Brooks Bulletin Fall 2021 by Brooks School

BROOKS

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B OA R D OF T RU ST EES President Steven R. Gorham ’85, P’17, P’21 Ipswich, Mass. Vice Presidents John R. Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 Wellesley, Mass. Whitney Romoser Savignano ’87 Beverly Farms, Mass. Secretary Craig J. Ziady ’85, P’18, P’20, P’22 Winchester, Mass. Treasurer Valentine Hollingsworth III ’72, P’17 Dover, Mass.

Alexander Delacruz ’25 performs with Advanced Jazz Band during Family Weekend.

TR USTEES Cristina E. Antelo ’95 Washington, D.C. Iris Bonet ’90 Houston, Texas Peter J. Caldwell Providence, R.I. W. J. Patrick Curley III ’69 New York, N.Y. Peter V. K. Doyle ’69 Sherborn, Mass.

Paul L. Hallingby ’65 New York, N.Y. Booth D. Kyle ’89 Severna Park, Md. Brian McCabe P’18 Meredith, N.H. Diana Merriam P’08, P’11 Boxford, Mass. Sally T. Milliken ’88, P’22, P’24 Byfield, Mass.

Cheryl M. Duckworth P’22, P’23 Lynnfield, Mass.

John R. Packard Jr. P’18, P’21 Head of School North Andover, Mass.

Anthony H. Everets ’93 Brooklyn, N.Y.

Daniel J. Riccio P’17, P’20 Atherton, Calif.

Nancy C. Ferry P’21 West Newton, Mass.

Belisario A. Rosas P’15, P’21 Andover, Mass.

Shawn Gorman ’84 Falmouth, Maine

Vivek Sharma P’24 Boston, Mass. Juliane Gardner Spencer ’93 Rockport, Mass. Alessandro F. Uzielli ’85 Beverly Hills, Calif. Meredith M. Verdone ‘81, P’19 Newton Center, Mass. Christopher T. Wood ‘85 Los Angeles, Calif. A LUMNI T R UST E E S Alysa U. James ’11 Washington, D.C. Ikenna U. Ndugba ’16 Boston, Mass.

T R UST E E S E ME RI TI William N. Booth ’67, P’05 Chestnut Hill, Mass. Henry M. Buhl ’48 New York, N.Y. Steve Forbes ’66, P’91 Bedminster, N.J. H. Anthony Ittleson ’56, P’84, P’86 Green Pond, S.C. Michael B. Keating ’58, P’97 Boston, Mass. Frank A. Kissel ’69, P’96, P’99 Far Hills, N.J. Peter A. Nadosy ’64 New York, N.Y. Peter W. Nash ’51, P’81, P’89 Nantucket, Mass. Cera B. Robbins P’85, P’90 New York, N.Y. Eleanor R. Seaman P’86, P’88, P’91, GP’18 Hobe Sound, Fla. David R. Williams III ’67 Beverly Farms, Mass.

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Head of School John R. Packard Jr. P’18, P’21 Director of Institutional Advancement Gage S. Dobbins P’22, P’23

Assistant Director of Alumni Programs Angela Augusta Director of Admission and Financial Aid Bini W. Egertson P’12, P’15

Director of Communications and Marketing Dan Callahan P’19, P’20, P’23 Director of Print Communications Rebecca A. Binder

Design Aldeia www.aldeia.design Alumni Communications Manager Emily Williams Director of Digital Communications Jennifer O’Neill

Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. Opinions expressed in the Bulletin are those of the authors and not necessarily of Brooks School. Correspondence concerning the Bulletin should be sent to Editor Rebecca A. Binder: mail Editor, Brooks Bulletin 1160 Great Pond Road North Andover, MA 01845 email rbinder@brooksschool.org phone (978) 725-6326

FEAT UR ES

D E PA RTM E N TS

SPECIAL SECTION

20 Rising to the Occasion

02 Message from the Head of School

In a year marked by upheaval and hardship, your thought and care for Brooks helped the school continue to provide a meaningful experience. Read more in the school’s Impact Report.

03 News + Notes 49 Brooks Connections

26 Leading Brooks Forward

56 Class Notes

This year’s school prefects take the reins of the student body at a unique, pivotal point in school history. Here, they reflect on how to bring the Brooks community together and lead it forward.

34 Mapping a Mission A look at the school’s updated campus map reveals a focus on helping community flourish at Brooks.

42 The Heart is an Organ

The Ashburn Chapel organ, which has been in place since 1938, is an amazing mechanical triumph, an important musical artifact, and a center of connection and community at Brooks.

ON THE COVER: This newly iconic photo shows the opening Chapel on September 7, 2021, the first day of classes at Brooks. The service was held on the school’s fields overlooking Lake Cochichewick. The occasion marked the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 that the entire school was able to attend Chapel in person at the same time.

A MESSAGE FROM JOHN R. PACKARD JR. HEAD OF SCHOOL

Feeling Community Again I was talking with a couple of colleagues

“ I feel deeply privileged to lead a school that is so well positioned to stay in pursuit of being a better and better version of itself.”

recently about closing in on two pandemic-altered years at Brooks, and our conversation turned to how so much of our “pre-pandemic” life feels like eons ago. My sense is that many feel that way, and placing events that happened during the few years before the advent of masks, lockdowns and regular testing can be challenging. While the chronology of it all might be fuzzy, we have had no diﬃculty recalling so many aspects of our life together on campus that we have missed. As we head further into the winter months after a successful fall with all of our students and faculty together again on campus, I think the most pronounced feeling this year has yielded to date is one of community. To feel community again in ways that have been out of reach for these two years has been a thrill. When we opened the school year with an outdoor Chapel, I spoke about what felt then and continues to feel now like limitless opportunities to pour ourselves into community and make up for lost time. After a year of broadcasting services from Ashburn Chapel once per week, we are now a whole school again on Mondays and Thursdays with everyone in the building and drawing from one another’s presence. We have introduced seated lunches to allow time to sit and come to know students and faculty members we might not ordinarily see on the beaten paths we travel. The return of interscholastic athletics and our ﬁeld hockey team’s run to a New England championship created scores of moments through the fall when we gathered to cheer on peers and colleagues playing and leading teams to victory. After a year without a live audience,

we were all able to enjoy our first theater performance in our Center for the Arts in about 20 months. We had parents and guardians on campus for Family Weekend after far too many Zoom gatherings one year ago. And, Lessons and Carols made a triumphant return. As we continue to confront the pandemic’s twists and turns through the winter and spring, we will aim to stay the course and immerse ourselves in opportunities to be with one another in ways we are appreciating more than ever. At that outdoor opening Chapel on a perfect late summer and early fall day, I spoke of selflessness, concern for others, and seeing and welcoming the role we all play in ensuring one another’s belonging as being essential community building blocks. I emphasized the role kindness and generosity of spirit play in deepening community over the course of the year. Even simple things like saying “hello” when we pass one another on Main Street make a difference. I suspect you will see these attributes in two ways on the pages that follow: First, when reading about the 2021–2022 school prefects, who lead from the front and are so emblematic of the character of our student body. Second, when looking at the Impact Report and the difference so many made in sharing support and staying engaged through mediums and modes we never would have imagined possible prior to the pandemic’s beginning. As we renew and realize community with superb student leaders and so many who support Brooks, I feel deeply privileged to lead a school that is so well positioned to stay in pursuit of being a better and better version of itself. Here is to a winter full of joy, good health and no new variants in our lives!

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NEWS + NOTES IN THIS SECTION 04 News from Campus 12 Campus Scene 16 Athlete Spotlight 18 Athletics News

Sixth-formers Brooke Rogers (left) and Maddy Dombal attend an honors anatomy and physiology class in September. The lesson focused on anatomical terminology — speciﬁcally anatomical planes — and Rogers and Dombal were using clay “heads” to cut and demonstrate each plane.

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A Purposeful Independent Delaney Eiland ’22 has used her time at Brooks to ﬁnd her passion and pursue it, with the help of the school, the faculty and a strong group of friends. Now as a sixth-former, she’s working on a theater independent that she hopes will give back to the Brooks community.

Delaney Eiland ’22 has graced the stage at Brooks since her entrance into the school as a fourth-former, and now she’s intent on leaving her mark as she graduates. She is taking an independent course in theater through which she will produce, cast and direct the musical “The Mad Ones,” which will hit the stage at Brooks in April 2022. “The Mad Ones” is about high school valedictorian Samantha and her best friend, Kelly, who is killed in a car accident just before graduation. In a series of ﬂashbacks, the script explores Samantha and Kelly’s friendship, as well as Samantha’s relationship with her mother. Eiland is excited to bring the script to life, and she hopes it sparks catharsis and discussion in the Brooks community. “I’m an intense person,” she says, “and I didn’t want anything light and airy. I also wanted to stage a show in which teenagers could play characters who are also teenagers. In educational theater and high school theater, we don’t often get to play people who are our own age.” The script “hits the emotional aspect I’m really looking for,” Eiland continues. “The main character has to go through moments in her life without her best friend, and all these important moments seem dulled out because of her grief. I know several people, including myself, who have lost family members while they’ve been at Brooks. That’s really hard, especially when you’re at a boarding school, and I think it’s important that we address that as a community. We need to acknowledge to those who have felt that kind of sadness at school that it’s okay.” Eiland’s own path onto the stage at Brooks has been one ﬁlled with discovery and, she says, support from faculty and friends. When

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she was younger, she became interested in acting. “People applaud for you!” she enthuses. “Who doesn’t like that?” She also enjoyed ﬁnding new perspectives on herself and the people around her. “I really liked being someone other than myself,” she says. “Through other characters, you acknowledge the parts of yourself that you didn’t know were there before. I loved exploring that.” Eiland didn’t take herself seriously as an actor until she arrived at Brooks, she says. Only when she was on campus and immersed in her supportive group of friends, she says, was she able to think about her own ambition. “I’ve wanted to act my entire life,” she says. “If your heart believes that you can go somewhere, it’s going to convince your brain that you can go there.” She currently plans to attend a college that has a strong theater program, and she anticipates a career in theater or television. “I feel as if I found a home at Brooks,” Eiland says, referencing her eclectic group of friends, the support she feels from the school as she spreads her wings, and the experiences she’s had as she gets to know other members of the community. “I talked to my grandmother about Brooks a little while ago,” Eiland says. “She told me that I always have a light in my eyes when I’m on campus.”

“She told me that I always have a light in my eyes when I’m on campus.”

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H E A RD I N C H A P E L

“[M]embers of your community look out for you even when you don’t realize that you need someone in your corner. Veterans are inculcated with the mantra of community; with the ideas of teamwork, esprit de corps, leave no man (or woman) behind. For me, a veteran Coastie, my mantra of community is ‘take care of your ship, take care of your shipmate.’ At its foundation, community is a concept so basic that all groups can adopt it; and every member of a community can do their jobs to make their community great. So, what’s your job here at Brooks?” DR. NOVA SEALS (pictured inset above), speaking in Chapel on Veterans Day. Seals, who teaches English at Brooks and serves as dorm head in Hettinger East, previously served our country in the United States Coast Guard.

FORM SCHOL AR PRIZES During a School Meeting in September, the school honored three Brooksians for their academic achievement in the 2020–2021 school year. Fourth-former Katie MacDonald (pictured right) received the Third Form Prize for holding the top grade point average in her class. Sixth-former Yuto Sugiyama Lam received the Fifth Form Prize. Fifth-former Melanie Kaplan received both the Fourth Form Prize and the Prize for Prima, indicating that she held the highest grade point average in the school last year. Finally, the school applauded the achievement of Elizabeth Packard ’21, who received the Sixth Form Prize.

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Welcoming New Faces Brooks welcomed new members to the board of trustees and a group of new faculty to school. NEW TRUSTEES Vivek Sharma P’24 is a partner in the healthcare data and analytics division at Frazier Healthcare Partners. He is also chairman and chief executive officer of Adare Pharma Solutions, a global technology-driven pharmaceutical manufacturing company. He previously served as chief executive officer for three different companies: Decision Resources Group, a Boston-based global healthcare data and insights company that was acquired in February 2020 by Clarivate Analytics; Piramal Pharma Solutions, a global contract development and manufacturing organization with operations in North America, Europe and Asia; and Piramal Critical Care, one of the top anesthesia manufacturing companies in the world. Earlier in Sharma’s career, he was managing director of Thomas H. Lee Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm. Sharma is a graduate of St. John’s College in India and Thunderbird School of Global Management’s executive MBA program at Arizona State University. He and his wife, Vandana, have two children: Vibhor and Arshia ’24. The couple oversee the Vivek & Vandana Sharma Family Foundation and are very passionate about making generational impact through education, health and skill development initiatives. Christopher T. Wood ’85 is a film and television actor based out of Los Angeles. For close to 20 years, he’s portrayed, he says, numerous affable and not-so affable African Americans and the occasional Haitian concierge. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and

Columbia Law School. His legal career started on Wall Street in 1994 in the structured finance group at Seward & Kissel LLP. He shifted over to Paul Hastings LLP for a two-year stint in the firm’s corporate department (mergers and acquisitions) before moving on to be in-house counsel at Sony Pictures and then Sony Music, respectively. He jokes that he mercifully retired in 2002. Wood played football and squash and rowed crew while a student at Brooks. He also, he remembers, debuted the role of the original affable African American, Nicely-Nicely. Alumni Trustee Alysa U. James ’11 is the deputy communications director for United States Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), chair of the Senate committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs. She’s steadily advanced her career on Capitol Hill since her first job as staff assistant to Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) in 2015. James was profiled in the Bulletin for this early work. Most recently, James served as the director of African American media for Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York). The New York native earned a bachelor’s degree in government from Cornell University. She involved herself in a host of campus activities there, just as she did at Brooks. James spent her fifth-form year abroad in Viterbo, Italy. While at Brooks, she also served as a dorm prefect for Hettinger East and participated as an ally in the Gay Straight Alliance and in Students Embracing Culture. She received the Edmund Samuel Carr Prize in Beginning Greek.

