Vassar Quarterly - Spring 2018 - 3

Letters

Vice President,
Communications
Amanita Duga-Carroll

Vassar

Publisher
Alumnae and Alumni of Vassar College
Milbrey rennie Taylor '68, President

FA L L 2 0 1 7

Director of Alumnae/i
Communications; Editor, VQ
Elizabeth randolph
elrandolph@vassar.edu
Assistant Editor,
Digital and Social Media
Debbie Swartz
Art Direction & Design
gary Tooth / Empire Design Studio
Class Notes
Joan giurdanella
rebecca Hyde '92, Coordinator
Nada glick '61, Coordinator

VASSAR LOOKS TO
A NEW LEADER

Editorial Assistants
Sam Cibula '20
James Olney '20
Communications Advisory Committee
Lisa Denby '87, Chair
Nana T. Baffour-Awuah '14
Adam greenberg '09
Justin Hergianto '04
Anna Iovine '16
Bruce Mendelsohn '90
Tanya Odom '92
Editorial Offices
124 raymond Avenue, Box 647
Poughkeepsie, New York 12604
845.437.5447 Fax 845.437.7239
Postmaster
Send address changes to
Central records, Box 14,
Vassar College, 124 raymond Avenue,
Poughkeepsie, New York 12604
Yearly Subscriptions $15
Unsolicited Manuscripts
We discourage the submission of unsolicited
manuscripts or stories written without prior
consultation with the editorial office. If you
would like to write for the magazine, please
email vq@vassar.edu with your story idea.
Articles reflect the opinions of the writers
and not those of the magazine, AAVC,
or Vassar College. Vassar, the Alumnae/i
Quarterly, is published in the spring,
summer, and fall/winter by the Alumnae
and Alumni of Vassar College (AAVC).

President Elizabeth H. Bradley Inaugurated
as 11th President of the College

c1_VQ_Fall2017.indd 1

Eyes on Diversity

11/1/17 11:28 AM

I was amused by the cover of the Fall 2017 VQ.
I applaud Vassar's emphasis on socioeconomic,
racial, and ethical diversity. I was somewhat
surprised then with the Fall VQ cover. The student
line on the right is unquestionably Caucasian,
while the student line on the left is multi-ethnic.
Sue Sneeringer Church '57
Brooklyn, MI

Editor's note: A few people contacted us to say
they were baffled by our choice of the Fall 2017
VQ cover. We had been captivated by the warm
smiles of the students on Inauguration day, as
they excitedly lined up in front of the Chapel,
awaiting Vassar's new president. We didn't notice
what one reader described as the "racial segregation" of the students, nor, as another pointed out,
the unfortunate gender imbalance. ("A recipient
of the magazine would think Vassar is still an
all-female college!" he wrote.)

Policy, Management and Budget. That's because
she's been miscast. She would have made a great
Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food, Nutrition,
and Consumer Services.
As Texas Commissioner of Agriculture in the
early naughts, Combs tackled the root causes of
the obesity epidemic. In her quest to curtail the
sale of food of minimal nutritional value-"junk
food"- in public schools, she discovered that
school boards and bottlers of sugar-carbonated
soft drinks had forged codependent relationships.
With support from the Governor of Texas, she
exerted pressure on the bottlers to reduce serving
sizes and to offer alternatives to sugary sodas in
high schools. Harvard Business School Publishing
chronicled her groundbreaking efforts in a case
study titled "Restricting Foods of Minimal Nutritional Value in Texas Public Schools."
Susan Combs was ahead of her time in
recognizing that food is a key determinant of
health and that relatively small investments in
getting more nutritious food into public schools
could help rein in long-term health-care costs.
Let's hope that after POTUS gets bored with
scaling back our national monuments, he will
have the good sense to shift Susan Combs to the
USDA to salvage what is left of school nutrition
programs and the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program. I know. Fat chance.
Josh Hinerfeld '83
Past Chair, Oregon Food Bank Board of Directors
Portland, Oregon

News about

We've changed what we call the issues
and slightly adjusted the release dates.
Spring issue: March
Summer issue: July
Fall/Winter issue: November

At a time when Vassar is working to make the
campus a place where all feel they belong, we
should have given more consideration to the
representation on our cover. We apologize for
the oversight.

The revised schedule takes into account the
myriad holidays and Vassar Winter Break
between Thanksgiving and New Year's. It also
extends the time between reunion and the
summer issue, allowing the staff to include
more reunion coverage.

Affirmed 2013.
Copyright © 2018 AAVC

The Disappointed
and "Misappointed"

Letters to the Editor
We value your feedback on the
magazine's content. Please send
letters to vq@vassar.edu.

We believe the changes will also alleviate some
of the confusion around issue titles and release
dates-the winter issue used to mail in March,
for example.

I was disappointed to read about Donald Trump's
nomination of Susan Combs '66 to serve as the
Department of Interior's Assistant Secretary for

We hope you will continue to enjoy VQ in
every season.

Mission
AAVC is a living bridge whose mission
is to ignite powerful connections to
Vassar, to each other, and the world.

VA S S A r Q U A r T E r LY

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vassar Quarterly - Spring 2018