Class Notes

Henry Macfarland, HA76, is executive director of Harvesters Reaching The Nations, in Plano, Texas. The 20-year-old, nondenominational ministry operates two orphanages, two primary schools, a vocational training center and a hospital in South Sudan, as well as a primary school at the Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement near Arua, Uganda. Previously, Macfarland had a 30-year career in hospital administration. www.hrtn.org.

Charles Medalie, GR75, is retired and living in Moreno Valley, Calif., holding his breath until COVID-19 goes away.

Robert Lowes, LA75, a longtime journalist, published his first collection of poetry, An Honest Hunger: Poems (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020), which reviewers called “a joyful dance with everyday life” and “a book of great heart.” In the book’s acknowledgment, Lowes credits the late Donald Finkel, a poet and professor of English literature at WashU, with expanding his vision of what a poem could be.

George J. Kimmerle, AR75, earned a doctoral degree in urban planning and public policy from Rutgers University in May 2020. He founded his New York City and New Jersey architectural, urban design and planning practice in 1990. A former faculty member of New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, Kimmerle is a visiting lecturer at Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School.

Wayne C. Koff, LA74, is president and CEO of the Human Vaccines Project, a nonprofit consortium working to decode the human immune system to accelerate development of vaccines and therapies for major global diseases. Koff was recently honored by Foreign Policy in its 10th anniversary special edition of Global Thinkers — along with Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Bill and Melinda Gates, and others — as one of the 100 thinkers and doers who had a profound impact on the planet.

Dennis C. Dickerson, GR74, GR78, authored The African Methodist Episcopal Church: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2020). He is the Reverend James M. Lawson Chair in History and professor of history at Vanderbilt University. 

Kenneth D. Wald, GR73, GR76, won the Celebrate 350 Award for the best book in American Jewish Studies with The Foundations of American Jewish Liberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2019). 

Albert Ip, EN73, was appointed an honorary adviser of the School of Humanities and Social Science and was named as an industrial advisory committee member of the School of Engineering at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He was also appointed adjunct professor of the School of Hotel and Tourism at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and independent non-executive director and audit committee chairman of Hutchison Telecommunications, Hong Kong.

Lawrence J. Altman, EN73, co-authored From Bullying to Sexual Violence: Protecting Your Children While at School (Stratton Press, 2020). The book helps parents stand up for their kids and demand that the school’s administration do what is required of the school. Altman also published articles in Inner Circle Executive magazine on racial discrimination in discipline in public schools and in Inquiry & Analysis, the newsletter of the Council of School Attorneys, on conferences held by the National Center for School Mental Health. 

Sharon (Sutker) McGowan, LA72, was inducted into the Milwaukee Press Club Hall of Fame, Nov. 1, 2019. The founding editor of the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, which launched in 2011, McGowan left the organization in January 2019 and joined the Institute for Nonprofit News, in Los Angeles.