Victoria ("Torii") Campbell

Torii Campbell worked in the Alumni Relations Office on the Annapolis campus for 12 years from 2008 until her retirement in 2020. Torii ‘s contributions were a key part of running the Alumni Relations Office. She knew everybody’s name inside and outside of the college. For much of her tenure she was responsible for managing chapters and did so effectively and with tact. She spearheaded the reinvigoration of the DC Chapter and supported the development of social activities alongside the traditional seminar. She was instrumental in planning and executing two major annual events for the chapter. This was the mid-winter party which gathered on average one hundred alumni at an alumnus' home each January and a delightful spring gathering of alumni hosted by Sharon Bishop in the Virginia countryside that included a tutor led seminar, lunch and lawn games. In addition, she ran the chapter leader working lunch at ALF weekend. Torii did most of the heavy lifting to organize Croquet and came up with the idea of the swag tent selling among other things BEAT NAVY and BEAT SJC pins to both sides.

John Cornell

John served as a tutor in Santa Fe for 37 years, from 1985 until his retirement in 2022. Universally regarded as an excellent tutor, he has provided significant support to the student community. He has run continuous reading groups on philosophers such as Spinoza and Heidegger, and he is a sought after senior essay advisor even in retirement. He played a big role in the study abroad program we briefly had in Aix en Provence. In 2019-2020, he led a faculty study group on the Divine Comedy to commemorate its 700th anniversary. John has given numerous lectures over the years, all of which have been published in the St. John’s Review and other academic journals. In 2007, he explored musical composition, collaborating on a project that involved several St. John’s tutors and students, and living out a dream of becoming a composer. He is a self-described francophile, and has also served on the Committee on Instruction.  He has been a significant influence on the Santa Fe community and merits recognition as an honorary alum.

Henry Higuera

Henry retired in 2018 after 36 years of service to St. John’s College Annapolis. He was an active and energetic tutor, who wore jeans and flannels to class and is remembered fondly as a great "lab jockey," playing around with the junior and senior lab equipment. Henry also spearheaded the creation of the quantum optics curriculum for the senior lab. Most of all, he was beloved by students who consistently rated him as “awesome” or “great” in various student blogs. He was also known for participating in student and faculty folk concerts. Outside of St. Johns, Henry served as a national member on the National Council for the Humanities.  He publishes regularly, including the book Eros and Empire, Politics and Christianity in Don Quixote, and essay contributions to In Search of Humanity, Poets, Princes, and Private Citizens, and Interpretation, The Jounal of Political Philosopy.

Julie Romero

In her twenty years of service to the College, Registrar Julie Romero has been a passionate and firm supporter of students (both current and former), faculty, and staff in equal measure. Every constituency has relied on her as one of the institutional memories of the Santa Fe campus, as she has served in the Office of the Registrar through many sets of Deans, Assistant Deans, and Associate Deans, learning the names of every tutor and student. Her love and care for the individuals that make up the whole of the College is evidenced in each schedule she carefully crafts for class meeting times, individual students, and tutors. Her knack for balancing the ever increasing special scheduling requests from students and tutors is unparalleled. All of these students and tutors appreciate her so much that while she has been away on medical leave, battling the ferocious opponent of cancer, they created a video “Valentine” to lift her spirits and express their longing to see her beaming smile and vivacious presence on campus again. Tutors often visit the office communicating their understanding that the Office of the Registrar is a nucleus the College could not operate without, and Julie’s work and commitment is a testament to that.

Mark Roosevelt

Mark has undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University. After serving in the Massachusetts state legislature, Mark had a distinguished career at various academic institutions, including serving as president of Antioch College.  In January 2016, Mark became the seventh president of the Santa Fe campus. He quickly understood the precarious financial position the college was in and developed a rescue plan in May 2016, that received unanimous approval of the BVG. To implement this plan, Mark not only increased fundraising, but more importantly oversaw a massive restructuring and efficiency program, which he affected with as much tact and understanding as possible. Rather than continue with the annual increases in tuition (which was depressing admissions numbers), he instituted the tuition reset, cutting the tuition by about 30% which has proved to be very successful in improving admissions numbers. Under Mark’s leadership, the college has made significant strides to address the institution’s 20 years of deferred maintenance of the physical plant on both campuses. Mark led the college to implement procedures that will prevent the accumulation of such maintenance problems in the future. At Mark’s request, the BVG set up a $10 million fund as his retirement legacy with a goal of increasing junior tutor and staff salaries over the next seven years, $8 million of which has been raised to date. In short, Mark has taken the college from a place of uncertainty, to a sound financial footing.