A NEW BOARD PRESIDENT At the September meeting of the board of trustees, current board vice president John Barker ’87, P’21, P’23 (left) was introduced as the next president of the board. Barker succeeds Steve Gorham ’85, P’17, P’21 (right), who has held that position since 2016. The transition will officially take place at the end of the 2021–2022 school year. Barker was senior prefect in his sixth-form year and one of the first students to participate in the school’s Exchange Program, attending Kenya’s Alliance High School for Boys in 1986. After Brooks, Barker attended Dartmouth College and later earned an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Barker currently works at Mass General Brigham as its chief investment officer, responsible for the oversight of the healthcare system’s $20+ billion portfolio of investment and pension assets. A future issue of the Bulletin will include a longer feature on Barker, his impressive accomplishments and his vision for his presidency.

NEW FACULTY Shamsud “Shami” Bery Self in Community, Blake House Shami Bery spent the ﬁrst four years of his life between New Delhi and Trinidad and Tobago before growing up in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and attending Brandeis University. He pursued a variety of professions, including working as creative director for a multimedia startup, founding a clothing line, serving as entrepreneurship education coordinator at a vocational school and being a chef. Bery enjoys listening to Dominican bachata, oldies soul and hip-hop, trying out a new recipe, and watching NBA and WNBA games.

Michael Bruschi Director of Music, Thorne House A “lifelong East Coaster,” Michael Bruschi, who primarily plays piano and drums, graduated from Princeton University and earned an M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. in music theory from Yale University. He has taught courses in music theory and keyboard skills and composed works for solo piano, jazz ensemble, string quartet and church choir. Kimberly Cratty School Counselor Kim Cratty has spent the past 12 years in private practice as a social worker

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counseling children, adolescents and adults in Andover, Massachusetts. Previously, Cratty has worked in child protective services for the state of Massachusetts, and as as a school counselor, ER social worker and public health department psychotherapist. Sarah D’Annolfo English Sarah D’Annolfo came to Brooks from Belmont Hill School, where she taught English and co-led the diversity, equity and inclusion student program. She previously taught English, coached lacrosse and served as dean of students at Taft School, and worked at Tufts University as the associate director of the residential program in student life. At Brooks, she also coaches the girls 2nd ﬁeld hockey team. Larissa Davis Mathematics Larissa Davis comes to Brooks with more than a decade of teaching experience at Lawrence Academy and Timberlane Regional HIgh School under her belt. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of New Hampshire, as well as her master’s degree in secondary mathematics education. Davis recently earned her doctorate in education from Rivier University. At Brooks, Davis also serves as an assistant coach for the 1st ﬁeld hockey team. Sarah Downey Mathematics, Merriman House A recent Hamilton College graduate, Sarah Downey has served as a teaching assistant for college-level math courses and tutored high school and college students

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for six years. At Hamilton, she served as the captain and president of the sailing team. She enjoys cooking, playing piano and spending time outdoors. Nicole Fernandes Davis Teaching Fellow, History, Merriman House Nicole Fernandes recently graduated from Williams College with a bachelor’s degree in women’s, gender and sexuality studies and a certificate in Africana studies. She is assistant coach for the girls 2nd soccer team and has a passion for sports, fitness and music. Brenna Kelly Associate Director of College Counseling, Chace House Brenna Kelly received her undergraduate degree from Providence College and her master’s degree through Merrimack College’s higher education fellowship program. A former assistant director in the office of admission at College of the Holy Cross, Kelly came to Brooks from Worcester Academy, where she worked as associate director of college counseling and served as a dorm parent and track coach. Pascale Musto Self in Community Pascale Musto has been immersed in the life of independent schools since 2000. Most recently, he served as the director of multicultural and community development at Middlesex School, where he worked for six years. In the classroom, he has taught history, humanities and English, and has co-developed cross-curricular programs, including use of the Dialogues Across Differences curriculum.

Sonja Holmberg Nagel Arts, English, Learning Center Sonja Nagel attended Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts for her undergraduate studies, and the University of Pennsylvania for her master’s degree in the science of education. For the past two years, she participated in the Penn Fellows Program while teaching English and art and coaching track and ﬁeld at The Roxbury Latin School. She also previously worked at Greenwich Academy and at Holderness School.

Sam Spicer English, Thorne House Sam Spicer earned their master’s degree in education from from Lesley University while working as a teaching apprentice at Berwick Academy. They also have a master’s degree in medieval studies from the University of York and an undergraduate degree in classical and medieval studies and French from Bates College. Outside the classroom, Spicer spends their time hiking, reading and trying to bake extravagantly.

Jason Price Assistant Director of Athletics — Strength and Conditioning Jason Price was formerly an athletic trainer at Boston College, Bridgewater State University and Tufts University. He founded and owned Athletes Equation and developed programs for athletes of all ages, and was the head coach of Orangetheory Fitness in Somerville, Massachusetts. Price has a bachelor’s degree in athletic training and master’s degree in strength and conditioning from Bridgewater State University, and he has competed in powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting at the regional level.

Danielle Ward Science Before arriving at Brooks, Danielle Ward spent 10 years working for an engineering company that focuses on human-centered engineering. She studied physics at the College of William and Mary and earned a Ph.D. from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Ward coaches girls 2nd volleyball at Brooks.

Alexandria Sacco Science Alex Sacco received her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from New England College. She began her career at Brooks in 2014 as an assistant coach for the girls 1st soccer team and coached while completing a degree in radiologic technology and working at Lowell General Hospital as a radiographer. Sacco will begin coaching girls 2nd squash this winter.

Todd Wheelden Assistant Director of Athletics — Operations Todd Wheelden has taught and served as an administrator in independent schools for more than 25 years. A former professional cyclocross racer, he attended Lake Forest College and received a master’s degree in teaching from the School for International Training. Wheelden spent 22 years at Kents Hill School, where he taught Spanish, coached hockey and served as director of the athletics center as well as assistant athletics director and overseer of auxiliary programs.

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AN UPDATE ON

DEI Work @ Brooks The school’s work on diversity, equity and inclusion, and on working toward becoming an antiracist institution, continues. The school continued to engage in initiatives meant to improve diversity, equity and inclusion in all areas of Brooks life this fall. Among other points, ongoing institutional work includes the continued integration of restorative justice into the school’s disciplinary scheme and the continued training of campus adults on the restorative justice process. The school also initiated a gender equity task force charged with examining various aspects of school life through the lens of gender. The task force will present recommendations for areas of improvement. The school also continues to examine its curriculum: The Self in Community program is currently under audit, and the curriculum as a whole is being ALL-SCHOOL SPEAKER reviewed as well. The school welcomed The Diversity Leadership Timothy P. Longman to Council continues its regular Brooks for an all-campus committee work, with full speech followed by a dessert council meetings schedreception on October 26, uled twice a semester. A 2021. Dr. Longman is a white antiracist educators professor of political science and international relations group has been established. at Boston University. He is The DEI prefect group has director of the Institute on expanded from three sixthCulture, Religion and World formers to also include three Affairs, and the director fifth-formers; in addition, ad interim of the African a council of students, which Studies Center in the Pardee includes student representaSchool. His research focuses on state–society relations in tives from each of the camAfrica, looking in particular pus affinity groups, meets at human rights, transitional regularly as well. justice, religion and politics, gender and politics, and the politics of race and ethnicity. He recently co-authored the book “Confronting Apartheid.” His talk helped Brooksians understand the history and context of apartheid as they continued working with this year’s AllCommunity Read, “Born a Crime” by the South African comedian Trevor Noah.

CHANGING (THE) COURSE Due to campus construction, the Brooks cross-country program debuted a new course this year. The 5-kilometer course, pictured here in route and elevation, begins at Anna K. Trustey Memorial Field. Runners move south through campus toward Wilder Dining Hall before heading past Peabody House and onto the school’s lakefront fire trail. Runners loop back past the turf field before pacing each other across the school’s central fields and back onto the fire trail. The harriers must ascend the steep hill at the northern end of the fire trail a second time before finishing the race by the 1st baseball team’s diamond.

SNAPSHOT

The Brooks Gender & Sexuality Alliance reinstated an annual tradition in October, holding its signature Paint Dance for the ﬁrst time since the 2018–2019 school year. Paint Dance allows participants to use condiment squeeze bottles to spray red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple paint on each other, and students enjoyed the chance to dance, release stress and play. Pictured here, from left to right, are fourth-former Paint Dance participants Andy Seals, Kamron Bradley and Eben Dooling.

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“Clue” Delights

The fall play brought capacity audiences back to the Center for the Arts for a show that was well worth the wait.

A determined group of Brooksians brought the play “Clue” to life on the main stage of the Center for the Arts for three nights in November. The whodunit plot based on the cult classic film and classic board game asks the audience to join the iconic oddballs known as Scarlet, Plum, White, Green, Peacock and Mustard at an unusual dinner party on a dark and stormy night as they race to find the murderer in Boddy Manor before the body count stacks up. Director of Theater Meghan Hill hoped that “Clue,” with its fast plot, intrigue and humor, would encourage the Brooks community to come together in support of one another. She’s had a chance, she says, to reflect on the ways in which theater highlights community connections. “In a pre-pandemic world, I struggled to define exactly what makes theatre magical. After months of Zoom, masked rehearsals and voices recorded in isolation, the lights came up on ‘Clue,’” Hill says. “While watching from the back of a sold-out house on opening night, the answer struck me. It’s the community backstage making sure every technical element is executed and every problem is solved before the audience even knows something is awry. It’s the energy of the cast determined to nail their lines and blocking while supporting one another through crippling stage fright. It’s the audience rushing in to get the best seat, barely containing their excitement, and reacting to the comedy and intrigue onstage. It’s the community.” The of “Clue” in action in November. FAL Lcast 20 21

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Describe your internship. What do you do every day? I joke that I get to do the fun parts of everything in the athletics oﬃce. On game days, I get to go out and watch all the games, and I’m also in charge of getting the referee’s signatures before the games start. That’s always fun. And then on weekdays, I usually get to help [Associate Director for Athletics Operations Todd] Wheelden with uniforms and all that. I also handle, for example, updating the monitor in the athletic center that displays information about our alums who are playing sports in college. I also get to do minor changes to the website, like update game schedules.

Fast 5 // Q+A Audrey Titterington ’22, the school’s athletic oﬃce intern, spends her afternoons helping the school’s department of athletics with game day operations. She is the ﬁrst female student to hold the position, which was created in 2018. The Bulletin sat down with Titterington to learn more about the ins and outs of her internship and what about it appeals to her (hint, hint: golf cart!).

How has your perspective changed by handling all these tasks? It’s cool because I get to see behind the scenes and I’ve realized how hard the adults in that department work. For example, when I used to play on teams at Brooks, I’d get to the ﬁeld and it would be all ready. I never had to think about what happens before and after the game to make it ready for us. Now, I’m the one who takes the ﬁeld apart at the end of the day. It’s good to feel like I’m doing something every day to help out, like I’m doing something productive with my afternoon activity.

What’s the best part of your internship? Well, obviously, I get to drive a golf cart around. I don’t know what it is about it, but it’s just fun. I also get to watch every single home game, for every level from 1st to 3rd, and I love doing that. I’ve been thinking about this a lot: I live right next to campus, and I was virtual last year. I was only a few feet away from the ﬁelds, and I could see them from my window, but I couldn’t go on campus. That entire experience was very hard for me. Now that I’m back on campus, it feels so great to just be able to ride around

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and actually see the campus and watch people doing their thing. It’s just awesome.

You’re the first girl to hold this internship. What has that aspect of this experience been like? I think it’s really cool, honestly. Every time I get a referee’s signature or I meet a coach from the opposite team, they say the same thing. I was talking to a ref just the other day who mentioned that they usually see guys doing the game day work. I told them I was the first girl to do it at Brooks, and they were genuinely excited and proud of me. It’s cool being the first girl, but I’m glad people have the same expectations of me that they had of the guys. [Director of Athletics Bobbie] Crump-Burbank is treating me exactly the same, and I’m doing everything they would have done, including picking up all the heavy equipment and dragging it around.

Do you see this experience turning into a career? What’s next for you? Well, the college major I have in mind is the complete opposite of this work. But, this work is so cool; I really love learning what goes on behind the scenes. I work at a garden center in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and I also like to see the behind-the-scenes of how they prep things there. I like understanding the kind of work and the amount of work that goes into presenting something to the public, and seeing that in athletics has been very interesting.

“ This work is so cool; I really love learning what goes on behind the scenes.”

