Alumna’s Personal Experience Propelled Activism on Behalf of Adoptees
Susan Merkel looked around the dining room at the elegant Highlawn Pavilion in West Orange that day in 1986, struggling to keep from blurting out the truth to people eating lunch at nearby tables.
“I wanted to scream out to everyone present that I was meeting my mother for the very first time,” the Rutgers graduate recalls.
She was 23, a newly minted college graduate pondering her next steps in life, and for the first time she was face to face with someone who looked like her, someone whose personality matched hers – someone who had given birth to her.