Mary Elizabeth “Betsy” Perry, emerita adjunct professor of history at Occidental, died June 30, 2025, in Altadena. She was 87.
A native of Turlock, Calif., Betsy graduated from Washington State University as class valedictorian in 1959, with what was at the time the highest GPA in the university’s history—a feat aided by several A-pluses. (A general studies major, she used shorthand to take notes during classes, and then typed her notes afterward.)
Ann La Rue Matlow ’68 made her debut as class secretary in the Spring 1987 edition of Occidental magazine. (“The response to the questionnaire I sent you in February was gratifying,” she wrote. “Thank you for responding and especially for your thoughts on turning 40.”) Over the next 37 years, she became the “glue" for the Class of 1968, meticulously tracking classmates’ lives and fostering friendships.
A native of Beverly, Mass., Ruth Margaret Anderson received her B.S. in physical education and kinesiology from Pepperdine College in 1957 and completed a master’s in physical education at USC in 1959. Ruth married Bruce E. Berkey in 1960 and the couple settled in Sierra Madre.
It might come as something of a bombshell that Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Marcel Ophuls ’50 is no great tan of the genre. “Put that in there,” he says by phone from his home in Lucq-de-Bearn, France. “I always like to surprise people. It’s such a puritanical business. Most documentary filmmakers are anti-Hollywood and anti-show business, and I happen to be the son of a great director and my mother was an actress.”
March-April 1912: President John Willis Baer announces the trustees’ decision to convert Oxy into an all-men’s school. Students protest, and the idea is abandoned.
March 22, 1948: The Board of Trustees cancels a rental agreement of Thorne Hall for a March 31 program with poet Langston Hughes, citing the potentially “divisive social and political effect” of his visit. The decision creates friction between Oxy and the American Civil Liberties Union, and 28 students sign a letter to the trustees condemning their action.
Camilla Taylor had been driving for 16 hours on the night of January 7 and was getting close to their Altadena home when the fire on the mountain came into view. “The hillside was black besides the fire because all of the power was out,” recalls Taylor, an artist, printmaker, and sculptor who joined the Oxy faculty as a resident assistant professor in 2018. Once they got home, they ran inside to find their husband, Jason Troff, with an overnight bag packed and carriers at the ready for their four cats, waiting for an evacuation order.
Whenever Administrative Law Judge Ira Sandron ’71 of Miami is in Los Angeles for a trial, he has lunch with his L.A.-based counterpart, Brian Gee ’87. “We enjoy reminiscing as well as discussing procedural issues,” says Sandron, who works out of the Washington, D.C., Branch of the Division of Judges within the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
“Ira and I have a lot in common, including our shared Oxy experience,” says Gee, who works out of the San Francisco Branch—just like Sandron did at the outset of his nearly 50-year career in government service.
Higher education has a unique capacity to address national priorities, confront global challenges, and improve outcomes for humanity. Many of our most important medical, technological, and social advancements have been driven by academic researchers who dedicate their careers to furthering our collective knowledge.
Our society benefits from the rigorous work accomplished at U.S. colleges and universities—not just at large research institutions but at small liberal arts colleges such as Occidental.
From art to history to politics, the Oxy calendar has been top-heavy with visitors who had plenty to say this semester. Oxy Live! welcomed visual artist Ed Ruscha to Thorne Hall on February 4. On February 18 and 19, historian and reproductive justice advocate Deirdre Cooper Owens visited Occidental as the 2025 Stafford Ellison Wright Scholar-in-Residence. On April 8, Atlantic staff writer Tom Nichols delivered the 2025 Jack Kemp ’57 Distinguished Lecture in Choi Auditorium.