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IN THE LEHMAN

A Show of Hands Henry Buhl ’48 showed his collection of photographs in the Robert Lehman Art Center this fall. The Robert Lehman Art Center staged a series of exhibits this fall that showcased the interests and talents of the Brooks community. Beginning in early September, the Lehman Gallery hosted the exhibit “Show of Hands,” an exhibition of framed photographs devoted to the subject of hands. The photos are from the collection of Henry M. Buhl ’48, given to Brooks School by the Cygnet Foundation. For more than 20 years, Buhl has gathered a vast collection of images, MORE ONLINE eclectic furnishings, sculptures, books, and myriad curiosiPlease visit www.brooksschool. ties and objects all inspired by the hand. The collection was org/arts/lehman-art-center to read more on this year’s initially inspired by an Alfred Stieglitz photograph of artist Lehman Gallery exhibits, and Georgia O’Keeﬀe’s hands that Buhl purchased in 1993. to view the virtual exhibition on “Show of Hands” created by The Buhl exhibit was especially notable for two reasons. Ella Dooling ’22. First, in mid-October, advanced art students got to meet and dine with Buhl, who shared the history of the show with the Brooksians. Second, the exhibit gave one student an opportunity to stretch her talents: Advanced photography student Ella Dooling ’22 spent time over the summer creating a virtual exhibition of “Show of Hands.” An exhibit of student work titled “Arts in Progress: Identity, Truth and Wonder” took over the space in mid-October, just in time for Family Weekend. Then, following Thanksgiving Break, another special occasion graced the Lehman, as Robin Lehman ’55 staged an exhibition celebrating his 85th birthday and the art center’s 25th year. Details of the Lehman celebration and exhibit will be provided in the spring 2022 issue of the Bulletin.

One of the photographs displayed in the Lehman Gallery this fall as part of the exhibit “Show of Hands.” This Gregory Heisler image show Luis Sarria, who was masseur to Muhammad Ali.

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Striking fall foliage from the sugar maple tree behind Ashburn Chapel is reﬂected in the windows of the adjacent Center for the Arts.

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Scenes from Family Weekend 14

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Brooksians welcomed current families to campus for a weekend in late October. Guests had the opportunity to meet with teachers and advisors; attend panels and a State of the School address by Head of School John Packard; enjoy performances and demonstrations by student artists; cheer on their students at games; and spend a beautiful fall weekend together on campus.

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NEWS + NOTE S

AT HL ET E S P OT L I G H T

Alex Tobias ’22 When he arrived at Brooks intent on playing football, Alex Tobias ’22 never expected to end his time at the school as a cross-country standout. Along the way, he focused on his health, listened to his gut, and found space at Brooks to explore his extracurricular and academic interests. Alex Tobias ’22 showed up at Brooks with dreams of being a “big sports star,” he says. He imagined himself playing football, basketball and lacrosse on campus — the “traditional three,” he explains. Shortly into his Brooks career, though, he learned he needed to focus less on what he thought his time at Brooks should look like and more on what his time at Brooks could look like. Lacrosse quickly became crew in the spring of Tobias’s third-form year, and when he returned to campus for the fall of his fourth-form year, he had his sights set on a sport that wasn’t football. “I switched into cross-country the week before we came back to school that August,” he says. “I thought about it, and I didn’t think the risk of playing football was worth the risk for the enjoyment I got out of it.” Tobias explains that he had started to focus more intentionally on his physical health over that spring and summer; he “found the gym,” he says, and fell in love with running and with lifting weights. As he folded running into his personal routine, Tobias says, he realized that he had found something he was good at. “I didn’t really think I would excel at running,” he says. “I had hated running previously, and I did it just as part of improving my

health. But I guess over time, the volume that I was running just built up a base. When I went into my first cross-country season, I was able to get better, but I don’t think I realized until halfway through that season, when I ran a specific time, that I could actually run. At first, I was just doing it with friends and I would just run with them; then, I started to push myself a little more.” Tobias followed his instinct and began to run with intention at the back end of his fourth-form season, and the results began to speak for themselves. A conversation with the cross-country coaches helped him realize that he could medal in an upcoming ISL meet. “My whole fourth-form year was an upward progression; that’s how it felt,” Tobias reflects. “I think that’s what helped me realize that if I stayed on this track it could be something I could follow.” He was able to stay on course with his improvements over the COVID-19 pandemic, even as Brooks didn’t compete in races during Tobias’s fifth-form fall and even as Tobias had to use the resources he had outside of campus. “The pandemic honestly didn’t impact me that much,” he explains. “I started running from the exercise standpoint, not from the point of trying to

compete or be a better runner than anyone else. So, I just kept lifting and running. I’m lucky enough to have a set of weights and a treadmill at my house, so I just kept at it. Nothing really changed about the way in which I worked out, so I didn’t lose what I had gained my fourth-form year. And, this past summer and this fall, I’ve kept building on that.” Tobias loves to run, he says, “when it doesn’t feel like a job.” Running, at its root, he says, “is part of my exercise routine, my larger health routine. I run to be healthy, but I’ve also now grown to appreciate it. There’s a group of people I run with every day at practice; we have good conversations, which pass the time quickly. I think running is just a fun hobby to have.” He acknowledges that he’s talented enough to attract the attention of college programs, but says that pursuing college programs isn’t what he wants. He explains that the commitment isn’t his priority. “It’s academics first, pursuing my career first,” he says, describing his plan to receive a medical degree and a master’s in business administration. “Besides,” he adds, “I’ll be able to run during school anyway, even if it’s not as part of a team.” Tobias credits Brooks with giving him latitude and support to forge his own path, even when it differed from what he expected. “You can create your own course at Brooks,” he says, “and follow what you want to follow. Academics has always come first for me, and as I’ve progressed through Brooks I’ve been able to customize the courses I’ve taken. I was able to take economics, which is something that really interests me.

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N E WS + N OT ES

And then this year, I’ve been able to double up in both math and science courses, which are my favorite academic subjects.” Tobias stresses that Brooks gives students opportunities to spread their wings — if a student is willing to put in the time. “It’s easy to just fall into the requirements,” he says. “You could just take the baseline six courses as a third- and fourth-former, and then just take the minimum necessary to fulﬁll the graduation requirements. Or, you can follow

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what you want. It’s a lot of work for me this year, but it’s interesting, and I feel like I’m learning material now that’s really useful.” Tobias ended his Brooks cross-country career in style: He placed ﬁrst in the New England Prep School Track Association Division III Cross Country Championship. He set a new course record at 16:48, and says that it “felt good to stamp my name.”

“ You can create your own course at Brooks and follow what you want to follow.”

NEWS + NOTE S

N EWS FRO A M P US AT HL ET I CSMNCEWS

Field Hockey, Boys Soccer Set the Pace Brooks athletes stormed back onto the field this fall for a much-anticipated return to a full athletic schedule. The 1st field hockey team took home the New England Championship. Field Hockey Wins it All! Brooks sports fans will remember that the girls 1st basketball team brought home a New England Championship to close out the 2020 winter season, literal days before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered the school’s athletic program. It’s fitting, then, that another group of determined, team-first female athletes reopened the full athletic schedule with another New England Championship this fall. The 1st field hockey team, headed by coach

Tess O’Brien, scrapped through a tough championship final against top-seeded Middlesex School to pull out a 2–1 victory. The squad’s championship win was the exclamation point to its 15-4-1 record, which included a month-long streak of nine consecutive ISL wins. O’Brien lauds her athletes’ focus on teamwork and positivity as a reason for their success. “They consistently strive to be the best teammates on and off the field, reaching outside of themselves

to support one another,” she says. “They exemplify vitamin C energy — positive, contagious energy — no matter what the day brings. This team is marked by creating a positive experience for all, and creating a supportive environment for all to grow into great players and better teammates.” Lucy Adams ’22 earned an AllISL nod, along with Mary Adams ’25 and Molly Driscoll ’23. Kate Coughlin ’22 and Brooke Rogers ’22 took home All-ISL Honorable

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Opposite: The 1st ﬁeld hockey team dominated its season this year, culminating in a well-deserved New England Championship. Left: Saul Iwowo ’22 (top) wins an up-top battle against Westminster School in the New England semiﬁnal match.

Mention honors. Both Lucy and Mary Adams, along with Coughlin and Driscoll, were also named to the NEPSAC All-League team, and Rogers, Maddy Dombal ’22, Kathryn Duane ’22 and Ky Matola ’25 earned honorable mentions. “What most impresses me is how these young women prepared for tournament play,” O’Brien reflects. “They had their heads and hearts fully invested in the team in the days that followed. Championship opportunities don’t come around very often, never mind winning a title. I’m excited for these young women to feel the gratification of hard work paying off.”

KATA CL ARK ’ 25

Turns Heads Third-former Kata Clark made her presence known on the cross-country trail this fall. The rookie phenom won the individual ISL Championship and the New England Prep School Track

Boys Soccer Shows Signs of Greatness The boys 1st soccer team returned to form this fall following its hiatus last year. Brooks went to work, notching a 15-1-1 regular season and a 13-1-1 conference record that was good for a second-place finish in the ISL. Along the way, Brooks led the ISL in both goals for (73) and goals against (8). Although the squad ran up against a season-ending New England semifinal game against Westminster School, the program’s future looks bright. Headed into the postseason New England tournament, head coach Willie Waters ’02 spoke about his team’s strengths. “I am not surprised by our record because of how talented and hard-working this group is,” Waters said. “This team has worked really hard and ... we have a strong core of athletes who played major roles in 2019 and are now sixth-formers. They have high aspirations, and missing last year only added to the anticipation of getting back on the field together.” Waters also spoke of the team’s balance and chemistry. “Lots of different players have contributed in a variety of ways, and they push each

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other to get better. I think the team chemistry is our greatest strength,” he said. “It’s been fun to watch them work together. They each care more about team success than any individual accolades.” The team, Waters reported, also “cares deeply about the Brooks soccer tradition and wants to connect with alumni who have played before them. They ask a lot about former teams and things that we have done in the past and are creating their own special moments all along the way.” Sixth-former Christian Bejar took home a collection of postseason awards: He was named to the All-League, Boston Globe All-Scholastic, All-State and AllAmerica teams, and was also named the ISL Oﬀensive Player of the Year. Harry Bertos ’23 and Saul Iwowo ’22 joined Bejar on the All-ISL and All-State teams, and Jack Brown ’22 and Kyle Joyce ’23 made the All-ISL Honorable Mention roster.

Association (NEPSTA) Division III Cross Country Championship. Not only that, but Clark won every ISL race this year, and she entered the postseason as the favorite and the athlete to beat. She was named to the ISL All-League, Boston Globe All-Scholastic and NEPSAC Division III All-League teams, and was also named the league MVP.

The Two-Day Option Continues During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Brooks introduced two-day-a-week afternoon activity options. The school continued that this year, giving non-1st team athletes the opportunity to dip their toes into photojournalism, skateboarding and yearbook.

MO RE O NL INE : Please visit the Brooks athletics website at www.brooksschool.org/athletics for more information on your favorite Brooks team, including schedules, game recaps and up-to-date news, and to review the school’s current COVID-19 spectator policy. Go Brooks!

B R O O K S I M PAC T REP O RT

Rising to the Occasion

The Brooks community came together in ﬁscal year 2021 determined to give the school the resources, support and day-to-day tools it needed to provide a meaningful educational experience in the face of a pandemic.

A L E T T E R F R O M T H E D I R E C TO R O F I N S T I T U T I O N A L A DVA N C E M E N T

Thank You For Your Care The fiscal year 2021 was unprecedented. New instructional methods were developed and tweaked during the numerous obstacles presented to us by the COVID-19 pandemic. Faculty and administrators planned for shorter periods of class time, changing operational course swiftly as new challenges arose. Students showed up sometimes through screens, sometimes behind masks, sometimes at undesirable hours of the day, to learn and be part of our community. Brooks rose to the occasion this past year. Our students, employees and families leaned in, adapted and took care of one another. The financial support we received for both our emergency and traditional needs enabled the leadership to create policies and programs to keep our community safe while also delivering on our mission. This report on Brooks philanthropy highlights your impact on Brooks School in this past year. The financial achievements outlined in these pages make Brooks strong and nimble, allowing us to approach the future with confidence and renewed energy. Today, Brooks Fund gifts provide 11 percent of the school’s operating budget and fund vital aspects of our program: classroom innovation, faculty support and financial aid. This support has increased from 10 percent of the budget just a few years ago. We are proud of our school and the growth we have experienced in recent years. This is all possible due to the philanthropic support of our alumni, families and friends. We thank all our donors, large and small, for your generosity during those difficult days. Without your care, many aspects of what makes Brooks great would not be possible. GAGE S. D O B B I NS Director of Institutional Advancement

<< Frank D. Ashburn Chapel at Brooks in September 2021.

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Please visit

www.brooksschool.org/impactreport to view the full 2021 Impact Report.

Using Funds in Meaningful Ways

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FY 21

3 2+A 5 247+A REVENUE

● Net Tuition $15,547,075 ● Brooks Fund $2,417,439 ● Restricted Operating Contributions $700,000 ● Endowment $3,480,400 ● Other $416,661

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Opposite top: Brooksians in the classroom this fall. Strong donor support helped the school provide a meaningful education through the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.

$22,561,575

EXPENSES

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$22,280,787

Opposite bottom: The Devireddy family on campus this fall.

