WDCSA Newsletter – May 2022

This month’s newsletter is available for download in PDF format.

Events Calendar

  • Jun 12 • Washington DC Book Club Discussion
  • Jul 18 • Baltimore Book Club Discussion

Stanford in the News

  • WDCSA members Chip Talbott and DeLise Bernard were two of the three co-chairs for the Stanford Black Alumni Summit held in Washington DC from 28 April – 1 May with over 500 alumni in attendance representing classes from 1966 through 2021.
  • No. 1 Stanford captured its third consecutive men’s gymnastics NCAA championship last month, putting the finishing touches on one of the most dominant seasons in school history. Stanford overwhelmed the six-team field, totaling a 423.628 while producing individual NCAA champions in five different events. Host Oklahoma (414.555) and Michigan (414.490) followed in second and third, respectively. Nebraska placed fourth at 406.453, followed by Ohio State (399.326) and Illinois (398.523). The Cardinal won its eighth NCAA title in program history, becoming the first school to three-peat since Oklahoma’s four-year stretch from 2015-18. Stanford also won NCAA crowns in 2011, 2009, 1995, 1993 and 1992.
  • Seven self-made individuals under the age of 30 were named in Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List this year. And of those seven, four dropped out of Stanford University. The world’s youngest self-made billionaires all built their fortunes by founding startups. All but two individuals are US citizens. They are collectively worth $16.1 billion, reported Forbes

WDCSA Book Club Corner

Washington DC Book Club Discussion

Sunday, June 12, 5 pm
Meeting at a private home in DMV

Exact location information will be sent one week prior to the event.

The April book is Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is the story of Klara, a solar-powered Artificial Friend who has been programmed to give kindness and to recognize it in others. Someone buys and assigns her to the sickly, teenage Josie.  Klara is supposed to rescue Josie from loneliness, help her survive her illness and go on to college. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love? 

For further information, contact  Don Bieniewicz, MS ’75, at donbien@erols.com.

Baltimore Book Club Discussion

Monday, July 18, 7:30 pm
Google Meet:  Registrants will be emailed a link to join the meeting a few minutes before.

We’re reading While I Was Away by Stanford author, Waka T. Brown, who will be joining us for the discussion!  

From the book jacket:  “When Waka’s mother suspects her twelve-year-old daughter can’t understand basic Japanese, she makes a drastic decision to ship Waka to Tokyo to live with her strict grandmother and reconnect with the culture and master the language … Plucked from her straight-A-student life in rural Kansas and sent halfway across the globe, where her reading levels are embarrassingly low, Waka embarks on what feels like the hardest five months of her life … If she’s always been the “smart Japanese girl” in America but is now the “dumb foreigner” in Japan, where is home … and who will Waka be when she finds it?”

Our September 12th book is Dancing at the Rascal Fair by Ivan Doig.

Questions/RSVP:  Helene Myers, Ph.D., P’14, at cedarhouse@comcast.net