After Vassar

Where are they now?

Our Vassar English family includes poets, fiction writers, journalists, and editors; teachers at every level of the educational system here and abroad; many, many attorneys; as well as some careers, vocations, and occupations you may not have imagined (yet) for yourself.

Writings that make a difference in people’s lives
—Marian Yim ’79

Just a phone call away: “Without Vassar, and specifically the English department, I might never have found my way into the music business.”
—Ron Shapiro ’86

Two years out and a world away: looking toward a future as a healer in the developing world
—Delia French ’06

“Perhaps the fact that I have begun, at age 78, to write a blog about sex education would make an interesting story for present English majors”
—Susan Wilson ’51

From Portrait of a Lady to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit via Beowulf and The Faerie Queene
—Ken Storer ’92

A Junior Year Abroad at Trinity College, Dublin becomes a life as a poet and scholar in Ireland
—Richard Barakat ’81

A “words and ideas” person now building a future for Harvard in Allston
—Peggy Hayes ’83

The Writers

Got Talent?
—Nancy Wolfson ’90

An Editor with a Cause
—Jeannette Hopkins ’44

Living Every Teenage Girl’s Dream
—Melissa Walker ’99

Occupations

  • Vice president of market leadership
  • Neurologist
  • Television archivist
  • Working on a musical
  • Stay-at-home working mom running marketing/public relations business
  • Director, Human Rights and National Security Law Program
  • Feminist scholar specializing in educational studies
  • Director of communications for health insurance company
  • Banker
  • President of MSNBC
  • Transcribing my great grandmother’s diary from Italy, 1914
  • 80-year-old active writer, workshop participant, and scholar
  • Mystery writer just published third book
  • BBC reporter
  • Technologist and author of 14 books
  • Physician, Cleveland Clinic
  • Otolaryngologist
  • First year of study at Harvard School of Dental Medicine
  • Run a small software company for nonprofits
  • Communications specialist, Oracle Corporation
  • Media Cloisters manager, Vassar
  • Raising two kids and working from home as a fiction writer
  • Reproductive Health Program with the NGO, BRAC in Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Financial planner
  • Auditor and accountant
  • PhD program in U.S. History, Columbia
  • Boeing Communications team
  • PhD program in sociology, CUNY
  • Work with my mother at a small, family-owned real estate firm
  • Edit curators’ exhibition scripts and lavishly illustrated art books
  • Fashion magazine writer and arts and entertainment publicist
  • Faculty member and director of mental health, Department of Psychiatry
  • Social worker
  • Work with Free the Slaves, a Washington DC-based non-profit
  • Music publishing and independent musician, released first CD
  • Vice president of top-five biotech company
  • Writer of Red Sox fictions, computer guru, humorist
  • Foundation relations manager, the Wilderness Society
  • Publisher, not-for-profit literary press
  • Managing director, Operations
  • Change management analyst
  • Director of pre-K through 12 curriculum
  • Director of professional development
  • Master’s of divinity degree program, Union Theological Seminary
  • Editor and writer for nonprofits
  • Managing director, mutual fund
  • Publisher’s Weekly reviewer and researcher
  • Speech writer
  • Huffington Post editor and contributor
  • Author of three books and radio cohost, “A Way with Words,” NPR
  • Development director
  • Senior manager of post production for media company
  • Direct mail specialist for investment company
  • Corporate manager, manufacturing
  • Restaurant owner and writer
  • Director of admissions for a K-9 independent school
  • Keyboardist and choral conductor
  • Clinical social worker and career counselor
  • Assistant director of development and a major gifts officer
  • Stay-at-home mom after 14 years as English teacher
  • Eighty-year-old writer working on a memoir
  • Developer of documentaries and non-fiction television
  • Associate professor, cinema, photography, and media arts, Ithaca College
  • 50 years as internationally known puppeteer
  • Cruise line humorist/speaker
  • Lutheran parish pastor and writer
  • Executive worldwide corporate litigation matters, IBM
  • Professor of law, University of Maryland School of Law
  • Voiceover and branding coach, demo producer, e-casting director
  • Health Sciences fellow, Lainya County, South Sudan
  • Graphic designer, Cartoon Network
  • Member ACLU National Advisory Council
  • Puppeteer, created “Quirky Circus” for families and “Prnch” for adults
  • Sex educator, blogger