Tidbits

You would think that a college campus, of all places, would not need to have an event called Brain Awareness Week. But it’s not quite what it sounds like. This April collection of events on our bossiest organ, hosted by the student neurology club, BrainWashed, was part of a global campaign to increase public awareness of brain research. Events included a Brain Faire on the North Lawn, which offered the chance to play with an electroencephalogram, drunk goggles, and remote-controlled cockroaches. There were brain-decorated cupcakes too. Talk about food for thought.

Students in the male and female Naked Shakespeare troupes spiced up the end of the semester by performing Romeo and Julietand Henry IV, respectively. The single-gender thing makes sense: in the Bard’s day, men regularly performed women’s roles; why shouldn’t the ladies get a turn too? Though some audience members may have been disappointed that the name reflects the groups’ pared-down aesthetic rather than their costuming choices, we were relieved that no one had to look at Juliet's junk.

Over spring break, Rosie Sofen ’15 learned the finer points of operating a table saw. Sofen was one of 10 students who traveled to Lynchburg, Virginia, this March on a trip led by the Office of Community Partnerships and Service Learning. The group spent the week working with Habitat for Humanity to finish a home—installing insulation, siding, and floor boards, and then painting the house. 

At night, the group slept in a church (whose walls displayed a few hundred pictures of Jesus). They also found time to enjoy $1 movies and go tubing at an artificial downhill skiing facility covered with turf usually found on soccer fields. It was “shockingly similar to real snow,” Sofen reports.

“Raymond Chandler didn’t write a single word of any consequence until his 40s. Julia Child learned to cook at 40! Clint Eastwood directed his first film at 41. Don’t be afraid to be a late bloomer. Repeatedly.” So said Adam Savage, of Mythbusters fame, in his commencement address in May. He concluded, “You have time to mess up. You have time to try again. 

And when you mess that up, you still have time.” His speech was declared one of the “18 Best Commencement Speeches of 2012” by ABC News. Read it online—or watch the video.

The Board of Trustees welcomed David Netto ’92 and John Lilly to their ranks in May. Netto, who lives in Los Angeles, is an interior designer and architectural historian who writes about design for the Wall Street Journal. (The rise of his line of modernist baby furniture was chronicled in our fall 2008 issue.) 

Lilly resides in Wayzata, Minnesota, and is the former CEO of The Pillsbury Company. With over 30 years in the consumer products industry at Pillsbury and P&G, he has been responsible for more than 50 familiar consumer brands in 25 countries. He’s now president of John Lilly Strategic Insights, LLC. Lilly and his wife, Katherine Moore-Lilly, have twin college-age children, one of whom, Christopher, is a junior at SLC.