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Joanna Buffington '81

Joanna Buffington Header
  • Hometown: Walpole, Massachusetts
  • Sports: Track, Soccer
  • Class year - started out with class of 1980, but took spring semester (1979) off junior year after spending fall with Wesleyan Program in Paris - so got to play another soccer season fall of 1980 - and came back to graduate with class of 1981.  Now identified with '81, but seems to me I belong with those freshmen with whom I began.
  • Major: Biology
  • Profession: Preventive Medicine/ Public Health 
  • Career after Wes: after grad school (bio, MS), med school, primary care internal medicine 1 year residency and a research year, went to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a medical officer/epidemiologist working mostly in infectious diseases - retired now.
  • Favorite Memory at Wes: Broadly, the memory of having so many choices and surprising people that a bio major might also want to spend a semester in Paris, enroll in a business course ("Ethical Consideration in Business Decisions" - professor Miller -- he wasn't going to let me in, assuming a bio major wouldn't be serious..... I talked him into it, and he did not regret it!), or take an art class....    The women's track team was such a fun group - with Elmer Swanson coaching (grandfatherly) -- we decided to all show up for practice one day in pajamas (the union- suit style) -- we had some good photos of that silliness, but of course I can't find them.  The distance runners invited the sprinters to go on a long run (I was a sprinter, and thought it might be a mile or 2.... "long"!) one Sunday.   I joined and ran with them.... yacking and yacking, and we did 10 miles!!!!   I had never run more than 2 before, and discovered that the best miles are after those first 2....  
  • Achievements - Academically successful, Quad-Captain (1979), then solo Captain of soccer team (1980)
  • Thoughts on Title IX - Honestly, I didn't really follow it, except was a bit irritated that we had to be a "club" soccer team for 2 years before we could go "varsity"...  so we did, and we did. My final 2 seasons were as varsity.
  • Thoughts on Wes women's athletics now: Great. Where things should be. 
  • Advice to current student-athletes: Balance -- and yes, there is time and a way to do most of the things that you want. Staying fit and active keeps the brain running too as the decades go by.