When Bud Welch lost his 23-year-old daughter, Julie, in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, he was consumed by grief at the loss of his only daughter and rage toward the perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh. Over time, however, Welch discovered that his anger wasn’t helping him to heal. Connecting with McVeigh’s father, Bill, he found peace and argued against McVeigh’s execution. Jeanne Bishop ’81, ’84 JD, a Cook County assistant public defender, explores the friendship between these two fathers in her new book, Grace from the Rubble: Two Fathers’ Road to Reconciliation After the Oklahoma City Bombing (2020). Bishop has dealt with tragedy in her own life. She lost her sister, Nancy, her brother-in-law and the couple’s unborn child to murder in 1990. Bishop’s first book, Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy and Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer (2015), discusses her journey toward forgiveness.
The Symphony of the Universe
Darsan Swaroop Bellie ’22, who holds a dual degree in jazz studies and physics from Northwestern, is a fellow at the University’s Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA), where he conducts research on gravitational waves, compact objects and cosmology. Merging his seemingly disparate passions, he created the Star Eyes Initiative, a jazz group that uses original compositions to communicate scientific concepts in a digestible way, for audiences of all ages.
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