Mark Philip Curchack – 50th Reunion Essay

Mark Philip Curchack

226 W. Rittenhouse Sq.

Apt. 2805

Philadelphia, PA 19103

mpcurchack@gmail.com

215-901-6789

Spouse(s): Peggy Lehman Curchack (1970)

Education: Yale, BA, Culture and Behavior, 1969; UC Berkeley, Anthropology, 1987

Career: University Professor and Administrator for 39 years

Avocations: social justice, a cappella and choral singing, international travel

College: Davenport

Fifty years ago, I was studying anthropology and singing. Now, in retirement, I’m pretty much doing the same thing. Growth? Doesn’t matter much to me. I’m enjoying it.

I retired in 2012 after almost 40 years in higher education, first teaching anthropology and then working as an administrator. Shortly after that, I left the large house with the lawn to rake and mow, the driveway to shovel and all those stairs, and moved to a condo in the heart of Philadelphia. I quickly fell into my current round of volunteer roles: serving as a docent at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology; singing with a local a cappella group and managing an 11-group consortium of similar groups; being on boards; and, traveling the world. Yale has come back as a major part of my activities. I hold a senior position in the local Yale Club and on the Board of the Yale Glee Club Associates, and I sing almost every year with the Yale Alumni Chorus.

Yale continues to be a defining part of my life, as a matter of self-identity and as the source of many people with whom I now associate. I have no question that the time we spent in college, and, for me, directly afterwards at UC Berkeley, ground the lenses through which I see the frightening state of our nation. Twenty-five years ago, I wrote of my horror at the retreat from the progress I thought we had made toward achieving social justice, but I could never have dreamed of the nightmare reality in which we now live. Why am I in protest marches once again?

It’s not very likely I’ll be here to write for a 75th reunion book. What will there be to write about then? Yale probably. American democracy, maybe not. At Yale, though much more at Berkeley, I learned that protest and political action can have an effect. I remain committed to the struggle.

The past quarter century has been a time when many of us, including my wife and I, have lost parents and gained new little people in our lives. There is great solace in the love that surrounds such events. More so, in the lifelong partnership I have been so lucky to enjoy with Peggy, whom I met over 50 years ago.