● Salaries & Beneﬁts $12,684,814 ● Materials & Services $2,813,249 ● Food Service $1,153,329 ● Plant & Property $2,733,121 ● Auxiliary $365,000 ● Debt Service $843,937 ● COVID Expenses $1,687,337

BROOKS SCHOOL BY THE NUMBERS Intentionally Small

351

S T U D E N TS Down from 381 ﬁve years ago Residential Community

72% BOAR D I N G

Equitable Tuition

35%

DAVIS SCHOLARS PROGRAM

DAVIS FELLOWS PROGRAM

Current participants (FY21)

Above: The Brooks community worked together toward a common goal in FY21.

Current participants (FY22)

of students receive ﬁnancial aid. Up from

20%

12 years ago

$45,000 the average aid package

$650,000

$50,000 FY21 Operating Budget

Tuition is $66,900 for boarders; $55,000 for day students

2018

2020

$5.5

FY21 Operating Budget

Established

MILLION Net ﬁnancial aid awarded

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BROOKS ENDOWMENT: The Path to $100 Million

$125,000,000 $101,945,745 $100,000,000

$75,000,000

$50,000,000

$25,000,000

$0 2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

BROOKS FUND BREAKDOWN (FY21)

$1,390,310

ALUMNI

$730,649

CURRENT PARENTS *

$268,570

PAST PARENTS *

$27,910 $2,417,439 FAL L 2021

FACULTY, GRANDPARENTS AND FRIENDS *

TOTAL

*NOT NOTED ABOVE

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Restricted Giving In addition to the Brooks Fund, our school receives contributions from donors who have a targeted or restricted intention for their gift. These contributions, many of which are in addition to annual unrestricted Brooks Fund donations, provide vital support for Brooks and help us fulﬁll our mission. Featured here are just three of several programs that were supported by restricted funds last year.

Members of the girls cross-country team cheer on the boys team at the ﬁnish line this fall.

“It was important to our father and continues to be important to our family that we help support personal growth in all Brooks students.” M A LCO LM C H AC E IV

>> The most recent Malcolm G. Chace III Prize winners. From left to right: Lughano Nyondo ’24, Connor O’Neill ’23, Saunders Haley ’22.

Davis Scholars and Fellows Programs Funded by the Shelby Cullom Davis Charitable Fund and Brooks alumnus Andrew Davis ’81, these two philanthropic programs honor the Davis family’s strong commitment to supporting the futures of young people from underrepresented populations in independent schools. The Davis Scholars Program financially covers a four-year Brooks education for selected students who will be the first in their family to attend college. The scholars collectively meet with program advisor Kenya Jones, as well as their individual advisors, throughout the year to support one another with a focus on gaining knowledge and skills to effectively manage financial resources for a lifetime of financial well-being. In addition, students develop personal school-wide success skills and core values. The Davis Fellows Program provides support and growth for young educators who are new to teaching, coaching and residential life. Professional duties, such as teaching classes and providing student mentorship, are slowly added throughout the two-year fellowship. These valued Brooksians add their unique perspectives and experiences and contribute immeasurably to the fabric of our community. Year-End Prizes During our year-end celebrations of Prize Day and Lawn Ceremony, Brooks honors students with accolades in various categories. The Malcolm G. Chace III Prize is awarded to a third-, fourth- and fifth-former who, in the judgement of the head of school, has made the most personal progress during the year. The prize provides funding to partially offset the following year’s tuition for the recipient. The Chace family continues to provide support for this prize in honor of Brooks alumnus Malcolm Chace III ’52, who established the fund in 1987. Holiday Cheer Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many people asked how they could acknowledge Brooks employees who were supporting students both on campus and remotely. In December 2020, the board of trustees came together to collectively honor Brooks employees with a thoughtful gift at the holiday

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A L ET TER F ROM THE CHI EF FI NA NCI A L OFFI CER

A Milestone Year for the Brooks Endowment The Brooks endowment has exhibited consistent and strong growth during the past 10 years. We surpassed the endowment milestone of $100 million at the close of the 2020–2021 academic year, as our official year-end number was $101,945,745. This is quite an accomplishment for our school and a credit to the commitment of our donors and thoughtful investment policies. From faculty chairs and professional development to financial aid and program support, the Brooks endowment impacts the daily experience of every student and faculty member at Brooks. Last year, the endowment provided almost $3.5 million of support to the operating budget, which is about 15 percent of the total budget. A strong endowment is the foundation for future planning and an area of vital importance for Brooks going forward. We are grateful to generations of Brooks alumni, family and friends who have made gifts to the school’s endowment. Without your thoughtful stewardship, we would not have the strength we celebrate today. If you have any questions about the Brooks endowment or our investment policy, I encourage you to contact me at (978) 725-6213 or pgriffin@brooksschool.org. (See page 23 for endowment numbers.)

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One of the hallmarks of Brooks School is our deep commitment to our community — both on campus and beyond. In a year like no other, Brooks alumni, parents, faculty and friends volunteered in ways above and beyond the norm. We are grateful to the 450-plus members of our Brooks community who donated their time to Brooks during the 2020–2021 year. ▶ The board of trustees and alumni board provided vital leadership and guidance to our administration and faculty. ▶ Our class agents learned about the unique fiscal model of the school during the COVID-19 pandemic and shared that information with classmates while encouraging their philanthropic support, most notably on our record-setting Giving Day. ▶ Class correspondents kept our classes connected by coordinating class Zoom calls and regular touchpoints. ▶ Our students, alumni and parents served as school ambassadors for our admissions program through personal outreach and online forums. ▶ Reunion volunteers kept school spirit strong with creative options for our virtual reunion in May 2021. Volunteers, through your efforts, you made a significant impact. Thank you!

Amy Mojca ’22 performs in the Center for the Arts during Family Weekend in October. Brooks returned to a full, dynamic in-person experience this academic year.

PAUL G R I FFIN Chief Financial Oﬃcer

season. Every employee received a one-time supplement to their paycheck, which was paid through a 2020 ﬁnancial account aptly named the Holiday Cheer fund. In his message to employees, Head of School John Packard shared, “I am grateful to school leadership for making this possible. I know they are grateful for all you have done to keep our students

Thank You!

learning and growing, and our campus open and accessible with all sorts of headwinds making that extremely complicated.” These one-time gifts to more than 150 members of the faculty and staﬀ were a meaningful gesture of gratitude during a challenging year.

Leading Brooks Forward This year’s class of school prefects reﬂects on the importance of their role as leaders for the student body and on their role in reaﬃrming the strength of the Brooks community.

BY REBECCA A. BIN DER

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EVERY YE AR, a group of sixth-formers leads the student body as school prefects. These students, who are selected in the spring of their fifth-form year, shoulder the large responsibility of being leaders and role models for the student body in every area of school life; for serving as liaison between the student body and Head of School John Packard; and of using their voice, authority and influence to better the school. This year, the job of school prefect is even more heightened. The last school year that was not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and its necessary physical distancing, isolation and activity restrictions, was the 2018–2019 school year: This year’s sixth-formers were third-formers then, and they alone carry the student body’s institutional memory of a full and unrestricted academic year at Brooks. Now that the school is able to physically gather again; to reach across course, dorm and team rosters; and to spend informal, unscheduled time together, this year’s school prefect class has embraced the additional responsibility of teaching their younger peers why that’s important, and why it’s such an important and meaningful aspect of life at Brooks. The Bulletin sat down with each of the 11 school prefects to hear their thoughts on leadership, their role at Brooks and the ways in which they hope to leave the school a better place.

Lucy Adams

Christian Bejar

“I think it’s really important that we’re those people, those upperclassmen, who are approachable,” Lucy Adams says of her role as school prefect. “It’s important that, as we walk down Main Street, we say hi to literally every single person.” Adams firmly believes that, along with the reintroduction of allschool gatherings like Chapel and School Meeting to the Brooks schedule, smaller, unscripted efforts at connection will help restore the sense of community that she says has suffered during the pandemic. “Reaching out all the time is slowly building this sense of community,” Adams continues. “I think it’s really important for the prefects to establish genuine connections with other people at the school. I think it’s really cool, really tangible, and I can already feel the effects of it and our community building back.” She explains that the pandemic, and its attendant restrictions on student contact and indoor capacity limits, divided Brooksians into classes, forms, dorms and afternoon activity groups. Friend groups, she notes, became smaller and more divided as students had less opportunity to meet and mingle with others. “I think the majority of the sixth-formers this year couldn’t tell you the names of the majority of the thirdand fourth-formers,” she says. “This is one of the most tangible things that we can change, if we just make an effort to get to know everyone. That’s what I really hope I can accomplish as a prefect.”

Christian Bejar feels strongly that the best way to ensure that the Brooks community is vibrant is to make sure that it’s having fun. “Our role as prefects is to see what the vibe on campus is, to talk about it with Mr. Packard and [Associate Head for Student Affairs Andrea] Heinze, to see what’s working and what’s not, and to just keep doing more of that,” he says. “It’s trying to bring excitement to campus: good, fun things to do with each other.” Bejar notes that he and the other school prefects are also students; “we know what everybody else is going through, and we know how it is.” Bejar focuses on the steps he can take as an individual to promote a larger sense of community. “When I put a smile on, when I bring my energy up, it brings my friends and then the community up,” he shares as an example. He points to some obstacles the students face, among them continued COVID19 policies that, at press time, affected the ability of students to engage in inter-dorm visitation. “Right now, it’s having a group of people committed to bringing the energy and the community back,” Bejar says. “If it’s only one person or a few people, it’s not going to be that effective. You have to be fully bought in to bringing the community back together again.”

“You have to be fully bought in to bringing the community back together again.” CH RIST IA N B E JA R

“Reaching out all the time is slowly building this sense of community.” LU C Y ADAMS

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Hongru Chen

Amy Del Cid

“The most important job of the school prefects is to represent the school community in the best way possible,” says Hongru Chen. “I think each of us brings a different perspective to our team; we all offer our own insights and reflect the voice of the student body as a whole.” Chen values the discourse that emerges between the 11 school prefects and Mr. Packard at their weekly meetings, and he hopes to make the school “a better environment” for people who share his identity. “We each have different identities,” he continues. “I’m an international student and a student of color. I’m part of the LGBTQ+ community. All of these things are very important parts of my identity, and it’s important that I represent those who share parts of my identity and reflect what they’re thinking.” Over the course of his career at Brooks, Chen has come to appreciate the kindness individual members of the community have shown him, and he hopes to bring that instinct to the fore as the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. “I think our kindness toward each other is often increased when we’re together as a community, so I’m really just looking forward to bringing back the closeness that was hindered by the pandemic,” he says. “When I was a third-former, a lot of the sixth-formers gave me encouragement and support, and I can really feel how that inspired me. I look forward to returning that kindness to the younger students here now. All-school events like the GSA’s Paint Dance or our Chapel services are an integral part of supporting each other as a community.”

Amy Del Cid is focusing on re-forming the communities that have meant much to her during her time at Brooks. She also hopes to increase student voice in the school’s administrative decisions. “I think the beauty of having such a small school is the fact that everyone can get to know everyone if they just make the effort to,” Del Cid says. She points to Alianza Latina, the affinity group on campus for Brooksians of Hispanic/Latinx descent. “I’m a co-head of Alianza Latina this year,” she continues. “Alianza Latina has always been that place where I can go and I can be me, and I hope that’s the case for other students also. Especially now, when there are underclassmen who are in Alianza Latina but didn’t get to know everyone because we were virtual, it’s nice to finally have everyone in the same room — and it’s a lot of people!” Del Cid sees the excitement students returning to the in-person Brooks experience are bringing to campus. The students are invested in what their day-to-day experience looks like, she notes. “Brooks prides itself on the fact that there’s communication between students and faculty and the administration,” she says, adding that she hopes the administration is receptive to student opinion. She sees opportunity to work in partnership with the school administration to refine how the school evolves.

“It’s important that I represent those who share parts of my identity.” HONGR U CHEN

“Alianza Latina has always been that place where I can go and I can be me, and I hope that’s the case for other students also.” A MY DE L CID

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Luke Desmaison

Christian Duran

Luke Desmaison hopes to spend his prefecture building on the excitement he and his peers feel about being able to engage fully in a year at Brooks. “When I was a third-former,” he remembers, “it was allschool event after all-school event. When that went away during the pandemic, I felt a huge void. It was really diﬃcult to come back to Brooks and not be able to sit with my friends in Chapel, or laugh at a silly video in School Meeting. Even going to class: Physically being here and being able to sit in a chair in front of my teacher is super important to me now.” Helping younger students understand the importance of “what they’re supposed to be doing,” Desmaison says, is paramount. “It was diﬃcult for students to engage with things happening on campus last year,” Desmaison says. “And now that we’re back, it still feels a bit awkward for some kids. We’re trying to get back to having kids feel excited to be at School Meeting, for example. We’re trying to make sure everybody really feels the energy of what we remember Brooks being. This class of prefects is engaged. We’re enthusiastic. And, we’re excited. The year’s just beginning, and we’re already building that foundation.”

