Friends, I
want to tell you a story about an amazing woman I met, many years ago, when I
was still in college. This young woman was super smart and funny. And more
importantly, she was one of the kindest and most compassionate people I knew. And
beautiful. We got set up on a blind date and I quickly fell in love.
We dated for
five weeks, but she was leaving soon for Moscow and neither of us thought it could
last. Hard to believe, but back then, when somebody left the country there was
no easy way to stay in touch. We wrote airmail letters. And I became one of the
few people on my campus who used email. She found a public computer she could
wait in line to use, and we managed to correspond once a month.
After she
returned to the US, I convinced her to come work with me at a summer camp in
Vermont and we had one day a week together. I loved her gentle thoughtfulness, her
magnanimity, able to listen to anyone with empathy and draw them out and make
them feel like the most important person in the room.
We returned
to college. She was at Bryn Mawr and I was in school ten miles away. We still
only saw each other once a week but we talked almost every day on the phone. My
dorm had only one phone for the entire floor, but it had a 30-foot cord so I
could pull it down to our quad and hog the hall phone for an hour. She was not
only caring but ambitious — a double major in Russian and political science,
and a leader of the college environmental group and an editor of the campus
paper. We’d often talk late at night as she sat editing in the newspaper
office.
After we
graduated, we spent the summer living in my parent’s rustic cabin on a lake in
Michigan. We cooked and swam and played games and worked in a Birkenstock
store. We had no running water, no deadlines, and no idea what we wanted to do
with our lives.
I got a job back
in Vermont and she landed an internship for an environmental group in DC called
ISAR. It was hard to go our separate ways but she was always intrepid and went
fearlessly off on her own. She took everything in stride — new job, new city,
new housemates — even getting mugged her first week in Washington didn’t faze
her for long.
She started
working her way up through ISAR — from intern to assistant to office manager to
editor of their magazine. She was always a hard worker, although somehow she
always found time to help everyone around her as well.
When I
returned to the US after a year in India and China, I only knew one thing for
sure: I wanted to live with this wonderful woman. We got our first apartment
together on Capitol Hill and I watched her grow from a young student into a
confident, articulate leader.
When we next
moved abroad there was no question: we were going together. We spent two years
in Kazakhstan. We wrote a book together. But as she traveled in Central Asia, still
working for the same non-profit, she got frustrated that international NGOs and
US policymakers had insufficient understanding of regional politics and were
therefore ineffective. She decided to go to grad school.
By then, I
knew I would follow this woman anywhere. On a cold October afternoon in the
Almaty Botanical Garden, shortly after she’d gotten her legs wet jumping a
creek, I pulled a ring from my pocket and asked her to marry me.
Amy said
yes. We moved to Wisconsin, she started a Master’s in Public Policy and a year
and a half later, we were married at the same camp in Vermont. We bought a
house. Always altruistic, she was one of the few grad students who actively
engaged in the community, volunteering and serving on our neighborhood
association board. She discovered her master’s program was not challenging
enough for her. So she decided she wanted to get a PhD and wanted to teach.
She’s been this way as long as I’ve known her: intellectual but dedicated to using
her intelligence to help others.
Four years
later, she passed her prelims while pregnant. That summer her dad was dying,
and we went to Maine. I tried to support her, but she really she was fine and
was in fact busy supporting her mom and sister while simultaneously nursing
Jacob and planning her dissertation. When Jacob was eight months old we moved
to Ukraine for her research. Again, I was amazed by her ability to interview
government officials and simultaneously negotiate a new country and be a new
mother.
Becoming a
mom did change her, however. She is still munificent, generous with her time
and attention, but her devotion has become more focused on our kids. And it
brings me joy to see her kindness reflected in Jacob and Natalie as they learn
from her.
It was no
surprise that Hartwick College wanted to hire her before she even finished her
dissertation. We moved to New York and she dedicated herself to teaching and
serving the college. She’s a great and innovative teacher — she has an ability
to make any topic interesting and gets students to engage and participate fully.
She works so hard. She starts at 5 am and after we get the kids to school she
puts in a full day, comes home and serves as a caring parent until the kids
bedtime. If she doesn’t fall asleep in Natalie’s bed she goes downstairs to
keep working. And somehow she finds time to still be engaged in the community.
I tell you, I thought I was a hard worker until I met her.
For the past
3 months, Amy has been nervous. She’s been under review for tenure. Although
the rest of us knew she had nothing to worry about, she still fretted. But of
course, ATP (the tenure committee) admired her so much that they didn’t know
what to ask her, and the provost also told she was doing a great job.
The news, therefore,
should surprise no one: Amy has been granted tenure!
(Ok, technically the college president
has recommended Amy for tenure. Tenure is not official until the trustees
vote on it in February, but the trustees always follow the president’s
recommendation.)
Congratulations
Amy! We all love you and we’re very proud and we know you will continue to do
great things in the world, in the community and in the classroom. I’m grateful
for 22 years of watching you work and love and live and I look forward to many
more.
