Sharon Agar ’82
New York, New York

I was born in Israel but moved at age three to England, where I attended the then predominantly-male Marlborough College. My parents’ transfer to Texas prompted the idea of attending university in America, and I fell in love with Yale at first sight. Yale brought me a B.S. in Applied Mathematics, a love of a cappella singing and musical theatre, lifelong friends and my husband, Rich Johnson ’81.

I obtained a Harvard MBA and have since had a broad variety of work experience – both U.S. and international – including investment banking at Goldman Sachs, consulting in post-communist Eastern Europe, and Latin America acquisitions for a large multinational corporation. I live in New York with Rich and our sons Nick (11), Matthew (10) and Huck (<1).

Through the singing organizations, I have stayed in touch with Yale: on the Board and singing with the Yale Alumni Chorus; organizing Whim ‘n Rhythm reunions, and hosting New Blue undergraduates in our home on their New York tours.

Rami Levin ’75
Highland Park, Illinois

After graduating from Yale in 1975, I received an M.A. in music from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Chicago. Since 1994 I have been on the faculty of Lake Forest College as Chair of the Music Department and Associate Professor of Music. I am currently the founding director of the College’s Center for Chicago Programs, Associate Dean of Faculty, and Composer-in-Residence.

Since 1980 I have been actively involved in the Chicago music scene, as a composer, member and past president of American Women Composers, Midwest, and founding director of Lake Forest Lyrica, a series of concerts featuring professional chamber ensembles in the Chicago area. My works include pieces for orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles and solo instruments and have been performed in the U.S., England, Canada, Spain, Norway, Italy and the Slovak Republic.

I am the proud parent of four children, three of whom are Yalies. It has been extremely gratifying to view my alma mater through the eyes of a new generation, and to share with them my love for Yale.

My service to Yale has included conducting alumni interviews, participating in a panel about careers in music for the Yale Club of Chicago, organizing a mini-reunion for my class, and serving as its delegate for the past three years. My time at Yale was tremendously important for me on many levels, and I am delighted to have the opportunity to serve on the Board of Governors of the AYA.

M. Tracey Ober ’85
Brooklyn, New York

Yale’s rich tradition of choral music and singing defined my experience both as an undergrad, as Mixed Company founding member and Yale Glee Club officer, and as an alum, as Yale Alumni Chorus (YAC) founding member, tour producer, and founding member of the Yale Alumni Chorus Foundation Board of Directors.

And it is the strength of this musical tradition and its power to transform lives that drives me now. As a leader in the Yale Alumni Chorus, I have had the honor and privilege of harnessing this power to bring diverse cultures together onstage to create and communicate through music. Most recently, the Yale presence in a Brazilian shantytown, where YAC staged a benefit concert with local musicians, sparked national news and trained a rare spotlight onto the people of a desperate community. We left residents of this violence-torn, neglected corner of the globe with the funds and infrastructure for a youth chorus and a motivating sense of hope.

For me, this is Yale at its best. It is the Yale of public service; of outreach; of alumni working together with our brazen, out-of-the-box thinking to change the world for the better.

In my professional life, I’m a journalist who started out after Yale as a reporter for small-town New England newspapers before moving overseas, where I worked for ten years as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Spain and Brazil. Now based in New York City, I write about international affairs and strive to build cultural understanding through the Yale Alumni Chorus Foundation. I also edit publications for both local and national nonprofit organizations.

My service to Yale has included the following: Yale Alumni Fund: Class Agent (1985-2000); Yale Club of Eastern Fairfield County: Career Counselor (1990-1995); Yale Alumni Chorus: Founding Member (1998-present), Co-producer, Tercentennial Tour (2001), Co-Producer, Kremlin Invitation Tour (2003), Managing Producer, Gift of Song Tour (2004); Yale Alumni Chorus Foundation: Founding Board Director (2002-present), Communications Committee Chair (2002-present); AYA At-Large delegate (2002-2005); Yale Alumni Magazine: Contributing Writer (2002-present); Mixed Company of Yale Alumni Association, Organizer (2004-present).

Linda Pellico ’89 MSN
Hamden, Connecticut

Unlike many AYA delegates, I came to Yale in 1986 as a graduate student in nursing and never left. I have the luxury of doing what I love – nursing – while teaching the next generation. I teach women and men with degrees in other disciplines in the first year of their entry into our nursing graduate program. I am also deeply involved in the Humanities in Medicine Program, encouraging my colleagues to find new ways of merging science and service through narrative writing. In the New Haven community, I provide a health and career development workshop called “Have bones…will travel” to children in grade schools all over the city. While Yale has been sandwiched into my educational path (BSN from Southern Connecticut State University, PhD from the University of Connecticut), it became the source of my professional development from the minute I entered. For a first generation Irish-American, Yale has opened windows I never knew existed. I have been a board member of the Yale School of Nursing Alumnae/i Association for the past six years (Vice-President from 1999 to 2003). I am excited to represent the voice of the graduate and professional schools, an often under-represented group. I volunteer actively for Columbus House, Saint Rita Church, and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas. My husband, John Pellico ’77 is a director in information technology and we have two children, Ryan (a freshperson at Carnegie Mellon) and Katie, a high school junior.