“I want people to feel comfortable interacting with each other, and comfortable going out and trying new things,” Christian Duran says. “When I was a third-former, I was always kind of scared to go to the dances or sign up for certain activities. Something that I really want to help these third-formers do is realize that everywhere you go at Brooks is going to be a comfortable space in which you can try things and hang out with people.” Duran practices what he preaches by, he says, making a point of starting conversations and greeting people wherever he goes. “I’ve really been trying to say hi to everyone I see,” he says. “In the lunch line, or if I’m walking awkwardly a few steps ahead of someone, I’ll slow down and say hi instead. I start little conversations here and there, and I make an eﬀort to say hi to that same person the next day. I think it’s really important that the upperclassmen take the initiative to say hi to the underclassmen and get to know them. Just yesterday, I said hi to someone outside the athletic center. They weren’t expecting it, but it’s good because then you start saying hello in the halls, and then you start a friendship. I hope this rubs oﬀ on someone, and I hope that as these kids get older, they’ll want to do the same thing.”

“We’re trying to make sure everybody really feels the energy of what we remember Brooks being.”

“I think it’s really important that the upperclassmen take the initiative to say hi to the underclassmen and get to know them.” CH RIST IA N DU RA N

LU K E DESMAI SON

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Malachi Johns

Eleonore Kiriza

“Our job as school prefects is to challenge what’s been traditional and what’s happened in the past,” says Malachi Johns. “I feel like that’s kind of my thing, personally. Our job isn’t to just agree with the administration. [The prefects] should be kids who aren’t necessarily just going to go along with the school, but who will ask questions when they need to be asked.” Johns focuses his eﬀorts on rebuilding the Brooks community on the school’s disciplinary system. He says that he feels the current disciplinary system needs to be restructured so that it provides a learning experience and a path back into the community, instead of a traditional suspension from school. “I want to make sure everyone feels like they have a space at Brooks,” he says. “There’s something important about making sure that students understand the social ramiﬁcations of their actions rather than just the length of their suspensions.” Johns also holds tenure as a dorm prefect in Blake House, and he calls on dorm prefects to create a strong dorm culture that’s based on community and interdependency. “Dorm prefects facilitate dorm culture through their actions as much as through their words,” he says. “We lead by example, but I think the biggest thing has been creating a culture within our friend group in Blake that kids can model their behavior after.”

“The prefects are here as a support system,” Eleonore Kiriza says. “We know what Brooks was like before the pandemic; we experienced the pandemic with everyone else; and now we’re experiencing this year with everybody else. So, we’re really good points of reference and resource for younger students.” Kiriza, who also serves the school as a diversity, equity and inclusion prefect, also sees herself as a support for students who, she says, feel alienated and as if they cannot be themselves. “I’ve experienced that also,” she says, “and I can be a really good person for people who are feeling that now.” She says that the pandemic and its attendant isolation have prompted her to become more outgoing. “I make sure that, on Main Street, I scream the names of the thirdformers who were part of my orientation groups, that I say hi to them,” she says. The typical high school hierarchy, Kiriza says, won’t work this year. “I think that, especially right now, we have a great chance to become more uniﬁed as a community,” she says. “Before, there was an element of sixth-formers feeling as if they were above talking to third- and fourth-formers. As prefects, we’re already crossing that and trying to make everybody feel more comfortable with each other.”

“[The prefects] should be kids who aren’t necessarily just going to go along with the school, but who will ask questions when they need to be asked.” MAL AC H I JOH N S

“I think that, especially right now, we have a great chance to become more uniﬁed as a community.” E L EO NO RE K IRIZA

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Laura Smith Student Government President As president of the student government, Laura Smith sees her role in this year’s school prefect class as unique: She brings ideas and initiatives from student government to the prefects and Mr. Packard, and serves as a vital connection between the two leadership groups on campus. “I think student government has so much potential,” she says, “and I want to leave it in a place where it can continue to make change. There’s only so much you can do in one year.” Smith says that this year’s crop of school prefects is committed to old traditions while also taking an opportunity for change. “We’ve lost sense of some traditions we used to have, like seated dinner and dish crew,” she says. “We’re trying to bring those back to give Brooks a sense of that tradition. But with COVID-19 changing everything, we’re also deﬁnitely bringing ideas from our friends and younger grades about what they want the dorms to look like and how they feel things are going in the classroom. I think it’s going to be a good year!” Smith notes the lingering pandemic restrictions on campus and their outsize eﬀect on day students: “It’s really important to bring everyone together and encourage them to step out of their usual friend groups,” she says. “Seated dinner, for example, was really intimidating when I was a third-former, but it’s actually how I made a lot of good sixth-former friends. I realized that they were interested in sitting and talking with me.”

Saisha Prabhakar and Naomi Wellso Senior Prefects When asked to describe this year’s class of school prefects, Senior Prefect Saisha Prabhakar, who shares duties with Senior Prefect Naomi Wellso, immediately lauds the group’s diversity. “We have a lot of people from a lot of diﬀerent areas of the school,” Prabhakar explains. “So as a group, we have a lot of insight that someone who is only focused on academics, or only focused on athletics or the arts, doesn’t have. We’re very collaborative, so we can make decisions together and get stuﬀ done.” Prabhakar also feels grateful for her relationship with Wellso. “Naomi and I have very similar morals and values in what we care about and in leadership,” she says. “We really do want to make sure that underrepresented voices, particularly, have more of a voice this year. It’s a huge ambition, but we want to make this school more inclusive, especially for students who haven’t been on campus until this year. We want to get students used to the feeling of Brooks.”

“Naomi and I have very similar morals and values in what we care about and in leadership.” Senior Prefect SA IS H A P RA B H A KA R

“[W]ith COVID-19 changing everything, we’re also deﬁnitely bringing ideas from our friends and younger grades...” L AU RA SMI TH

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Wellso notes the ways in which she’s been meeting younger students and bringing them into Brooks on a smaller scale. “On my teams and activities, during my classes, and even at seated lunch, I try to listen to other students and form connections with them,” Wellso says. “I’ve met some new faces, new third-formers; I’ve also had the opportunity to sit and talk to people in my own grade that I don’t know well.” Prabhakar remembers her own time as a virtual student last year, and says that her readjustment to being on campus last spring was a “culture shock.” “There was so much disconnect from the school when I was virtual,” she remembers. “That made me a lot more aware, and it made me care a lot more about the interactions between faculty and students. So I take that into consideration when I think of the kids who were virtual even longer than I was, or the new Brooksians who were virtual last year, and how that must feel for them.” Wellso draws her inspiration as a prefect from the prefects that she encountered when she was a new Brooks student. She recalls her own dorm prefects from her third-form year, and says that she’s always wanted “to be the person who underclassmen would feel comfortable talking to; someone who isn’t intimidating.” Now, as senior prefect, Prabhakar strives to be intentional in her drive to move the school forward. “If I have something, a change I want to see happen, I’m trying to be more intentional in going to faculty and asking about it, or talking to students about it, rather than just having a thought and not doing anything about it,” she says. Wellso echoes Prabhakar’s desire to form stronger lines of communication between students and adults at Brooks; she hopes, she says, to leave Brooks “a place where people care about the community and each other.”

“I’ve met some new faces, new third-formers; I’ve also had the opportunity to sit and talk to people in my own grade that I don’t know well.”

FAMILIAR FACES Saisha Prabhakar ’22 and Naomi Wellso ’22, who serve the school as this year’s senior prefects, were featured in the spring 2021 Bulletin when, as virtual students, they each took readers through a day in their lives at school. The piece, “A Day in the Life,” begins on page 28 of that issue.

Senior Prefect NAO MI W E L L S O

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The new campus map, updated this fall, shows that Brooks uses and has improved its 270-acre campus in meaningful, mission-driven ways.

MAPPING A MISSION

A look at the school’s new campus map reveals that recent construction reinforces the school’s mission and longstanding values. BY

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OVER THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS, Brooks has engaged in mission-driven campus planning and construction based on the values that Brooks has always held dear. Our new buildings, roads and consideration of the paths — literal and ﬁgurative — Brooksians take through their days have energized the center of campus; have allowed students and faculty to work in state-of-the art facilities; and have encouraged both the small, informal interactions and the allschool gatherings that have always formed the bedrock of the Brooks community. These new changes were illustrated in the school’s new campus map, which was released in fall 2021. The following pages of the Bulletin walk readers through the new map and highlight new features of campus that collectively serve a powerful philosophy that every Brooksian will ﬁnd familiar.

The school’s new Main Entrance, looking from Great Pond Road toward Lake Cochichewick.

A SHOWCASE ENTRANCE The school’s new Main Entrance, which opened to campus traﬃc in summer 2021, replaces the school’s South Entrance. The Main Entrance is set further south on Great Pond Road than the South Entrance, which makes that part of campus feel more connected to and accessible from the bulk of campus. The new entrance naturally funnels vehicular traﬃc onto Chapel Road (3) and away from the Academic Building and the increasingly central and pedestrian-friendly Main Street. The Main Entrance road also provides stellar views of major campus buildings and the natural, pastoral beauty of the Brooks campus. And, the new entrance road was built with an eye toward environmental stewardship and the school’s location on the Lake Cochichewick watershed.

The banners that hang on the lampposts lining the new main entrance call out the school’s core values: Engagement, empathy, passion, integrity and creativity. Visitors to campus immediately know where they are and understand what’s most important to the community.

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EXPANDING OUR FOOTPRINT The school’s recent purchase of the property located at 1116 Great Pond Road enlarged the campus footprint and gave the school additional lakefront footage. The building set on the property, which was previously a private residence, has immediately served the school’s need for faculty housing. The structure has also become a popular gathering place for students, who ﬂock to Saturday night open houses and other events there.

Faculty member Karina Moltz (left) hosts a well-attended pretzelmaking weekend activity at 1116 Great Pond Road in April 2021.

PRIORITIZING PEDESTRIAN TRAFFIC

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The expansion of Chapel Road, which spans the length of campus, allows the school to limit vehicular traﬃc on Main Street, the school’s central artery. The school intends to continue to engineer Main Street, which stretches from Luce Library to Wilder Dining Hall, as a pedestrian-only walkway. Brooksians traverse Main Street to get to almost every class, activity or commitment on their schedule, and it’s important to the school to provide a space in which Brooksians feel comfortable walking and taking time to greet and talk with each other, and in which they see each other on a daily basis. The school has intentionally planned new construction with an eye toward making Main Street and the center of campus a vital part of Brooks life and the Brooks community.

Frank D. Ashburn Chapel has long been at the core of the Brooks experience.

A RENOVATED ASHBURN CHAPEL Frank D. Ashburn Chapel has long been at the core of the Brooks experience. The building, which stands at the very center of campus, hosts all-school Chapel services twice weekly, as well as a score of speakers, traditional school celebrations and ceremonies to honor the achievements of Brooksians. Ashburn Chapel was renovated and reopened in 2014; seating space was added in the pews, and a basement level oﬀers centrally located classroom, social and meeting spaces.

The Center for the Arts is a stateof-the-art facility that provides Brooksians with the materials, access and spaces they need to pursue their creative passions in the visual, performing and musical arts.

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ENCOURAGING COMMUNITY AND CREATIVITY

The Center for the Arts replaced the school’s original auditorium and arts studios with a state-of-the-art facility that provides Brooksians with the materials, access and spaces they need to pursue their creative passions in the visual, performing and musical arts. The building also intentionally serves as a key gathering space for members of the Brooks community. Our student-run School Meeting is held in the main theater; the building provides a variety of meeting spaces; and, perhaps most importantly, students meet up between classes to laugh, catch up and create the intangible experience that they will carry with them long after graduation.

AN UPDATED SPACE In summer 2021, the school broke ground for a new building, located just south of Thorne House, which is scheduled for completion in 2022. The structure will hold the school’s admission and head of school’s oﬃces. The newly created green space between the new building and the Head of School’s House will allow Brooksians to gather on warm fall and spring days. The new building will sit farther back from Main Street than did Frick Dining Hall and the Dalsemer Room, which previously occupied the space. For the ﬁrst time in decades, Brooksians will have a clear view of all of Main Street, extending from Wilder Dining Hall to Luce Library.

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SHARING MEALS TOGETHER

Brooksians have multiple opportunities every day to walk together and pass each other on Main Street. These encounters lead to opportunities for students and faculty to catch up and for students to greet each other as they pass.

More Online! Please visit www.brooksschool.org/about/directions to view the new campus map in greater detail and to take a virtual tour of campus.

Wilder Dining Hall, which sits on the northern edge of Main Street, brings the Brooks community together three times a day. Because Wilder and the Academic Building sit on opposite ends of Main Street, Brooksians have multiple opportunities every day to walk together and pass each other on Main Street. These encounters lead to opportunities for students and faculty to catch up and for students to greet each other as they pass. Head of School John Packard stresses each fall that, while walking on Main Street, Brooksians should put their cell phones away and say hello to each other instead; students and teachers subscribe to that and make their time together on Main Street count.

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The names of buildings, along with the buildings themselves, have changed. What hasn’t changed, though, is the idea that Brooksians should be able to study, eat, gather and engage in their passions on a campus that makes forming bonds easy and makes slipping through school unseen diﬃcult.

ANNA K. TRUSTEY MEMORIAL FIELD The turf ﬁeld that marks the northern edge of the Brooks campus gives the school’s fall and spring teams an impressive, durable and beautiful venue in which to practice and play in all weather conditions. The ﬁeld can be lit at night, which allows Brooksians to use it at all times of day. “Under the lights” games are always a big draw for Brooks students, and they tend to feature a boisterous student fan section cheering on their friends, classmates and fellow Brooksians.

The girls 1st lacrosse team battles it out on Anna K. Trustey Memorial Field in spring 2018.