Mike Duran

Mike Duran has served the college at two separate times in his career. Now retired, Mr. Duran worked for the college from 1986—2006, and from 2017—2023. For well over two decades of service to the college Mr. Duran has been instrumental in deficit elimination, the new financial model/tuition reset, and assuring the financial health of the college.

Louisa Sarofim

Louisa Sarofim is an extraordinary supporter of St. John’s and is an active participant in the life of the mind through Summer Classics and other faculty engagement. She first joined Summer Classics in 2003 and has provided philanthropic support to the college since 2012.

In addition, Ms. Sarofim has been a dedicated patron of the arts and a major supporter of Houston’s ballet and art museums. As the hand-picked successor of modern-art benefactor Dominique de Menil, she serves as the chair and life trustee of the Menil Collection and Foundation. In addition to her avid support of the arts, she is an art collector in her own right, and her gifts to the Menil Collection have included works to feature in the institution’s Drawing Institute.

David Starr

David Starr served as a tutor at St. John's College for fifty years. He joined the faculty on the Annapolis campus in 1972. After coming to the Santa Fe campus in 1980 to serve a term as Director of the Graduate Institute, Mr. Starr returned to the Annapolis campus in 1983 and a few years later returned permanently to the Santa Fe campus. In the mid-1990s, he became one of the founding faculty members in what was to become the College's Eastern Classics Program. The author of a book, Entity and Existence: An Ontological Investigation of Aristotle and Heidegger, a long-used supplementary Sophomore Language manual, An Introduction to Aristotelian Logic, and a dozen Friday night lectures through the years, Mr. Starr's interests have always ranged widely and deeply through the college's undergraduate and graduate curricula.

A testament to the breadth of his own interests lies in the long list of preceptorials Mr. Starr has offered over the years—some forty preceptorials in all, in the undergraduate Program and in both of the college's graduate Programs. The subjects of these have run the gamut from Plato's Philebus to the Mahabharat; the Tao Te Ching to St. Dionysius the Areopagite; Spinoza to Maximus the Confessor; Dante to the Tale of Genji; Ahamkara and Atman to the Gospel According to John; War and Warriors to Sacrifice as a Theological Category; Tibetan Buddhist Texts to the works of his much-beloved Fyodor Mihailovich Dostoevsky.

Michael Bechko

Mike Bechko is the Network and Telephone Systems Coordinator on the Santa Fe campus and joined the college’s IT department in May, 1999. Because IT supports the entire college, alumni, staff, faculty, and students have all had the pleasure of working with Mr. Bechko over his 23-year tenure.

Of Mr. Bechko, it is said that “his ready smile, great sense of humor, incomparable dependability, and relaxed demeanor make it possible for us to face technology’s continued stressors. Nothing rattles Mike: as one staff member notes, she’s never heard him yell, ‘though there are many times when he should have.’”

In his life outside the office, Mr. Bechko enjoys engaging in new forms of exercise and approaches to well-being; and he steadfastly believes in the importance of using one’s brain for other-than-work activities.

Cara Sabolcik

Cara Sabolcik was a vital part of the Greenfield Library staff on the Annapolis campus for 21 years, retiring as the Associate Library Director in 2021. In her role, she worked across all functions of the library, including mentoring students and curating library exhibitions. Ms. Sabolcik was instrumental in establishing the college’s Digital Archives and digitized the library’s audiovisual collection.

It is also important to note that Ms. Sabolcik discovered that W. E. B. Du Bois gave a lecture on April 13, 1952, which was then independently confirmed by alumni, and which became the basis for the collegewide celebration this year of the 70th anniversary of this important occasion.

Ms. Sabolcik’s service to St. John’s also includes various appointments on the Staff Council and in numerous faculty, undergraduate, and Graduate Institute study groups through the years. In the greater community, Ms. Sabolcik served as chair and vice chair of the Maryland Interlibrary Loan Group, thereby enabling access to books otherwise not readily available to St. John’s College and making the Greenfield Library more widely known as a participating peer institution.

Susan Shamos

Dr. Susan Shamos is the Founder of The Centus School Counseling Program, which places experienced counselors and social workers in schools that otherwise would not have enough access to high-quality mental health services for students. Together with her husband Jeremy (SFGI76), Susan has been a supporter and benefactor for multiple arts organizations throughout Denver and the state of Colorado. Susan and Jeremy led Denver’s efforts to host the 2008 National Performing Arts Convention, a gathering of 5,000 U.S. and international artists and arts professionals.

