It's Love, Vassar Style!
Now married with a five-year-old daughter, Dan Pereira ’01 and Deva Kyle ’01 first met less than 72 hours after arriving at Vassar as freshmen.
“Vassar was a great place for us to meet because our classes were so interesting that there were always new subjects to discuss and new things to learn from each other,” Dan says. “It’s hard for me to think of a more perfect place to really get to know someone, what they care about, what they value.”
Dan and Deva’s story is one of a handful we collected to highlight the special connections people make at Vassar—in this case, romantic connections. (Records indicate there are more than 750 “Vassar couples” in all.) For Dan and Deva, the bond that began at Vassar flourished and grew beyond their years as students. But not all Vassar couples met during college. Sometimes, Vassar was the spark that brought two people together many years after graduation.
Dave Hinchman '90 and Noelle Boyle '89
How they met: Dave and Noelle were at Vassar at the same time and had friends in common. But it wasn’t until they both signed up as Vassar volunteers—more than 20 years after graduation—that they met face-to-face. Now they are planning a wedding, a first marriage for both of them.
Dave: “We both happened to be back at Vassar for an alumnae/i volunteer weekend [in 2013]. I was living in Denver at the time, and Noelle was in Austin. The moment Noelle walked into the room that Friday afternoon, I instantly remembered her as someone who used to catch my eye all those years earlier. We formally met at a reception later that evening, and we both knew from the get-go that there was a connection. I visited Austin a month later, and we dated long-distance for a year.”
Noelle: “Happily, our meeting has everything to do with Vassar. If Vassar hadn’t made such an impression on us as students, neither one of us would have been an alumnae/i volunteer (Dave was president of the Vassar Club of Colorado/Wyoming and I was, and still am, president of the Class of ’89), and we wouldn’t have been back on campus for our paths to cross over two decades later. I also think our shared Vassar experience had a lot to do with how quickly our relationship developed. There’s a lot to be said for knowing how your significant other spent college—what dorms they lived in, what buildings they sat in for classes, who their friends were. It’s really been a fun ride.”
Danielle Morvant '10 and Ellen Geissal '11
How they met: During Ellen’s freshman year and Danielle’s sophomore year, they both attended a meeting in Rocky about a new all-female theater ensemble. Over the next three years, they spent countless hours together in rehearsals and meetings.
Danielle: “Working in the student theater environment that Vassar is so well known for gives you unique insight into another person’s character. There’s an inherent trust that’s built into the long hours of rehearsal.
This was the basis of our friendship and our relationship. When we started dating, we knew exactly what we were getting into—we had already seen each other’s dedication, loyalty, and resourcefulness and had had to rely on each other in many ways.”
Ellen: “We’ve both been really surprised by how much weight the labels that came along with marriage have held for us. Terms such as ‘wife’ and ‘married,’ as conventional and patriarchal as they are, automatically carry with them a sense of validity, significance, and clarity. For the majority of the time we have been together, we have been accustomed to having to explain our relationship—often to confused faces. ‘Sisters? Roommates? Business partners?’ There is no confusion when I tell the man at the pharmacy that I am picking up a prescription for my wife. The simplicity and confidence that has come with those terms has been unexpectedly pleasant.”
Deva Kyle '01 and Daniel Pereira '01
How they met: Dan and Deva met through Deva’s roommate, Emily Vezina ’01, who, like Dan, preferred low-key Friday and Saturday nights featuring Scrabble and conversation. Deva preferred the campus parties. Sometime after midnight, when Dan and Emily were finishing up a Scrabble game, Deva would come back to the room and all three would hang out.
Deva: “Dan was different than anyone I had ever known before. He wore his heart on his sleeve. He was so loving and open. He was also so smart! As a little bit of background, I am a black woman born and raised in and around Los Angeles. I went to diverse schools in bad neighborhoods with high pregnancy rates, lots of gangs, and low graduation rates. I also went to gifted magnet programs starting in first grade. Most of my friends growing up were recent immigrants or poor folks who had been in LA forever but were making better lives for themselves. Dan had lived in a wealthy New Jersey suburb for all of his adolescence but also had an immigrant story—he’s Portuguese, born in Scotland, and moved around a lot as a kid, which made him an outsider but a very different kind of outsider than I was. He was used to a safety I didn’t know, but he also didn’t quite fit. I don’t think we would have met outside of Vassar’s walls and definitely wouldn’t have been friends, let alone partners.”
Dan: “[Vassar] definitely nurtured so much of the stuff that makes [Deva] awesome: intellectual curiosity, passionate engagement with the world, and boundless creativity. The great majority of our friends were shared friends, so, early on, one of the biggest parts they played was just reserving judgment because, well, I was 18, and I had a lot to learn about life and how to be in a relationship. They had a front-row seat to a lot of really dumb behavior, and I’m forever grateful that they didn’t always tell me what they must have been thinking.”