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Heart Organ The

is an

The Ashburn Chapel organ, the impressive instrument whose mechanisms dominate the architecture of the building around it, is both a signiﬁcant historical artifact and a steadfast part of the school’s Chapel program. BY REBECCA A. BINDER

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The

S CH O OL’S O RG A N, which was installed in 1938, has guided generations of Brooksians through every iteration of Chapel service, up to and including a pandemic that removed Chapel attendees from the chapel itself. The following pages are an appreciation of the instrument: its history at Brooks; how it works, and how it lives and breathes through the depths of the building itself; how it’s played; and what current students think of it. An Early Push for Music In the book “Thirty Years at Brooks,” faculty emeritus J. Tower Thompson connects the school’s acquisition of its current organ to both a growing interest in music among Brooks students and a growing Chapel program. Thompson writes of the “humble” beginnings of music at Brooks and notes that “the singing was undistinguished.” The school had no chapel from 1927 to 1931; evening prayers were conducted using an upright piano placed in an anteroom to the dining room and, later, in a common room in Old Whitney. Singing was not limited to these services: Early Brooks students, who, Thompson reminds us, lacked movies, televisions and radios, would hold “sing-songs” as a form of entertainment. The chapel was built in 1931, Thompson continues, and violin teacher Alessandro Niccoli began playing at Sunday services accompanied by Latin and music teacher Richard Hyde, who played the school’s ﬁrst “organ” — a small melodeon with a bellows pumped by manpower. The winter of 1931–1932, Thompson reports, saw an increase in musical interest at Brooks. The ﬁrst school choir performed in

The school’s organ was dedicated in 1938. The inscription on the casing reads: “To the glory of God & in token of friendship & appreciation, this organ is gratefully given.” Inset: An archival photo of the school organ, which was installed in the chapel in 1938.

Chapel that December, an orchestra materialized, and the operetta “Othello” was staged. By the mid-1930s, the melodeon that introduced Brooksians to the idea of a chapel organ was no longer suitable for use. The father of faculty emeritus Arthur Milliken, the school’s ﬁrst senior master and one of our founding faculty, donated a large mahogany reed organ from the family’s summer residence. In 1936, the Milliken family replaced that organ with a Hammond electric organ. The chapel building was enlarged to double its capacity in 1938. Thompson writes that, to the school’s “lasting joy and

satisfaction,” an anonymous donor later acknowledged to be Mrs. Murray S. Danforth furnished the school with the organ that is still in use today. This gift, Thompson concludes, has “meant very much to all of us who have since attended the Brooks Chapel services.” Organist, choirmaster and math teacher Edward Flint, who arrived on the Brooks faculty in 1936, continued to nurture the school’s interest in music and the organ. Thompson writes of concerts by the Harvard University Glee Club, choral and orchestral concerts, and impromptu organ concerts following Sunday Chapel.

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Aeolian-Skinner

The organ in Ashburn Chapel resonates with care and thoughtfulness. It was built by the Aeolian-Skinner company in 1938, when the building was expanded for the first time. Aeolian-Skinner organs, which are widely considered the best of their era, produce a unique sound because they were designed to play a wide repertoire of music. The company was known for focusing more on what the instrument would sound like to an audience than on whether the instrument would follow traditional expectations of how it was built. The final results speak for themselves: Aeolian-Skinner organs grace the halls of, for example, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Aeolian-Skinner organs also inhabit smaller spaces more on scale with Brooks, including Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven, Connecticut, St. John’s Chapel at Groton School, and the Chapel of St. Peter and St. Paul at St. Paul’s School. School Organist Rob Humphreville explains that, although the Ashburn Chapel organ is neither the largest nor the loudest, it is of great historical significance. It was built during a time when organmakers were intentionally trying to build organs that pointed away from the electric “orchestral organs” that had come into

I find it great that such an old instrument can have such a profound effect on how Chapel is run. When Mr. Humphreville is playing, we’re talkative, but when he stops playing, everyone knows that it’s time for the service to begin and we focus on the speaker at the podium. The beauty of the instrument itself, though, is probably my favorite part. The often-understated difficulty of the instrument is an aspect that I think only musicians and direct viewers of the playing can appreciate, and this is the reason I enjoy listening to him play.

vogue, and that hearkened back to a pre-electric, mechanical era. The school’s organ, which is “electro-pneumatic,” draws a middle ground, and produces a bright sound that in its time was remarkable and that helped usher in a return to mechanical organs.

B RAND O N SP EC TO R-TOW NSEND ’ 23

The nameplate on the school’s organ.

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A stop is a set of pipes that is controlled by a knob on the console. Each stop sounds a different tone. When the organist pulls the stopknob out from the console, the stop is online—those pipes open and are able to sound when keys on the manual or pedal keyboards are pressed. An organist can have multiple stops online at once; if five stops are online, for example, then pressing a single key on a keyboard will cause five pipes to sound. The knobs that control the stops have names that reflect either the kinds of pipes they use or the sound they create; stops are labeled “flute” or “trumpet,” for example. Until the 19th century, composers rarely indicated which stops they intended organists to have online while playing a particular passage. Choosing stops, and knowing which combination of tones would make a passage shine, was considered part of the art of being an organist.

Stops

The Ashburn Chapel organ has four keyboards: three manual and one pedal. Pressing the keys controls which pipes within the online stops sound. Each keyboard controls the valves of its own group of stops and pipes. The pedalboard controls the largest pipes, which produce the lowest tones. The organist can also use couplers to move a stop to a keyboard other than its own, leaving the original keyboard free to tackle complex passages.

Manuals

Pistons

Pipes

An organist can bring stops online and oﬄine by pulling and pushing the individual stop knobs on the console, but that takes time. Pistons and toe studs allow the organist to pre-program a combination of stops. In the middle of a performance, when the organist needs to switch their stop combination quickly, they can push the pre-programmed piston or toe stud to bring the necessary stops online and oﬄine immediately.

Toe Studs

The organ’s 1,444 metal and wooden pipes are located behind the screen at the back of the Chapel dais. Each pipe acts as a whistle that produces a diﬀerent sound when air is forced through it. The pipes vary in shape, material and size: Some are so wide and tall that they have to double back on themselves to ﬁt inside the building; some are no larger than a pencil; some are built to produce sound that sounds like other instruments, like the trumpet. The longer the pipe, the lower the sound it produces. An electronic bellows located in the chapel basement pushes air through the pipes. Each pipe has a valve at its base, which is controlled by the organ’s keyboards, pedals and stops. When the organist opens the valve, air from the bellows enters the pipe and sound is created.

DIAGRAM: BROOKS SCHOOL 46

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The console is the part of the instrument at which the organist sits, and which they use to control the pipes. Consoles generally contain between two to four, and sometimes even more, manual keyboards, a number of stops and foot pedals that are used to play the lowest notes.

Console

King The

Couplers

of Instruments

Expression Pedal

The two large foot pedals at the base of the organ console each control the volume of the instrument in different ways (unlike on a piano, striking a key with more or less force has no effect on the volume of the sound produced). The organ’s pipes are arranged into groups called “divisions,” some of which are housed inside large wooden boxes. The expression pedal controls whether flaps on those wooden boxes are open or closed, thus increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound produced. The crescendo pedal, meanwhile, controls the volume of the organ by bringing stops online or offline in a predetermined order.

Crescendo Pedal

In vastly simple terms, a pipe organ is a collection of whistles connected to a bellows and controlled by a keyboard. The magic of the organ — the resonant power of which caused Mozart to call it “the king of instruments” — is in the nuances of that keyboard and the mechanisms that surround it. There’s no such thing as a standard organ. Every organ is, itself, a work of art, built to suit the size, acoustics and design of the space it will inhabit, the congregation that will gather to hear it, the music that will be played on it and even the musicians who will play it.

Pedalboard

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S P ROF I L E

School Organist Rob Humphreville

C HO O L O RGANI ST Rob Humphreville has manned the console of the organ in Ashburn Chapel since 1988. During his tenure at Brooks, he has also taught piano lessons and worked as a member of the classical languages faculty, and worked as the chair of the music department. Through all those roles, however, Humphreville has served as the school’s organist, a title of which he is proud. A native of New London, Connecticut, Humphreville grew up steeped in the Episcopal Church. He began studying piano under the tutelage of his church’s organist at 8 years old. When he turned 11 (“once my feet could reach the pedals,” Humphreville jokes), he also began studying organ. Some people in his family had attended Groton School, and when Humphreville himself began looking at schools, he says, he chose Groton in part because of its chapel and its organ (also an Aeolian-Skinner model). “I liked Groton, and I did a lot of things there,” Humphreville says. Beginning in his fourth-form year, he accompanied the school choir on the organ during Groton’s chapel services. “So as a kid, I got great training,” he says. “I played, I gave recitals, I wrote music. I was really active. I was happy to do that, and it was a good place for me.” Humphreville continued his education at Harvard College and majored in music while freelancing as an organist for various churches in the Boston area. Although he’s held other jobs — he’s run a real estate business and an editing business in Harvard Square— his freelance work as an organist has continued to this day, and now includes accompanying silent movies screened at Harvard and elsewhere throughout New England. “I just kept doing it,” Humphreville says. “That’s what I’ve done ever since. You know, I found something I love, I found a way to do it and make enough money to give myself options, and it’s my way of helping other people.” When asked why he feels drawn to the organ, Humphreville pauses. “You know, I think a lot of people play the organ because it’s mechanically very fascinating,” he says, “and there’s some of that. But one thing I like to do is accompany people. Accompanists are a very interesting group because they’re not the star of the show. I’m not the star of the show in Chapel — the students know who I am, they know I’m there, but I’m accompanying them.” Humphreville also values his time at Brooks. “This has been as regular a job as I’ve ever had,” he says, “and I love Brooks. The kids here are wonderful. They’re kind. They’re curious about the world around them. I’m very lucky to be part of this community.”

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B R O O K S CONNEC T IO NS

BROOKS CONNECTIONS IN THIS SECTION 50 Alumni News 56 Class Notes 78 In Memoriam

Spirit towels and other Brooks swag helped alumni get into their school spirit during Alumni Homecoming in September. The cornerstone of the day was the school’s induction of four alumni into the Brooks School Athletics Hall of Fame, which you can read about on page 52.

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A LUM N I N EWS

An Examination of the Lincoln Assassination A Brooksian’s new book is the ﬁrst to assert that the Lincoln assassination was an act of white supremacy. John Rhodehamel ’66 has drawn praise

for his new book, “America’s Original Sin: White Supremacy, John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Assassination,” which was published in September 2021. Rhodehamel, the former archivist of Mount Vernon and curator of American historical manuscripts at the Huntington Library, provides a compelling narrative history of the Lincoln assassination that refuses to ignore John Wilkes Booth’s motivation: his growing, obsessive commitment to white supremacy. The facts of President Lincoln’s assassination are familiar to American schoolchildren: On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln while Lincoln watched a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died the next morning, and Booth was shot after a days-long manhunt. Booth’s motivations for assassinating Lincoln have been obscured, though. Rhodehamel makes the case that Booth’s motivation for the assassination was his growing commitment to white supremacy. In alternating chapters, “Original Sin” shows how, as Lincoln’s commitment to emancipation and racial equality grew, so, too, did Booth’s rage and hatred for

Lincoln. Rhodehamel traces the evolution of Booth’s racial hatred from his embrace of white supremacy as a youth through the Lincoln assassination. “Original Sin” is the ﬁrst book to explicitly name white supremacy as the motivation for Lincoln’s assassination, and Rhodehamel’s fellow scholars hail the work. Michael Burlingame, author of “Abraham Lincoln: A Life,” says that “[b]y emphasizing John Wilkes Booth’s devotion to white supremacy and the depth of his rage at Abraham Lincoln’s public call for black voting rights, Rhodehamel shows why the sixteenth president should be regarded as a martyr to African American civil rights.” Another reviewer, author Michael Woods, says Rhodehamel has “done a great service by bringing this point to a wide audience.” Author and scholar Harold Holzer, meanwhile, writes “[m]ost important of all, this book presents the Lincoln murder plot as it should be remembered: not a theatricalized act of madness, but as a sinful eﬀort to sustain white supremacy and prevent or postpone the march toward equal rights in America. This page-turner is destined to occupy an essential place on the history bookshelf.”

“This book presents the Lincoln murder plot as it should be remembered: not a theatricalized act of madness, but as a sinful eﬀort to sustain white supremacy and prevent or postpone the march toward equal rights in America.” H A RO L D H O L ZE R

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B R O O K S CONNEC T IO NS

Journalism Award Freelance journalist Alex Clapp ’09 was this year’s runner-up in the Pulitzer Center’s annual Breakthrough Journalism Award. The award recognizes and celebrates the achievements of Pulitzer Center-aﬃliated freelance journalists who report on underreported issues that aﬀect us all. Clapp received the honor for an article titled “The Vampire Ship,” which was published as the lead story in the October 2020 issue of The New Republic. According to the Pulitzer Center, Clapp’s long read “impressed the judges with its movie thriller-esque narrative that unraveled a complex web of corruption and crime in Turkey, Greece, and the Middle East.” The piece, which, the Center says, Clapp worked on for a year, provides “the most complete account yet of a massive drug deal gone spectacularly bad.” Further, Clapp published a guest opinion essay in the New York Times on August 27. The piece is titled “The Fires in Greece Are a Terrifying Warning.” In the essay, Clapp recounts decades of Greek privatization, austerity and underinvestment in environmental protection, and advocates for a shift in Greece’s government spending toward the mitigation of the climate crisis and away from its outsized military budget.