Notably, Susan has participated in Summer Classics at the college for over three decades. She and Jeremy are among the top 15 lifetime donors to the college, inspiring others to join them in philanthropy and enriching the college community by gifting substantial works of art for public spaces on campus. Susan has served on the college’s Board of Visitors and Governors since 2016.

Mark Sinnett

Mark Sinnett served as a tutor at St. John’s College from 2000–20. In this role, he drew upon his background in mathematics and theology, having received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as a PhD in Systematic Theology from Cambridge University. Prior to coming to St. John’s, Mr. Sinnett was a Lecturer in mathematics at Concordia Lutheran College, Kansas University, and San Jacinto College. He is also a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church, having served as Minister at the First Presbyterian Church, Stephenville, Texas, and as a Senior Minister at Clemmons Presbyterian Church in Clemmons, North Carolina. Mr. Sinnett had the honor of being a Visiting Scholar at St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1997.

A beloved tutor, Mr. Sinnett was overwhelmingly chosen by the graduating class of 2022 to be their graduation speaker.

Annapolis

Donlin Long, PhD

Donlin M. Long, PhD, is the head of a dedicated family of Johnnies. His wife, Harriet (AGI93), served on the college’s Board of Visitors and Governors, his daughter Elisabeth Long (A86) currently serves on the Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, and he himself served on the St. John’s College Presidents’ Council. He is also the loving father of two other graduates of St. John’s, Kimberly Riley (AGI87) and David Long (A90). After completing a PhD in neuroanatomy in 1964, Long served as professor of neurosurgery and chief neurosurgeon at the Johns Hopkins University for 27 years. He was one of the first program directors in the nation to adopt a major interest in chronic pain and developed an infrastructure for patient care at Johns Hopkins while advancing the standards for pain care around the world. During his career, Long has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and 100 book chapters, as well as 16 books. He was named a distinguished professor of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins from 2000 until his official retirement in 2010. In addition to these accomplishments, he and Harriet have been active members of the college community and consistent donors since 1983. They established the Long Family Endowment with a leadership-level legacy commitment to the Freeing Minds campaign and are sustaining members of the college’s Mitchell Gallery. In 2019, they became members of the college’s Tocqueville Society for planned giving.

Watch an interview with Donlin Long

Santa Fe

Mary Anne Burke

Mary Anne Burke has been a member of the St. John’s College community for more than 14 years, beginning as a staff member of the Advancement Office before transitioning to the Student Activity Center as fitness and wellness coordinator in Santa Fe. Burke, a known fitness and wellness buff and certified personal trainer, was nominated by current students in recognition of her extraordinary dedication, enthusiasm, and attention to the well-being of the college community. To create a more inclusive environment and to increase community engagement, Burke launched the Warrior Women Workouts, designing a fitness program that is welcoming, non-judgmental, and inclusive, and allows for customization by each participant. In response to the isolation caused by the pandemic, Burke partnered with Annapolis Athletics Director Chris Krueger (A07) to organize the “Meta-Ionnathon”—a race “of Pheidippidean proportions” between Santa Fe and Annapolis Johnnies to see who could (virtually) reach the other campus first. She also brought the archery program to the college, in which students compete locally, regionally, and nationally. Whether by student, staff, or faculty, Burke has been described as relationship-focused, maintaining connections with former students even after graduation. As Assistant Dean Michael Golluber notes, “Mary Anne has changed my life. Before she came, all [I] did is study and suffer from stress and anxiety. She helped me to start moving and to remember I had a body. I might be dead now if it weren’t for her. I know many feel the same way I do about this.”

Watch an interview with Mary Anne Burke

Paul and Cecie Dry

Paul and Cecie Dry’s embrace of the St. John’s College community and their commitment to the Program have resulted in their ongoing participation in classroom learning and financial support to the college. After reading a small ad in The New Yorker, Cecie and Paul first attended Summer Classics in Santa Fe in 1996 and have participated almost every summer since. In 2004, they initiated and funded a twice-yearly seminar in Annapolis led by tutors Eva Brann and Sam Kutler. Cecie attended the Executive Seminar program in Philadelphia and studied in the Graduate Institute in Annapolis. At Paul Dry Books, Paul has published numerous works by St. John’s tutors. The Dry Family Foundation supports The Eva Brann Endowed Tutorship and the Southwest Scholars Partners Program, which is designed to benefit enrollment on the Santa Fe campus. Their engagement with the college is generational as Guillermo Bleichmar, their son-in-law, has been a tutor at the Santa Fe campus since 2009. The Drys have truly embraced the spirit of St. John’s College and made its health and wellbeing a central part of their lives.

