2/23
1990 Couples | Twosomes Who Met @ Brown
Then & Now | Campus Eateries By Stacy Bereck Chernosky ’90
Spotlight | Gil Griffin ‘90
1990 Feedback | Turn Your Speakers Our Way
Class of 1990 Couples
We were able to identify at least 10 couples from our Class who met at Brown. Here are a few moments from some of those who were kind enough to share their stories with us…
– Lisa Ryers ‘90
From Connecticut
Tom Binder ‘90 &
Linda Miron ‘90
How Did You Two Meet?
Linda: Tom and I met playing softball the summer between junior and senior year. Our social circles overlapped and we had been at various events at the same time over the years, but we didn’t notice each other until that summer.
Did You Date at Brown or Did You Connect After Brown?
Linda: We started dating at the beginning of senior year. (Our photo seen here is from the senior year Halloween Party at Sayles Hall. We are dressed as Laverne and Lenny from Laverne & Shirley.) I planned to move to Seattle at the end of the year with some Brown friends and Tom got a job in Washington DC. Around graduation, we decided instead to both move to Boston. We moved in together a year later and got married three years after that.
What Are Your Lives Like Now?
Linda: We moved to CT when Tom got into UConn Med School and we ended up raising our family here. Tom’s a pediatrician in Avon, CT and I’ve been a high school English teacher in Simsbury, CT for 30 years.
We have three kids who are all adults now. Our youngest is a senior at Boston College. Our oldest did go to Brown, which was fun for us, but maybe annoying for him. ;)
So, our lives are good!
Brown holds an incredibly special place in our hearts, of course, and we try to get back for most reunions.
•••
From New York
Sara Leppo Savage ‘90 & Bob Savage ‘90
What Is Your First Memory of Each Other?
Sara: September of our freshman year, our mutual friend, Molly O’Rouke, invited me to go with her to hang out in Bob’s dorm room in the basement of Archibald in Keaney Quad and watch Moonlighting.
When Did You Start Dating?
Sara: We were part of the same friend group starting in freshman year. In November of our sophomore year, Bob asked me if I wanted to go to his fraternity’s semi-formal. I replied, “with you?” because I thought he was asking if I was interested in going with someone else. Turns out he was actually asking if I was interested in going with him. Oops! I said yes so that was our first official date.
What Are Your Lives Like Today?
Sara: We recently celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary (that’s the current photo) and have two daughters, one of whom just graduated from Brown. Bob works in real estate private equity and I have an interior design firm that I started with a Brown friend 17 years ago. Brown is still very much a part of our lives - our Brown friends are still among the closest people in our lives and I currently serve on the Brown Corporation.
•••
From North Carolina
Ashley Johnson Mason ‘90 & Bill Mason ‘90
What is Your First Memory of Each Other?
Ashley: I remember him sitting in my room freshman year sometime during orientation week with several other people from Perkins. Lisa Ryers and I had a room next to the second-floor stairwell, and I had a small TV, so people tended to congregate there.
Bill: Orientation week. My first memory of her was when she crawled across my lap in the backseat of an overcrowded car. After that, she was pretty much a constant during my four years at Brown. Always around, always fun to talk to.
When Did You Start Dating? What do you Remember about that Time?
Ashley: We started dating the first night of senior week. All throughout Brown I had a feeling we’d eventually end up together, and I remember thinking at the kickoff party (it was in the AC, maybe?) that we were running out of time for this to happen.
Bill: Senior week. That’s how I describe our relationship to others—we met during freshman orientation, were close friends for four years, and then started dating during senior week. As Ashley said, I think the realization that after graduation we could be going separate ways made us get serious about what we meant to each other.
What do Your Lives Together Look Like Now?
Ashley and Bill: We lead a fairly unexciting empty-nester life, but we’re quite content and still enjoy just being together. We watch too much TV, read a lot but want to read more, eat and drink more than we should (although we drink less than we did at Brown), and travel a few times a year but want to travel more. We treasure our Brown friendships and all that Brown has given us, and can’t wait to get back for the next reunion weekend.
Then & Now : Campus Eateries
By Stacy Bereck Chernosky ‘90
The Gate, ECDC. Mention those words to a member of the Class of 1990 and you will likely hear a story of late nights eating pizza at the Gate on Pembroke campus or taking a trek out to East Campus for hamburgers and French fries at the East Campus Dining Center (ECDC). But the names of our beloved Gate or ECDC are completely meaningless to the undergraduate population at Brown today.