BROOKS WORKS Have you recently published a book? Has your album just dropped? Tell us about it. We want to hear about your creative successes, and we want to highlight your work in an upcoming issue of the Bulletin. To have your work considered for inclusion in a future installment of Brooks Works, please send a review copy to:

Editor, Brooks Bulletin 1160 Great Pond Road North Andover, MA 01845

The magazine does not purchase the materials listed in Brooks Works. The materials we receive will be donated to the Luce Library or another appropriate outlet. The Bulletin reserves the right to reject works that, in the judgment of the editorial staﬀ, do not promote the mission or values of Brooks School or the Bulletin.

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A Brooksian’s Documentary Screens in New York “REFUGE,” a documentary produced and directed by Din Botsford Blankenship ’03, had its world premiere in November at DOC NYC, the

largest documentary film festival in the United States. The documentary draws the viewer into an uncommonly diverse small town in Georgia, and explores the unlikely friendship that grows between a successful Kurdish doctor and a white supremacist. “REFUGE” was awarded Special Mention in the U.S. Competition, one of only two awards given in the U.S. Competition. “We invested so much of ourselves into making this film,” Blankenship reflects. “Being able to finally share it with the world after four years of bringing it to life was so special.” Blankenship was previously profiled in the fall 2019 issue of the Bulletin, when the documentary was in production. An architect by training, Blankenship made the career shift into filmmaking when she was approached by Erin Bernhardt, with whom she partnered on the documentary.

Save the Date

GIVING DAY ! Our annual Giving Day is scheduled to take place on February 10, 2022. This one-day event, in which we strive to accrue as many donations to the Brooks Fund as possible, is a tremendous help in meeting our annual fund and institutional budget goals. Please be on the lookout for class competitions, challenges and gift-matching opportunities, and get ready to give back to Brooks!

BROOKS CONNECT I O N S

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Coming Home (Finally!) This fall’s homecoming festivities were a truly momentous occasion. Brooks joyously welcomed alumni back to campus for homecoming festivities on September 25, 2021. The return to Great Pond Road was notable because it was the ﬁrst in-person alumni event the school had been able to host since the COVID19 pandemic took hold of campus in March 2020. “To be on campus with fellow alumni and the students and faculty felt so special. It was long overdue,” says organizer and former Associate Director of Alumni Relations Carly Churchill ’10. “The alumni got to see the work being done on campus, catch a football game and cross-country race, get some new Brooks gear and see old friends.” The event felt as if it was ushering in a new era of community and togetherness at Brooks, as community members of all ages congregated to celebrate a gorgeous fall day on campus. In a nod to the increased capacity for oﬀ-campus engagement that the school had to practice in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, the day’s events also included a virtual 5k open to Brooksians who were not able to travel to Great Pond Road. On-campus amenities and events included a hospitality tent with refreshments set up at the football game, the Brooks School Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony and a dinner.

Athletics Hall of Fame Induction The centerpiece of homecoming festivities at Brooks was the induction of four alumni into the Brooks School Athletics Hall of Fame. This year, in recognition of their exceptional contributions to the quality and tradition of Brooks athletics, the school inducted Lawrence J. Harrington III ’80, Patrick J, Harrington ’82 (posthumous), Alison Vaill Mastin ’89 and KenRick P. Skerritt Jr. ’87. The induction ceremony took place under a tent erected on the school’s tennis courts, and approximately 50 of the inductees’ loved ones gathered to help the honorees celebrate. Director of Athletics Roberta Crump-Burbank, who knew all of the inductees personally, delivered heartfelt remarks about each of them.

Lawrence J. Harrington III ’80 L. J. Harrington [1] played soccer and basketball at Brooks. “L. J. was born to be a point guard,” former Brooks coach and faculty emeritus Ray Broadhead ’70, P’94, P’99 remembers. “He played with tremendous intensity and showed court sense beyond his years.” With Harrington at the helm, the 1980 Brooks 1st basketball team played all the way to the New England Class C championship game before losing to rival The Governor’s Academy. “He was always a team player,” says former teammate Peter Guyer ’80, “dependable and ﬁercely competitive while always maintaining his trademark humor.”

Patrick Harrington ’82 Patrick Harrington [2] played soccer and basketball, and he was known for his personality and sense of humor. As an athlete, he stopped at nothing. Speaking on Harrington’s basketball career, Broadhead shares that Harrington played in the era prior to the installation of the threepoint line, and believes that his scoring statistics would have been much higher today. Harrington and his teammate Harold Starks ’82, who was inducted into the all of fame in 2002, led the 1982 boys 1st basketball team to 18 straight wins before falling to an overtime loss in the New England Class C championship game. Basketball continued to be a passion for Harrington, and he went on to build a successful and memorable career as a coach before his tragic death in 2014.

KenRick Skerritt Jr. ’87

This year’s inductees with Director of Athletics Roberta Crump-Burbank. From left to right, KenRick Skerritt Jr. ’87, Alison Vaill Mastin ’89, Crump-Burbank, L. J. Harrington ’80 and Lori Harrington, wife of posthumous inductee P. J. Harrington ’82.

KenRick Skerritt [3] played football, basketball and lacrosse during his Brooks tenure, earning seven varsity letters. In each sport, but especially in football, he played with exceptional speed, valuable versatility and a team-ﬁrst mentality.

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C A LL FO R ALU M NI AWAR D NO M I NAT I O NS We’re already planning for Alumni Weekend, which will take place June 10–11, 2022. A highlight of the weekend is the awarding of three alumni awards: the Distinguished Brooksian award, the Alumni Shield award and the Alumni Bowl award. Descriptions of each award follow. If you’d like to nominate a member of a Brooks alumni class year ending in 7 or 2 for either the Alumni Shield or the Distinguished Brooksian awards, please contact Director of Institutional Advancement Gage S. Dobbins P’22, P’23 at gdobbins@brooksschool.org or (978) 725-6288 by February 1, 2022.

THE DISTINGUISHED BROOKSIAN award honors a member of the Brooks community whose life and contributions to society exemplify the nobility of character and usefulness to humanity embodied in the spirit of the school. THE ALUMNI SHIELD award recognizes an alumna or alumnus who graduated from Brooks less than 25 years ago who has made signiﬁcant contributions in the ﬁeld of his or her endeavor.

THE ALUMNI BOWL is awarded to that member of the alumni community who has tirelessly and loyally supported the school through their thoughtful and exemplary service and dedication as a volunteer. We do not accept nominations for the Alumni Bowl.

Teammate Bob Wagman ’87 shares, “While Kenny certainly had loads of natural talent, he worked as hard as anyone to make himself better every day. He pushed himself at morning run, watched ﬁlm and did all the little things necessary to become a great football player.”

Alison Vaill Mastin ’89 Alison Vaill Mastin [4] played ﬁeld hockey and ice hockey and rowed crew at Brooks. She earned 10 varsity letters on her way to receiving the 1989 Athletic Prize at Prize Day. A four-season captain, she consistently led her teams with spirit and by example. Classmate Leah McLaughlin ’89 shares, “Alison was an absolute inspiration to all of us for her generosity of spirit and her commitment to excellence — on the ﬁeld and in the classroom.”

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1. Lawrence J. Harrington III ’80 2. Patrick Harrington ’82 (right) 3. KenRick Skerritt Jr. ’87 4. Alison Vaill Mastin ’89

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Eight Brooksians Join Alumni Board The alumni board welcomed a fresh crop of alumni leaders this year. Marquis Daisy ’01

Student/Alumni Connection Committee Emmy Award-winning ﬁlmmaker Marquis Daisy ’01 joined ESPN Films in 2014 as a producer for the network’s “30 for 30” documentary franchise. He produced ﬁlms such as “Bernie and Ernie,” “The ’85 Bears,” “The Dominican Dream” and “VICK.” In addition, Daisy directed “Rand University,” which chronicles the turbulent career of the NFL hall of famer Randy Moss; “Baltimore Boys,” the story of East Baltimore’s Dunbar High School basketball program; and “Black Hoosiers,” the story of NBA hall of famer Oscar Robertson. His most recent work is a collaboration between ESPN’s The Undefeated and The National Geographic Channel, titled “The March on Washington: Keepers of the Dream.” Prior to joining ESPN Films, Daisy worked at HBO Sports, where he helped on platforms such as “Inside the NFL,” “Costas Now,” “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel” and the 24/7 boxing series, as well as on documentaries

such as “Bird & Magic: A Courtship of Rivals” and “Namath: From Beaver Falls to Broadway.” Daisy is a Williams College graduate. Richard Andrew S. Farrer ’96

Giving Committee Andrew Farrer ’96 was born in Nashville and grew up in Exeter, New Hampshire. After graduating from Brooks, he earned a degree in classical studies from Rollins College in 2001 before enlisting with the United States Marines. He had three deployments with 3/8 India Co. as an infantry machine gunner. He was a highly decorated member of the service who earned, among numerous other accolades, the Purple Heart Medal before his honorable discharge in 2008. After his service to our country, Farrer worked as a chef for 10 years and became associated with a number of nonproﬁt organizations. He currently serves as the senior vice commandant of the Marine Corps League Stones River Detachment in Murfreesboro,

Tennessee, as well as the judge advocate of the Marine Corps League Department of Tennessee. He is a lifetime member of the VFW, an elite recruiter of the year in 2021, was recently re-elected as chaplain for the the VFW Department of Tennessee, and is a certiﬁed national recruiter. Farrer holds an MBA in healthcare administration from Ashford University. Rachel Feingold ’14

Student/Alumni Connection Committee Rachel Feingold ’14, who was adopted from China as an infant, grew up in Lynnﬁeld, Massachusetts, and was a day student at Brooks. She went on to attend Boston University, where she studied mathematics and statistics as an undergraduate, continuing on to receive her master’s degree in applied business analytics. Feingold currently works as a strategy and operations analyst at HubSpot, a software company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In her free time, Feingold likes

to go to spin classes, try new restaurants in Boston and walk the galleries of the Museum of Fine Arts. Feingold fondly recalls taking part in the Brooks Winter Term course “The Art and Science of Baking,” and meeting students from all over the country and world that she wouldn’t have otherwise met. Chongchong Liu ’13

Student/Alumni Connection Committee Chongchong Liu ’13 grew up in Beijing and graduated from Brooks before studying economics and classics at Northwestern University. Liu credits Dr. Deborah Davies, who taught her classics at Brooks, with developing her interest in the subject. Liu enjoyed playing tennis at Brooks and living on campus as a boarding student. She now lives and works in ﬁnance in New York, where she plays tennis, runs and explores museums. Kathy Palmer Smith ’88, P’18, P’20, P’22

Student/Alumni Connection Committee Kathy Palmer Smith ’88, P’18, P’20, P’22 returned

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to Brooks when her husband, Director of Rowing and mathematics faculty Tote Smith, joined the faculty in 2016. Her children Nate ’18 and Tobey ’20 are also Brooks graduates, and her child Laura is a current sixth-former, student government president and a school prefect. Kathy Smith has worked at Indian Mountain School and for Mass. Audubon in various roles, including lower school science teacher, prekindergarten teacher and ﬁeld teacher. The Smiths are resident dorm parents in Thorne House, and Kathy has been “happily and deeply” involved in the school’s rowing program. She reports that she is grateful to be back at Brooks with her family, and that she feels “lucky to be able to walk the ﬁelds and trails of our wonderful campus.” Eric Shah ’85

Career Advisory Committee Eric Shah ’85 is president of Symbex Corporation, which owns and operates businesses in the Southern California area. He attended Pomona College after graduating from Brooks and worked for a few years in the software industry before earning his MBA from UCLA. Shah has been married for more than 29 years and has a grown daughter in the United States Air Force. He

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enjoys woodworking and rooting for his Los Angeles Rams. Adam Smith ’07

Career Advisory Committee Adam Smith ’07 grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and now lives in Savannah, Georgia, with his wife and two dogs. At Brooks, Smith was a proud four-year resident of Thorne House and a school prefect. He then attended the University of Virginia, where he studied classics and linguistics. He returned to Brooks for a year to teach the philosophy of religion before moving to Brooklyn, New York, to work as chief technology oﬃcer for a high-growth food and beverage startup. He transitioned to self-employment in 2019 and now focuses on management consulting and real estate businesses.

Gary Witherspoon ’80

Events Committee Gary Witherspoon ’80 is the 11th of 13 children born to the late Mary and Willard Witherspoon. His brother Willard ’69 and niece Winifred Alicia ’95 also attended Brooks. A former award-winning journalist, Witherspoon spent 30 years at daily newspapers along the East Coast. He was a member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team at Long Island Newsday that covered the downing of TWA Flight 800 in 1996. In 2016, he joined the communications team at the Maryland Department of Transportation, and since 2018 he has served in communications and outreach for the Purple Line, a light rail project under construction in suburban Washington, D.C. Witherspoon is a singer and deacon at St. John Baptist Church in Columbia, Maryland, where he lives with his lovely wife, the former Famebridge Payne. He has three sons, Jordahn, Ahmadee and Jackson; a daughter, Clark; and two grandchildren, Vanessa and Jeremiah.