W. Dwight Raiford ’74
New York, New York

I was fortunate to be at Yale in the late ’sixties when it was redefining its role in society and opening its mission of developing leaders to all people, irrespective of wealth, family background, race, creed or gender. After Yale and Harvard Business School, I made a career in banking, working with some of the world’s largest corporations. In 1989, my wife and I started Harlem Little League, which became one of the most successful youth sports programs in New York City. Moreover, it became the model for Little League Baseball’s Urban Initiative that today boasts programs in over 90 major cities. I joined the board of Little League; and in 2001, I was elected Board Chairman of the world’s largest youth sports organization.

I am grateful for what Yale gave me and I want to give back. I believe our number one challenge is bringing peoples of different races, religions, cultures, and gender together to make respect for differences and cooperation for the common good the guiding principles of the planet. Yale’s powerful, but untapped, resource for accomplishing this work is its own growing body of alumni of color.

Since 2002, I have been working with the AYA to achieve that goal, first in a working group to research black alumni involvement, then hosting a major AYA gathering in Harlem, then last October bringing 300 black Yale alumni to New Haven for the 35th Anniversary of the Afro-American Cultural Center. Many in this group have felt ambivalent or alienated from the University, to the detriment of both. I feel I can bring African-American alumni into the fold. Just as we made Yale better by coming here as students, we can make Yale better by adding our voices to the AYA as full members of the Yale community.

My service to Yale has included the following: AYA At-Large Delegate (2002-2005); Afro-American Five Years for the House Initiative (1999-2004); AYA Focus Group Research Project (2002-2003); Afro-American Cultural Center Advisory Board and 35th Anniversary Celebration Planning (2001-2004).

Margery Safir ’77 PhD
Paris, France

Yale did not admit women when I was choosing an undergraduate institution, so I had to wait for graduate school to walk through its halls as anything more than a football weekend “import.” When I did, it changed both how I lived, and eventually where. Yale was my first opening to an international community of scholars; and today, when I teach students of over 100 different nationalities, I still work across borders and oceans with colleagues who formed part of my Yale experience. Yale gave me not only a profession but a passion, both of which I now happily bring back to Yale.

At present I am a Professor of Comparative Literature at the American University of Paris and a member of the Executive Council of a national research group at the Sorbonne (Center for Interuniversity/Interdisciplinary Research in Latin American Studies). I am an author, co-author, and general editor of books in English, Spanish, and French, as well as essays on contemporary Latin American authors and on the theme of the interaction of knowledge and imagination, most particularly of science and literature. I have served on the directorates of research groups in France and Spain; I am on the editorial board of the journal América; and I have regularly organized international conferences and think tanks, bringing together distinguished figures from the worlds of the sciences and the arts.

I did my undergraduate studies at Barnard College, was a Fulbright Scholar, and a visiting researcher at the Instituto Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires. My Yale activities have included: Executive Committee of the Yale Club of France, Yale Book Prize, alumni interviewing, and delegate of the Graduate School to the AYA Assembly.

Stephen K. Scher ’56, ’66 PhD
Kinnelon, New Jersey

When I arrived at Yale in 1956, thinking to join the family chemical manufacturing business, I planned to major in chemistry, but soon found myself drawn to the extraordinary riches of the humanities program. I finally decided to concentrate in History, Arts, and Letters with an emphasis on medieval civilization. I then continued with graduate studies in medieval art attending the Institute of Fine Arts in New York for my Master’s Degree, but returning to Yale for a doctorate in art history. I began teaching at Brown University, where I remained for twelve years, eventually achieving tenure and becoming chair of the Department of Art. At the end of 1973, upon the death of my father, I decided to leave the university to take over the family business, an activity I have pursued for the past thirty years, and from which I have since retired. I did not, however, turn my back on art history, since I was able to publish, lecture, and organize several exhibitions for major museums, activities that I continue to pursue.

I feel fortunate to have had a particularly rich education and an unusually varied career. I shall remain grateful to the educational institutions, especially Yale, that prepared me for the paths that I followed. I have tried, therefore, to repay Yale in whatever way I could and have found that such activities have continued to enrich my life. Since I have been involved in both undergraduate and graduate organizations, and since the Graduate School Alumni Association has only recently been folded into the structure of the AYA, I feel that I can further this process based upon my experiences in both the academic and corporate worlds.

My involvement with Yale has included the following: Graduate School Alumni Association: Executive Committee (1995-present), Chair (2000-04), Member, Wilbur Cross Selection Committee (1995-present); Yale Department of History of Art: Department agent (1992-present); Yale Club of Montclair: Trustee (1992-present); Yale Alumni Fund: Class Agent (1990-present); ASC alumni interviewer (1963-present).