The ECDC (eck-deck) shuttered its doors almost immediately after we left campus (at the end of 1990-91 academic year) and was replaced by the more conveniently located Josiah’s (Jo’s) at the Vartan Gregorian Quad dorm complex (“New Dorm”) that opened that year While Jo’s still serves the hamburgers and fries that were a mainstay of the ECDC, a rotating menu also features quesadillas some days and wings others.
The Gate relocated to Andrews Hall in 2014 where it was reborn as Andrews Dining Commons with a new name and an updated menu (Those who attended our 25th reunion got to experience Andrews up close as the venue for our class dinner). True to its predecessor, you can find pizza and grinders on Andrews menu every day, but it has expanded into more contemporary and cosmopolitan offerings with rotating curry, wok, pho, and soba options. On weekends students flock to Andrews for their brunch menu of granola bowls and brunch burritos. The new eatery is open for longer hours than the Gate was, however, it is set up as a lunch and dinner venue rather than a late-night snack place—it serves its last pizza at 9 pm. Students who are hungry after 9p.m. need to go to Jo’s which stays open until 2 a.m.
Other dining venues of the past—the Blue Room, the Ivy Room, the Ratty (which celebrated its 72nd birthday this year) and the VW(vee-dub) – are still present although most have had at least a cosmetic face lift since our days on campus and the setup and menus have all tried to keep up with the times and current trends (The Ivy Room served Avocado Toast until that fell off the menu in 2022.)
In line with trends in college dining, the Ratty and VW now have many “stations” where students can pick up other items if they don’t like the hot entrees of the day. These include a salad bar, grill, deli station, pasta bar, and pizza station at the Ratty. Certain sections of the dining hall now include bar height tables and chairs. The Ratty is also in the process of adding new kosher and allergy-friendly kitchens and an expanded set of Halal options.
Current students certainly have expanded choices in terms of dining. They also have far greater information about the nutritional value of these choices as well as on Brown’s sustainability and supply chain initiatives. An online tool known as “MyMeal” allows students to search for foods with known allergens and also to review the nutrition information and full ingredient lists of Ratty and VW foods for recommended portion sizes. The nutrition information that pops up looks like a nutritional label you would find on packaged foods.
Dining services also tries to build in some fun, variety, and celebration into its meal offerings. In 2023 they have already hosted: a Welcome Back Students Dinner, a celebration of Lunar New Year, a Valentine’s Day Cookie decorating event with hot chocolate bar, Super Bowl Big Game Specials, Soul Food Night to celebrate Black History Month, a Mardi Gras Dinner, a vegetable pickling event, and on March 9th they will commemorate National Meatball Day. :)
Other fun events in the past year include a Pajama Party Breakfast for Dinner Event, a LatinX Heritage Month Dinner, a Taste of Rhode Island (featuring Del’s Lemonade), and International Education week dining featuring Armenian, French, and Dominican cuisine.
All current dining options aren’t all necessarily in a traditional dining setting. In 2022, Brown sponsored a two-week Food Truck Festival where students could use their meal swipes at a different local food truck each night. Sadly, the Silver Truck was not part of their lineup.
Spotlight | Gil Griffin ’90
Ratty or VW?
DEFINITELY, 100% V-Dub. Loved the hamburger bar, all my friends ate there for lunch, plus the clincher was finding dead roaches at the bottom of a Ratty drink machine dispenser!
Favorite Class at Brown?
Afro-Am Studies, the Afro-Luso-Brazilian Triangle, taught by the late, incomparable, Prof. Anani Dzidzienyo. The history, fiction literature, and cultural intersections were fascinating and Anani was both a walking encyclopedia and a phenomenal storyteller with a great smile and laugh. Despite his authority and expertise, Anani never was intimidating, yet he was demanding and challenging. Anani's two signature phrases to students were: "I have a wonderful book for you!" and "You should learn Portuguese." I actually have learned a little bit of Portuguese and without his ever knowing it, he really influenced my teaching of high school students. I took this class and also African history classes with Prof. Davis and I credit each of them for inspiring me to learn everything I could about my ethnic heritage.
What Did You Enjoy Doing Outside of Class?
