Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Alum News

Rip Rawlings '94
The New York Times bestselling military novel Red Metal calls on the 22 years of Marine Corps service of author Lieutenant Colonel H. Ripley "Rip" Rawlings IV '94. After graduating from Hobart with a degree in English and German literature, Rawlings served in the Marine Corps but the writing bug was always there. His first novel is about a military crisis in which Russia attacks Western Europe and east Africa to seize a rare Earth mineral, cowritten with Mark Gearney. "I really flourished under the kind of academic environment HWS provided," Rawlings says. "When I stop to recollect, it seems we lived a lifetime in the confines of our little campus."

Sarah Walters '19
After graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, Sarah Walters '19 found her next step with the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester where she is their Holocaust Education and Community Relations Program Director. An individual major in Genocide, Human Rights, and Peace Actions, Walters worked closely with Professor of Religious Studies Michael Dobkowski to create coursework that reflected her interdisciplinary nature. While on campus, Walters served as vice president of HWS Hillel, was a member of Hai Timiai and traveled as a representative for William Smith College at the 10th International Humanitarian Law Dialogues for the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trails in Germany.