Charlie Israel

I am a 2000 graduate of the Putney School and a 2005 graduate of Marlboro College. After Marlboro I went to law school, and since then I have been managing my family's property management / historical preservation business in Saratoga Springs, NY. We maintain seven historic buildings and provide affordable housing in a market that needs it badly. Two and a half years ago, I also bought an amazing 50-year-old used bookstore, which has brought a little of the life of letters back to me.

I loved and love Marlboro. While there I truly enjoyed preserving old traditions and making new ones, because I took great satisfaction from the sense of community they created. Our classes were important. Our tutorials were important. Lord knows, our plans were important. Equally important was the shared camaraderie of a community of iconoclastic, intellectually curious, hard-working, and deeply intelligent group of people snowed in on a hillside in the middle of the woods. I'm not sure what I have to offer besides energy and enthusiasm for that community and the ideals of independence and learning for which it stood, but if that's what is wanting I have it to spare.

We don't have a physical infrastructure to keep us tied to that community anymore, so I think it's incumbent upon us to do the work of creating the social infrastructure. I'd like to see more communication, more networking, and more mutual support from our academic diaspora.

Next candidate: Elli Ludwigson

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