Going to Funk Night, hitting up Cecilia's, a Liberian restaurant in Providence, eating too many East Side Weiners, living and dying with the New York Mets. I also was spokesperson for the Organization of United African Peoples, a member of the African Students Association, a columnist for the Brown Daily Herald and a music critic for the College Hill Independent.
How Did You Get Involved in Australian Football? What is Australian Football?
I first was exposed to Australian rules football (or, marngrook, as the indigenous Gunditjmara people who originated the game call it) in the early '80s, as a middle and high school student staying up very late and watching ESPN in its infancy, which used to show live and recorded Victorian Football League (VFL) matches from Australia. I was fascinated and bewildered by the images I saw: guys wearing what looked like basketball uniforms, playing with a ball bigger than an NFL football, playing on an oval, while umpires in white hats and what looked to be matching white lab coats thrusting out their arms and pointing with their index fingers when a player would kick the ball between two goalposts that lacked a crossbar.
I was fascinated then, by all things Australian, from the music of pop group Men At Work and movies like "Mad Max" and "Picnic At Hanging Rock," to the Paul Hogan "Come and Say G'day" TV tourism campaign ads, to commercials for Foster's beer, which looked like it was sold in oil cans.
When I went to Australia for the first time in 1999 (I've been back 11 other times since then), I wanted to see a live, professional sporting event and only Aussie rules would do. I ended up seeing an Australian Football League (AFL) match at the Sydney Cricket Ground, between the Sydney Swans (ironically, the club my then soon-to-be girlfriend adopted, who I'd later marry) and Port Adelaide Power and then wrote feature stories about that experience for the San Diego Union-Tribune, for whom I was then a reporter, and The Australian Football League Record.
I fell in love with the game and when I returned from that trip, I immediately got a subscription to Fox Soccer Plus, which then showed matches in the U.S. Four years later, in 2003, I fell in love with the AFL's Fremantle Dockers, who I've unwaveringly and passionately supported since then.
In my obsession, I authored a 2016 book, Jumping At the Chance, the result of chronicling for three previous years, the journeys of young American - born - and - bred men (mostly NCAA college basketball players) and women athletes who the AFL was recruiting to eventually play.
Professional Aussie rules involves 18 players from each side on the ground at once (16 per side in the AFL's elite female competition, AFLW, which I regularly cover for a website called footyology.com.au), trying to win possession of, control and distribute to teammates, an oblong, unpredictable bouncing ball, then score goals, by kicking the ball between two tall goal posts which are a few meters apart from each other, for six points. Teams get one point (a "behind") for kicks that are touched before crossing the goal line, or if the ball crosses the goal line between one of the behind posts to the left or right of one of the goal posts.
Thomas Wentworth Wills, the son of British "settlers" who grew up playing marngrook with Aboriginal children and spoke two indigenous languages, was a cricketer and is credited with creating and codifying the modern game in 1858, by fusing marngrook with elements of rugby (tackling — but only between the shoulders and knees) and playing matches on cricket ovals, as a way for cricketers to stay fit in their off-seasons. Players advance the ball by kicking or handpassing (balancing the ball on one hand, then striking it with the other — think pulling back on then letting go of a pinball machine plunger) to teammates. Players must bounce the ball off the ground, back to themselves every 15 meters they run and no throwing the ball is allowed. Catching the ball is called "marking" and a player may use another as a springboard to launch or plant themselves to get into the best marking position.
What Are You Up To Now?
I'm the Director of Communication Studies and Assistant Marketing Director at the Dunn School, an independent, boarding and day secondary institution in Los Olivos, California, in the Santa Ynez Valley in California's Central Coast, about 30 miles northwest of Santa Barbara. I write and produce the school's online weekly electronic news magazine, I'm an assistant baseball coach, I teach a speech and debate course, and will be advisor to a new Model UN club. I'm also still a practicing journalist and regularly cover AFLW as a freelance writer for the Australian website, footyology.com.au.
1990 Feedback: We Want to Hear From You!
Brown Profs: Was there a professor who made an everlasting impression on you? Let us know! If we are fortunate, we may be able to secure a live conversation in the Zoom Space.
1990 Nonprofit Magic: Do you work in the non-profit sphere? We are dedicating an issue to Class of 1990 service…let us know about your organization!
– Your Class of 1990 Leadership Team
– Lisa Ryers ‘90, Editor