Watch an interview with Paul and Cecie Dry

Santa Fe

Lise van Boxel, Tutor

The St. John’s College community experienced an enormous loss with the death of longtime tutor Lise van Boxel in January 2020.

Regarded by her students as thoughtful, acutely intelligent, and always open to discourse, van Boxel first joined the Santa Fe faculty in 2001. In her nearly 20-year career at the college, she taught across both campuses and was deeply devoted to all her students–advising with care many senior essays each year, and mentoring Johnnies in their studies and careers after graduation.

In return, she drew much inspiration from her students’ “earnest desire to learn and their willingness to be vulnerable in pursuit of genuine conversation,” as she once stated. She also had a particular respect for military service, which led her to co-found the “St. John’s Combat and Classics” podcast. The audio series has helped service members connect to the Program by examining historical and fictional leaders featured in military-themed literary works.

As St. John’s College classrooms continue to seek what it means to lead an examined life, they will do so in the spirit with which Lise van Boxel led her own life.

Van Boxel held degrees in political science–BA and PhD from the University of Toronto, and MA from Boston College–all with an emphasis on political philosophy. Her doctoral thesis was on the standard of truth in Nietzsche’s philosophy.

Robert Mass, Former Member, Board of Visitors and Governors

A dedicated champion of the college, Robert Mass joined St. John’s College Board of Visitors and Governors in 2013. He demonstrated great leadership, especially through his committee service, in his role as board secretary, and as Audit and Compliance Committee chair.

Through his leadership, Mass guided St. John’s through some of its most challenging times, including the current deficit reduction initiatives, helping ensure the future success of the college. He helped St. John’s prioritize student safety and wellbeing initiatives through his service on the Campus Culture Committee. Mass has been an advocate for international student recruitment, funding and fundraising for scholarships as well as making personal calls to admitted students. He has also advised and supported students in their search for finance industry internships and post-graduation employment.

Mass’s service to the college draws on his deep legal and compliance experience at public and private firms, including the American Civil Liberties Union, New York County District Attorney’s Office, and Goldman Sachs where he is a managing director.

Lifelong learning is a commitment Mass shares with St. John’s, as evidenced by his current pursuit of a PhD in Philosophy at The New School in New York City. An active participant in the Executive Seminar and Summer Classics programs for over 15 years, Mass deeply values the classroom experience at St. John’s–an appreciation that has contributed to his ongoing and tireless support of the college.

Annapolis

William Pastille, Tutor

Described by his students as a clear thinker, an effective writer, and a compassionate listener, St. John’s College tutor William Pastille first joined the Annapolis faculty in 1986.

During his longtime career at the college, Pastille has held several important roles, including serving as NEH chair in Ancient Thought over the past two years. From 2001 to 2003, he directed the Graduate Institute in Annapolis and served as assistant dean in Annapolis from 1993 to 1995. In addition to his role in the classroom, Pastille is a participating tutor in the Annapolis Community Seminar Program and has been editor of The St. John’s Review, an annual publication featuring works from college faculty, for the past 13 years.

In all his duties, Pastille has shown an unwavering passion for discovering truth through questioning–a pursuit that has deeply affected Annapolis students and community members alike. With the close of this year’s spring semester, he will retire from St. John’s and be named Tutor Emeritus by the college. With this new title, Pastille will continue to embody the ideals for which St. John’s stands, and remain a valued member of the college for years to come.

Pastille holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in musicology from Cornell University, as well as a bachelor’s degree in music from Brown University.

Katharine “Casey” Pingle, Chair, Mitchell Gallery Board

Casey Pingle joined the St. John’s College Mitchell Gallery Board of Advisors in 1994, and has served as its chair for the past 7 years.

In her more than 25 years of involvement with the gallery, Pingle has provided integral oversight of the operation–from supporting fundraising and membership efforts, to event coordination for “town and gown” events, student receptions, and more. Her leadership with such initiatives, combined with her work as the gallery representative for the college’s Friends Board, have helped strengthen relations between St. John’s and the greater Annapolis community, immensely. Additionally, as a former board member and current supporter of the Caritas Society of St. John’s College, Pingle helps the charitable community organization provide monetary support for SJC students faced with financial hardship or emergencies.

For her consistent efforts on behalf of St. John’s, Pingle is recognized as a true advocate for the gallery and the college as a whole.

Pingle is co-owner of PMD International, Inc., a private investment bank formed in 1987 with offices in Annapolis and London.

• Elizabeth “Litzi” Engel (SF)
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