by Ian Heller

Created on: June 02, 2008

ACHTUNG, BABY!

Recently, I was named President of the Long Island Vassar Club. My two-year term begins June 1, 2008 and ends June 30, 2010. I serve the Vassar alumnae that reside in Nassau and Suffolk counties, New York. My goal is to educate high school students as to what Vassar has to offer, ensure that the best educated high school students attend Vassar, and plan social functions for Vassar alums on Long Island.

When I entered Vassar in the eighties it was a top-ten liberal arts college. Today, depending on the ratings agent, it can rank as high as #1.

Vassar is the school of Meryl Streep, Jackie Kennedy, Jane Fonda and Lisa Kudrow. So many celebrities, taste-makers and A-List women have been through its doors that it has no peers. In the days when liberal arts colleges had brother and sister schools, Vassar's "brother" was Yale.

In 1995, while in my twenties, I wrote a work of literary fiction. The book received a great deal of attention back then, not much anymore. I do not think much about it, though being elected LIVC President gave me reason to go back and review what I wrote, including the sections that touch on Vassar. It is a coming of age story.

I sometimes wonder why, nearly two decades after I graduated, I continue to return to Vassar after so many have permanently separated. I have no answers. The following excerpts remind me about what I love so much and do not like so much about this special place:

The first excerpt reads:

I remember eating dinner at the campus dining center my last week of college with a classmate from Connecticut. She sat peacefully and smiled while eating. When I asked her what she was happy about she said very calmly, "I am so excited about all the possibilities open to me after graduation. I just don't know where to begin. Maybe I'll get an apartment in Manhattan and take in all the cultural activities New York has to offer. I'd like to take a couple of years off to enjoy myself before I settle down into a career."

"I think White Castle is hiring," I offered. Not that she asked. "Maybe I can work my way through the ranks. Save up and open a franchise in Hempstead."

"That sounds like the perfect career for you. I'm sure you'll do well at it."

Vassar students were like that. They had high hopes and expectations of success; they had no doubt the world would effortlessly conform to their wishes. Most of them either wanted to be professionals, artists, professors or social activists. What I will always remember my classmates for is

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