologist, Lynch’s “bread and butter” skill is “understanding how people make sense of the world they inhabit.”

Even so, Lynch’s mill year drove home “the value of immersing ourselves in new perspectives.” Regardless of “our formal education” or “our political orientation or family backgrounds, each of us would benefit from seeing the world through the eyes of people unlike ourselves,” she wrote.

Lynch learned practical skills and got the big picture, too, from “how to operate machines that move in mysterious ways” to “what it means for a business owner to keep a business alive when odds are against its survival.”

Radio Garden lets you tune into a world of global broadcasts — NPR

 
It was a throwaway mention, but kinda cool, when freelance journalist and radio producer Deepak Singh mentioned the ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ radio station, WRBC-FM, in

Illustration by Marty Braun.

Behaving something like Google Earth, Radio Garden lets you spin the globe to tune into radio stations worldwide.

Singh writes: “I zoomed into the northeast part of the United States. And then a radio station started playing. On the bottom left side of the screen it said, ‘Lewiston, United States.’ This is about 30 miles from Brunswick, Maine, where I now live. On the bottom right side, it said WRBC. The ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ College radio station was playing.”

(Note to readers: We loved the site but couldn’t get WRBC to play!)

Cultural anthropologist Caitryn Lynch ’89 wrote “Retirement on the Line.”

Caitrin Lynch ’89, author of a book studying a Massachusetts factory whose workers are a median age of 74, gives a talk based on her research at 4:15 p.m. Monday, Jan. 13, in Room G21 of Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

Lynch’s talk is titled Flexibility and Family: Older Workers and Questions of Exploitation in an American Factory. Sponsored by the anthropology department, the event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-8295.

Lynch, who was an anthropology major at ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝, is the author of Retirement on the Line: Age, Work and Value in an American Factory (Cornell University Press, 2012). The book’s research setting is the Vita Needle Company of Needham, Mass.

A family-owned factory founded in 1932, Vita makes needles, stainless steel tubing and pipes, and custom fabricated parts. As part of its unusual business model, the company seeks out workers older than the traditional retirement age. One worker, the company’s oldest at the time, retired at age 100.

The production workers are all part-time and none receive medical or retirement benefits — the employer banks on their eligibility for Medicare and Social Security benefits. The employer claims to be providing a social service to people otherwise unlikely to find paid work, and he admits to the financial savvy of the model.

In her ŔÖ˛Ą´«Ă˝ presentation, Lynch will examine everyday workplace dynamics around notions of flexibility and family, and how they create an atmosphere where workers and employers alike appear to agree on the mutual benefit of a labor arrangement we may otherwise assume to be exploitative.

Lynch investigated what Vita’s commitment to an elderly workforce means for the employer, the workers and the community, as well as society more generally. In an era when people live longer and want (or need) to work into old age, Retirement on the Line provides inspiration and important lessons about the value of older workers.

Lynch, an associate professor of anthropology at Olin College, told The Boston Globe in 2012 that for many Americans getting old is like a vanishing act. “People don’t even look at them, and if they do look at them, they look at them with pity,” she said.

Benefiting from nearly five years of fieldwork at Vita, Lynch developed an intimate portrait of the people who work there, a nuanced explanation of the company’s hiring practices and a cogent analysis of how the workers’ experiences can inform our understanding of aging and work in the 21st century.

Vita’s mostly white male workers exemplify a range of personalities and class backgrounds and a diversity of reasons for working, Lynch says.

“Even those who come out of financial need also seek social engagement and purpose,” she says. “Indeed, Vita workers often invoke the health risks of idle retirement and claim that ‘working here keeps me alive.’ ”

“In today’s United States, when people live longer and need or want to work past the traditional retirement age, the Vita Needle Company challenges us to think carefully about the relationships between a company’s bottom line and the needs and wants of workers.”