Author - Marian Haley Beil

A Profile in Citizenship by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963–65) • (This Profile is with appreciation to John Coyne for his recent informative interview with Lawrence [Larry] Grobel.) After graduating from UCLA, Larry was a Volunteer in Ghana 1968 to 1971. He worked in Ghana’s Institute of Journalism, teaching Literature, Creative Writing, and Current Events. In the next 36 years, Lawrence managed — somehow, to write two novels; 3 books of short stories; 2 novellas; 2 memories; a book of poems about celebrities; 2 volumes of 4 screen plays; 8 “conversations with” books; a satire on yoga; and 10 books of nonfiction! Within this literary output, Larry squeezed in interviews with international celebrities, creating in the process a veritable rogues’ gallery of contemporary icons.  One was with Marlon Brando for Playboy’s 25th Anniversary issue. Playboy called him “the interviewer’s interviewer.” Another for Playboy was with Truman Capote, that subsequently was turned . . .

   by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia, 1963-65) • From 1969 to 1971 Gregory H. Stanton served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ivory Coast. From there, he went on to be the Church World Service/CARE’s Field Director in Cambodia. From 1985 to 1991, Gregory was a Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University, and a Fulbright Professor at the University of Swaziland. In this time period, he also was a Professor of Justice, Law, and Society at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Gregory was the Chair of the American Bar Association’s Young Lawyer’s Division Committee on Human Rights and a Member of its Standing Committee on World Order, serving as Legal Advisor to the Ukrainian Independence Movement from 1988-1992. He was named the Ukrainian Man of the Year in 1992 by the UI Movement. In 1991, he founded the Cambodian Genocide Project at Yale University, initiating . . .

   by Jeremiah Norris  (Colombia, 1963-65) Peter Hessler graduated from Princeton University in 1992 with an A. B. in English. The summer before graduation, he wrote an extensive ethnography about the small town of Sikeston, Missouri, which was published by the Journal for Applied Anthropology. After graduation, he received a Rhodes Scholarship to study English language and literature at Mansfield College, University of Oxford. Peter then served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China from 1996 to 1998, teaching English at Fuling Teachers College, in a small city near the Yangtze River. After Peace Corps, Peter continued his work in China as a freelance writer for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The South China Morning Post, and National Geographic. He joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2000 and served as a foreign correspondent until 2007. Peter left China in 2007 and settled . . .