Feb. 19, 2019: Suda ’03 To Lead Canada’s National Gallery; Kennedy ’77 on a Campus Controversy

Sasha Suda ’03 was appointed to be the National Gallery of Canada’s new director and CEO. In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen, Suda said she intends to bring “urgency” to the role, adding that art “is not a ‘nice to have,’ it’s a ‘need to have.’ ”
Read more in the Ottawa Citizen.

Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy ’77 criticized Augsburg College’s decision to suspend a professor for reading the N-word aloud during a discussion of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time. (For a response from Augsburg, see https://shar.es/amrcdN.) — The Chronicle of Higher Education
 
Data columnist David Byler ’14 breaks down the 2020 primary calendar and weighs in on whether it makes sense to put so much emphasis on Iowa and New Hampshire. — The Washington Post

Architects Tod Williams ’65 *67 and Billie Tsien recently remodeled Dartmouth College’s Hood Museum of Art, adding natural light, teaching spaces, and six new galleries. — The Architect’s Newspaper

“Did you meet any of the real stars or did you run right after you were done?”

— Marian Robinson p’83 p’85, in a text to her daughter, Michelle Obama ’85, after the former first lady’s appearance at the Grammys. Obama shared the text thread during the book tour for her best-selling memoir, Becoming. Read more in the Arizona Republic.

Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen ’15 will sing the role of Medoro in the San Francisco Opera’s production of Handel’s Orlando, which opens in June. — San Francisco Chronicle
 
Alex Gansa ’84 won the Writers Guild Award for episodic drama for his Homeland episode “Paean to the People.” — TV Line

Larry Lucchino ’67, owner of the Pawtucket Red Sox and former president of the Boston Red Sox, spoke about the PawSox’s upcoming move to Worcester, Mass. — Worcester Telegram
 
Author and marijuana-legalization advocate Dasheeda Dawson ’00 was scheduled to be a featured speaker at New Jersey’s Accelerate Cannabis conference in Newark. — Philly.com
 
Art historian Mary E. Frank *06 recently took the helm as president of the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, N.Y. — East Hampton Press
 
Poet Charif Shanahan ’05, a lecturer at Stanford, received a 2019 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. — Stanford News
 
Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District, represented by Democratic Rep. John Sarbanes ’84 and “arguably one of the nation’s most severely gerrymandered districts,” will be redrawn before the 2020 elections. — The Washington Post
 
Jay Sugarman ’84, owner of Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union, said new midfielder Marco Fabián is the biggest acquisition in the club’s 10-year history. — Philly.com
 
CEO of the Center for Democracy and Technology Nuala O’Connor ’89 talks about privacy and surveillance in Big Tech and says that she’s “long-term optimistic.” — Recode