Susan Charnow Richards

I transferred to Columbia General Studies in Spring semester of sophomore year, so that I could go to the Arts Students League in the daytime and continue in Art History in evening classes. Swarthmore in those days didn't have either studio art classes or non-western Art History. Those needs were very well met by my transfer, but I lost out on the Swarthmore community... It would have been the perfect place for me had I arrived a few decades later!

Sharon and I have been together for 22 years. We were married in Canada and again in California (in the quick window before Prop 8). Then we became legally unrelated individuals when we moved to Pennsylvania in 2010. Then PA recognized our marriage, and now the whole country does. Finally.

After a year as a VISTA Volunteer in an Inuit village in Alaska (1966-67) and two years at Martin Luther King School of Social Change ('67-'69), I graduated from Bryn Mawr School of Social Work and Social Research in 1974. I graduated from the San Diego Psychoanalytic Institute in 1984 with a certificate in Advanced Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.

After a few years of agency work in Philadelphia I moved to California, where I was in the private practice of psychotherapy in Solana Beach for a little over 30 years. I closed my practice and moved back to the Philly area in 2010. I have been developing my second career as an artist since then, which is hard work, very satisfying, and a lot of fun.

My whole life has been a surprise. May that continue!

I have very fond memories of Professors Martin Ostwald, Helen North, and Hedley Rhys. My memories of classmates probably remain frozen in time since I haven't really kept up or been in touch since transferring.

Spiritual practice has been a theme throughout my life. In the 70's was on an Eastern trip, and along with many, was brought back to Judaism and Jewish Renewal by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. Now active in my Reconstructionist Synagogue. Still meditating and breathing...