Rob Paarlberg
238 Bellevue Road
Watertown, MA 02472

617 926-3626
rpaarlberg@wellesley.edu
 

Rob on Cape Cod

I'm looking forward to seeing old friends in WL this weekend.

Not a great deal of news at my end since my last report 5 years ago.  I am still teaching at Wellesley College, but I have gone onto a retirement plan that will have me leaving Wellesley in June 2015.  Meanwhile, I'm now also teaching a class at the Harvard Kennedy School, and that might continue.  I enjoy being part-timish regarding teaching, because I can say yes to other opportunities that require travel.  I have not been to Africa this year, but I will be going next summer.  Marianne and I are now spending more time each summer at our house in Maine, where we have a second circle of close friends.

See you soon,

Rob

Posted 2008

Rob 2007

Classmates,

It looks like I won't be able to make it to WL for the 45th.  I enjoyed the 40th, and recall that someone joked we would be holding our next reunion at Westminster.  Not quite yet, apparently.  No dramatic changes in my own situation.  Marianne and I still live in Watertown, we still have our house in Maine (that's where I will be at the end of July), and I'm still teaching full time, both at Wellesley and as a visiting professor the past two years at Harvard, where all the students have SATs much higher than my own.  I just published a new book this spring on agricultural science and Africa (titled "Starved for Science") from Harvard University Press, and my next project will be a study for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN on how to feed the world in 2050.  If only I can hold on until age 105, perhaps I'll be able to see for myself.  The hardest thing to happen to me, ever, came just last fall, when my older brother, Don, lost a two year battle with cancer.  We have been spending more time with his wife and son, but there is nothing to replace a loss such as this.  I still have an uncle and a cousin in WL, and I was back there in December for an event at Purdue.  I will hope to get back again soon, and will certainly miss seeing you all later in July.

Rob Paarlberg