Grisela Alejandro Jackson '77 and Robert Jackson '77
How they met: Robert and Grisela have been married for 35 years. Both grew up in New Orleans but attended different high schools. They met briefly at a Vassar recruiting event held at the home of the legendary Olga Guardia Smoak ’61, responsible for recruiting many students from New Orleans. But it wasn’t until they were both students at Vassar that they began spending time together—as friends.
Robert: “[Her freshman year], I declared my intent [to woo her] in the Quad, on the steps of Jewett, but she shot me down. Still, I valued her friendship, so that grew and remained strong. We had similar interests: We loved music and dancing. We were both in the gospel choir and saw each other at weekly rehearsals and performances. We were both in the photography club. We became very good friends and shared the same friends.”
Grisela: “I think the tipping point was when I had to have back surgery senior year. He visited every day. And he gave me this little New Testament, which was Greek to me! He began taking me to his church, and I accepted Jesus as my Savior. It may not be the coolest thing to speak about someone’s conversion, but that’s pretty much how we grew closer.”
Mike Barish '99 and Ellenor Emery Barish '00
How they met: Mike and Ellenor met at Vassar over a shared interest: skiing. Ellenor’s friend, Pete Krasny ’99, invited her to a ski-team meeting in Joss Parlor, and the rest is history.
Ellenor: “We spent a lot of time away from campus with the ski team when we were first a couple. We shared a pizza for Valentine’s Day in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with the ski team; we saw Titanic in Rutland, Vermont, with the ski team. So, I guess the thing I remember best from our early dating was the ski team. And there was the time we drove to Springfield, Massachusetts, for a ski-league meeting—we were co-captains. Somehow, it was a great bonding experience, and I teased him mercilessly about his lack of navigation skills. I still think I know the best way to get everywhere. Sometimes, I am right.”
Mike: “I agree that the trip to Springfield was a major turning point in our relationship. We spent a lot of hours in the car together, and I charmed her by pretending to have no idea where I was going.”
David Pittman '78 and Daniel Aibel '80
How they met: Dan had one year left at Vassar when he met David, a recent Vassar graduate. It was at a birthday party for a mutual friend during the summer of 1979. “Classic New York romance” is how they describe their first date—the Cloisters, the Bronx Zoo, the Empire State Building, and the Staten Island Ferry all figured in. They were married 35 years later, in June 2014.
David: “We all create our own narratives and our own love stories. For example, the first time we attended a commitment ceremony for two men, it closely resembled a traditional heterosexual church wedding. It became evident that this was their choice, but we could make other choices. We are all free to create relationships that are right for ourselves and our own circumstances, starting with the first date.”
Dan: “One of the things that has kept us together in recent years is our shared appreciation for pie and ice cream following a meal. I do not mean to suggest that relationships are simple. Pie and ice cream are not metaphors in our lives. They are a shared experience in our often-stressful day-to-day lives. And maybe a time to think, whatever the stress of the moment, ‘Aren’t we lucky?’”
Matt Brelis '80 and Morgan Baker Brelis '80
How they met: Matt and Morgan knew each other at Vassar and were “friendly,” but romance wasn’t on the table. It took a mutual friend, Bob Weiss ’80, to bring them together seven years after graduation at a summer rental on Martha’s Vineyard.
Matt: “I loved Morgan’s mind and I still do. I felt comfortable immediately because we had such a shared history, and going to Vassar and having mutual friends was a big part of that. Also, growing up in Cambridge and growing up with divorced parents deepened the similar experiences.”
Morgan: “If someone can make you laugh, he or she is a keeper. I think we spend a lot of time faking who we are, trying to impress people, and being with the wrong people, but I think you need to try on people like clothes to see what fits until you realize it’s your best friend, who sends you into fits of hysterical giggles.”
Peter W. Rothbert and Andrea DiGioia Rothbert '75
How they met: Peter and Andrea didn’t know each other at Vassar. It wasn’t until after Peter transferred to Bowdoin that they met. The story of how they ended up chatting on the steps of Strong dorm one spring day involves an ex-boyfriend (at Bowdoin) and an ex-girlfriend (at Vassar). (It’s complicated.) Let’s skip to their first date.
Andrea: “I knew that Peter was not a big fan of sporting events. It was summer 1973, and I had tickets to a game between the New York Mets and the San Diego Padres. I called Peter and invited him to go with me. I asked him, figuring that if he accepted, he was interested in me and not the game. He responded enthusiastically, and we went. At the beginning of the fifth inning, Peter started asking, ‘How long do we have to stay here?’ We left before the seventh inning.”
Peter: “The fact that over the years I’ve run into my wife’s former boyfriends and sometimes made them my squash partners, or cooked dinner for them in my home, etc., is a pretty Vassar thing. Otherwise, to protect the guilty, the best stories can never be put in print.”
We didn’t have space to include each and every unique and wonderful couple’s story, but we salute all those who share that Vassar connection.