Author: News Summary Listing

Date: 1/17/2010 to 2/17/2010
Few couples lived life so passionately as Antioch College
graduates Shirley R. Johnson ’40 and her husband Douglas R. Johnson ’40.

Their romance — and commitment to social ideals — lasted more than
seven decades until Douglas Johnson died Friday, July 24, 2009, at the
age of 92.

He hit his head in a fall after a shopping trip, and doctors at
MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland were unable to save him after
he was flown to the trauma center.
One by one, friends Monday mourned the loss of Douglas Johnson —
half of the power couple who lived life simply and spartanly, yet
changed so many lives along the way.

Date: 1/12/2010 to 2/12/2010
LAKE PLACID — Susan A. “Tsu” Hansen, 65, died Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009
at Arbor Hospice, a remarkable woman with an intellectual curiosity
about the world and all its wonders. She liked to learn how things
work.    
    She was born in Detroit, Jan. 31, 1944 to
William H and Olive (Flucker) Hansen. She grew up in Ann Arbor and
graduated from Pioneer High.    
    After earning a degree
in secondary education at Antioch College, she joined North Country
School in Lake Placid as math teacher and houseparent. She taught for
12 years, earned an MBA from RIT and moved into the office as business
manager. She retired in 2004 and returned to Ann Arbor to be with her
family after her cancer diagnosis.    

Date: 1/12/2010 to 2/12/2010
Betty Berenson, a member of the Antioch College class of  1957,
who graduated with a BA in English Literature, died December 13, 2009.
Her community of friends, spanning birders, nature lovers, writers and
artists, and progressives, will greatly miss her.

Date: 1/7/2010 to 2/7/2010

–Rod Gorney, MD, Ph.D

    Every
baby has to love its mother because she literally saves the infant’s life over
and over every day.

    But
not every grown person must love her or his alma mater.  I’m convinced that
Antiochians love their alma mater in greater proportions than former students of
other colleges because Antioch saved not only our lives over and over — and
continues to do so — but our hopes. 

    Just
as one example, let me offer a few bits of my story:

Before the draft grabbed me during WW
II, I had only six months at Antioch (Fall 1942, Spring 1943).  Accepted to the Army Specialized
Training Program, I had insufficient premedical credit hours to qualify for
admission to a medical school.  So
I was assigned to a Japanese language program.  An hour before my first Japanese class, one medical school discovered
that, though I actually left campus after only six months, I had one and a
quarter years of credit hours on my
transcript, so they sent me an acceptance telegram!

Date: 1/5/2010 to 2/5/2010
–Christian Feuerstein ‘94   

On his current projects: Right now I’m working on the second edition of a book I edited called The Quotable Rebel: Political Quotations for Dangerous Times
(Common Courage Press, 2005). It’s a reference collection of 3,000
quotations from social change movements world-wide and throughout
history. The book is organized into 150 sub-topics and covers a very
wide variety of subjects and people, from well known figures like
Malcolm X and Gandhi to locally-based grassroots activists and artists.
I donate the royalties to support progressive social causes, most
recently via the Bread and Roses Community Fund. I’m a Ph.D. student in
History at the University of California, Irvine, so I’ve spent the
summer doing research on the relationship between the American Left and
Cuba. I’m also a Humanities Facilitator for Scribe Video Center’s
Precious Places Community History Project, a documentary video program
that works with Philadelphia community organizations to create digital
histories of their neighborhoods.

Date: 1/1/2010 to 2/1/2010
MARION
STATION — Christine Siegmann, 66, of Marion Stationdied Friday, Dec.
11, 2009, surrounded by her family after a short, albeit intense, battle
with lung cancer at Howard County General Hospital in Columbia, Md.

Ms. Siegmann was born June 23, 1943, in Rockwell Centre, N.Y., the daughter of Raymond Siegmann and Lisen Siegmann.

While
raising her family, she pursued her education, receiving her bachelor’s
degree from Antioch College in 1978 and her master’s degree from UMAB in
1986.