Skidmore College - Scope Magazine Fall 2018

6 SCOPE FALL 2018 Ubaldo: Gerardo Puglia; Asamoah: Eric Jenks ‘08; Fidlers: Jennifer Rynda; Féron: Eromdiks ; gallery: Arthur Evans I N C L U S I O N Y E A R I N R E V I E W 2 0 1 8 Alumni in the past year have racked up a mind-boggling array of accomplishments and accolades; here are just three examples: After 9/11, Wall Street banker John Ubaldo ’88 decided to trade his New York City office for an upstate farm. Starting with eggs and chickens, he expanded to other fowl as well as heritage-breed hogs and cattle. He uses 100-year-old methods of natural crop and livestock care, plus 21st-century technology to advocate for animal rights, expansion of crop diversity and reduction of pesticides. His goal: to support small farms and preserve rural culture. As he laments, “Chem- icals and sprays have just replaced knowledge.” With the release of the multi-award-winning documentary The Bullish Farmer, exploring his life and work, Ubaldo visited Skidmore to talk with students, screen the film, and even provide some of his farm-fresh chicken to the dining hall. “Options are like toys: the one with the most wins.” Psychol- ogy major Drew Fidler ’08 still recalls social-work professor Peter McCarthy ’83 saying that in class. For her, growing up with plenty of options meant “you have a responsibility to help create them for others.” International-affairs major Ivy Asamoah ’19 came to “realize how privileged I am” when she spent a summer helping the International Rescue Committee in housing refugees in the New York area. That summer was funded by a scholarship endowed by Fidler and parents Josh and Genine. Each summer, the gift funds a first-generation college student doing out-of-classroom work in social and human services. Like the Fidlers, Asamoah has “a passion to bridge the global gap, increase understanding and attend to those in need.” Leslie Snow Féron ’48 has left Skidmore a $2.4 million bequest. Féron danced on and off Broadway, including with the Martha Graham Dance Company, and she taught dance in England, at the Bath Academy of Art and the American School in London. Husband Louis Féron was a sculptor and jeweler whose work was shown in the Louvre in Paris and acquired by several museums. (Some of Louis’s work, tools and photo- graphs were included in the show Rose Ocean: Living with Duchamp at Skidmore’s Tang Museum last spring.) Leslie left the entirety of her and Louis’s estate to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and to Skidmore, which will use the gift to support the Center for Integrated Sciences, a major campus facility that is now under construction. From the top: John Ubaldo ’88 stars as a “bullish farmer”; (left) Ivy Asamoah ’19 had a summer internship underwritten by (right) the family of Drew Fidler ’08; Leslie Snow Féron ’48 and her husband contributed to a Tang Museum show and more. A L U M N I Doing well, doing good