Marquis Daisy

Andrew Farrer

Rachel Feingold

Chongchong Liu

Kathy Palmer Smith

Eric Shah

Adam Smith

THANK YOU The school would like to thank the following alumni who have concluded their dedicated and valuable time on the alumni board: Peter Dunn ’82, P’11, P’13, P’15, P’18 Stephen Taber ’72 Kingsley Woolworth ’00 Gary Witherspoon

BROOKS CONNECT I O N S

A LU MNNI OT P RO CL ASS ESFILE

DAVID COH EN ’91, P ’2 3

Outreach Through Sport David Cohen ’91, P’23 is the chief executive officer of Doc Wayne Youth Services, Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide access to brighter futures for youth around the world and strengthen the field of mental health by using revolutionary sport-based therapy and clinical initiatives. Cohen has been inspired by the lessons he learned playing sports at Brooks, and his work at Doc Wayne allows him to provide critical mental health services through that lens. Cohen came to Brooks as a soccer player under the eye of former boys 1st team coach and legendary faculty Dusty Richard. He left campus having absorbed lessons about the ways in which sports encourage bonding, trust and collective responsibility; he’s now turned that idea into his life’s work. Cohen is the chief executive officer of Doc Wayne Youth Services, Inc., a Boston-based youth services organization with a vision to level the playing field of mental health globally by harnessing the power of sport-based therapy. Doc Wayne’s clinicians, known as “coaches,” lead programs in a gym or on a field at community and residential treatment centers and many are embedded into school curricula. Doc Wayne, along with Cohen himself, has earned multiple accolades and awards for its work. Cohen received the school’s Alumni Shield award in 2016. Finding A Path Cohen started to learn the lessons of sports while playing soccer at Brooks. “When I got to Brooks, and when I was in preseason with that group of guys, there was a lot of talk about commitment,” Cohen says. “It was a unique experience where we agreed as a team how we wanted to carry ourselves and what we hoped to accomplish beyond just

scoring goals and wins and losses. We committed to one another that we were going to represent each other the best we possibly could. That carried with me through all of my sports and through my coaches and mentors. And, I think if you ask a lot of former Brooks athletes, a lot of the values that we learn — who we are, how we carry ourselves today — we learned through those special moments with our teams and our coaches.” Cohen continued his soccer career in college; he graduated from Babson College and, after spending some time in the workforce, received his MBA from Bentley University in 2001. He became involved with a few diﬀerent business ventures that weren’t able to

survive economic recession, and also spent time back at Brooks coaching soccer and working in the school’s development office before, he says, he “ran into this opportunity at Doc Wayne.” Although he wasn’t very familiar with the human services field, he was inspired by his meeting with Susan Wayne, the organization’s founder. “It sort of seemed like all the stars had lined up nicely for me to give it a shot,” Cohen says. He acknowledges the risk of moving from the for-profit to the nonprofit space, and says that he thought about his values and sense of fulfillment in his work. “I had this idea of making my millions,” he says, “but I also saw the importance of being happy and thinking about life in general. We

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were starting a family. There’s a lot more to it than just the dollar.” Under Cohen’s guidance, Doc Wayne has seen rapid success. The annual budget has grown from $150,000 to $2.4 million, and there are now 20 full-time staﬀ. “It’s been exciting,” he says. “I often say it’s unfortunate that there’s a need for what we do, but the world has changed quite a bit, and it’s a good thing that our team is in place to be there for the youth and families that need us the most.” Using Sport as a Tool Doc Wayne’s mission speaks to Cohen because he values the guidance and support he received through playing sports himself. “I was very fortunate,” he says. “Growing up, I had places to go, people to lean on, places to turn to. As an athlete, also, I had always thought about doing something to give back. When we talk about Dusty and the teams that I’ve had, we realize that a lot of kids haven’t had that strong adult support in their lives. And so, if there’s a way for me to piece that together so that kids out there who may not have opportunities, or may be struggling and not know where to turn — ﬁnding a way to alter that trajectory was really appealing to me.” Cohen speaks proudly of Doc Wayne’s multifaceted programming. For example, Doc Wayne implements group therapy through its Chalk Talk™ program; individual therapy; non-clinical therapeutic mentoring; and therapeutic recess programming within public schools. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has also highlighted Doc Wayne’s telehealth services and

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“I think if you ask a lot of former Brooks athletes, I think a lot of the values that we learn — who we are, how we carry ourselves today — we learned through those special moments with our teams and with our coaches.” DAVID CO H E N ’91, P ’ 23

a global training platform called “The Champions Network™,” which teaches clients how to layer trauma-informed clinical and social-emotional learning goals onto a sports framework. Cohen believes that this external outreach and training is crucial. “High-proﬁle people are coming out and talking about their own challenges,” Cohen says. “I think a lot of young people are seeing that it’s okay to talk. And that’s a good thing, and we’re limited by our capacity. We’re also trying to help adults who work with kids, and enhance their toolkits by training as well.” Cohen points out that The Champions Network™ has reached more than 70,000 kids and coaches in more than 25 countries in a short period of time. Cohen remains excited by Doc Wayne’s evolution over his tenure as CEO. Of his 20 team members, he

says he’s “so inspired that these are the future licensed mental health counselors or social workers who are going to make a big difference in people’s lives, no matter where they are in the future. Getting them to think out of the box by being a part of Doc Wayne will help them do great things for years to come.” “People getting involved in their community is essential,” Cohen concludes. “I don’t just mean donating money, but also volunteering time, expertise and resources. We’re only here for a short period of time; what are we doing with that time? Are we making a difference? Are we having a significant impact? Whether it’s feeding people at a soup kitchen or donating goods, or being on a board, it all helps.”

BROOKS CONNECT I O N S

A LU MNNI OT P RO CL ASS ESFILE

LOWEY BUNDY S ICH O L ’92

Sparking Entrepreneurship in Children Lowey Bundy Sichol ’92 found her love for creative writing at Brooks. Now, she’s using her talent to inspire children toward entrepreneurship, focusing on children from underrepresented communities. Lowey Bundy Sichol ’92 is an award-winning author of inspiring children’s books about entrepreneurs. Her path to that accomplishment was unexpected, but she traces it back to the English classroom at Brooks. Sichol describes herself as a student at Brooks by saying she was “always a math and science person.” Now, however, she’s a writer. “The thing I can absolutely point it back to is the English classes at Brooks,” Sichol says. “I never considered myself a writer, but the English classes at Brooks brought the writer out of me.” She speaks fondly of her time with two of the school’s faculty emeriti, Mark Shovan and E. Graham Ward. “I remember sitting in Mr. Ward’s creative writing class and thinking that it was really fun,” she says. Sichol went on to college at Hamilton College, and then received her MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College before pursuing a career in marketing. “And then life, as it often does, took a left turn,” she says. Her husband, Adam, gained admission to Tuck, and Lowey, Adam and their newborn twins found themselves moving back to Hanover, New Hampshire. Sichol pivoted and founded her own company: a specialized writing ﬁrm that composes MBA case studies for top business schools. “This Just Does Not Happen.” “I was writing case studies about Google and Nike and LEGO,” Sichol says, “and as my children got older and I became obsessed with all the good children’s books out there, I kept thinking that someone should write books for kids about how these companies came to

be.” Sichol put out feelers on the idea, but received little interest from her network. Ten years later, she couldn’t shake the thought of writing children’s books about business and entrepreneurship, so she mustered up the determination to give it a try again. She gave herself six months to write the books, get an agent and get a publishing deal. A six-month deadline to write a book, ﬁnd an agent and secure a publishing deal is already an ambitious timeline. Sichol, though, beat that mark handily: She wrote her ﬁrst book, “From an Idea to Google,” in six weeks. She got an agent a week later, and she received

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multiple publishing offers when the book was pitched two months later. “This,” Sichol explains, “just does not happen.” These days, Sichol is the successful author of the first business and entrepreneurship book series for children. The series is called “From an Idea to …”. Each of the four books in the series charts the path that an entrepreneur took toward creating their own company. For example, “From an Idea to Disney” recounts the story of Walt and Roy Disney, and inspires children to pursue their own dreams and ideas, and to change the world through entrepreneurship. The series has won an abundance of awards and was hailed widely by reviewers. For example, Mrs. Mommy Book Nerd Book Reviews called the series “inspiring, honest and interesting. From an Idea to … books are the kind of books that create young entrepreneurs and inventors.” A Window And a Mirror Sichol’s newest book, “Idea Makers: 15 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs,” which will be on shelves in February 2022, shares the stories of 15 of America’s most impactful female entrepreneurs. “Idea Makers” includes profiles of a diverse group of women, which, Sichol says, is intentional. She references the work of Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop and her groundbreaking work in multicultural children’s literature research. “Dr. Bishop says that children’s books need to be both windows and mirrors,” Sichol says. “What she means by that is that they need to show kids what’s out there, and kids also need to be able to see themselves in books. So while I was introducing the concept of entrepreneurship and making your idea turn into something amazing, the reality is

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that there were no girls in my books and no people of color in my books. I would visit a school and have to bring in other stories about great female founders, and that sat really loud for me because my books weren’t mirrors for everyone.” Sichol connected with Kathleen King, the founder of Tate’s Bake Shop, which produces the popular, thin cookies in green packaging. Sichol compiled King’s proﬁle with 14 other proﬁles of female entrepreneurs to form “Idea Makers.” And, Sichol says, she’s working with Random House on a picture book called “Cookie Queen,” scheduled for publication in 2023, that tells King’s story to the youngest children. “You never know until you try,” she says, “and you have to not be scared of failing.” The importance of “Idea Makers,” Sichol’s latest book, is clear when she visits schools. She remembers visiting schools full of students from underrepresented backgrounds, including the children of recent immigrants, and she cites data showing that the rate of success among entrepreneurs is higher in the immigrant population. “No one’s telling these kids that they can dream big and that their ideas are amazing,” she says. “The only way to change the system is to show those windows and mirrors. You’ve got to be able to show kids what’s out there and tell them that you believe in them.” “I just want to introduce this to kids,” Sichol concludes. “Kids want to know that their ideas matter.”

PARTING SHOT

Visiting musicians ARKAI (right, standing) work with Brooks student musicians in the Center for the Arts in November. The genre-bending violinist and cellist also performed their “Letters from COVID” in a special concert in the Robert Lehman Art Center and performed for the school in Chapel. 80

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Thank You Brooks Fund Volunteers! Chris Abbott ’75

Kathryn Stone Conroy ’98

Jason L. Gold ’18

Matthew J. Mues ’04

Lowell C. Abbott ’10

Charles Cornish ’06

Coletrane S. Goodman ’15

Jacqueline L. Murphy ’14

Eduardo Sebastian Alvarez-Martinez ’18

Thomas Costin ’98

Bethany A. Gostanian ’04

Sean P. Nagle ’99

Cristina E. Antelo ’95

Charles C. Cottingham ’08

James T. Grainger ’05

Albert D. Nascimento ’10

Amy Couture ’10

James W. Greer III ’98

Andrew O. Nash ’89

Sarah Crockett ’11

Christopher P. Halloran ’07

Julian Ng ’05

Katarina Curtin ’12

Henry R. Hawkings ’10

Vivian Ng ’01

Dana D’Orio P

Jonathan P. Hendrickson ’08

Katherine M. O’Brien ’19

Gerry-Lynn Laudani Darcy ’91

William J. Herter ’00

James T. O’Connor ’99

Emma R. Dawson ’18

Gabriella M. Hillner ’17

Kailey M. O’Neill ’19

Robert Breck Denny Jr. ’06

Jeffery M. Hudson Jr. ’88

Isabella L. O’Shea ’18

John R. Barker ’87 P

Christophe M. Desmaison and Jennifer A. Griffin P

Charles A. Hunt ’60

DooHyun Park ’07

Allison P. Barry ’13

Jennifer Guerin DiFranco ’95

Ashley Hutchinson O’Connor ’08

Emma M. Parkinson ’07

Anoosha Barua ’20

Margarita Drinker Dillon ’87

Jacob A. M. Iwowo ’18

Erin Sullivan Beach ’91

Gregory E. Dombal and Sara B. Thatcher P

Kevin E. Jacobs ’06

Julie Petralia Derderian ’99

Elizabeth Donohue ’12

Jessica S. Kapadia ’04

Emily Gustafson Apostol ’08 Morgan K. Arakelian ’20 Thomas L. Armstead ’89 P Doug Armstrong ’01 Katharine M. Bacon ’10 Riley A. Baker ’18 Ashley V. Banker ’02

James G. Begen ’05 Rowan Beaudoin-Friede ’17 Leland B. Berman ’07 Chelsey Feole Bettencourt ’06 India Birdsong ’99 Iris Rodriguez Bonet ’90 David S. Bonner ’81

Peter V. Doyle ’69 Madison Dunn ’18 Peter Dunn ’82 and Deirdre DeNapoli Dunn ’82 Raul Duran and Lluvia Duran P Samuel Eisenman ’09

Sewell Robinson Bourneuf ’08

Aly Abou Eleinen ’18

Andrea Botur ’86

Grenville T. Emmet III ’56

Emily French Breakey ’03

Alexandra Booth Experton ’05

Kaleigh Bullock ’07 Anthony H. Burnett Jr. ’19 Alexander Buttress ’12 Julia Caffrey ’10 Lexi Caffrey ’06 Felicia Cafua ’15 Catherine Cannon-Francis ’96 Elizabeth D. Carey P Cailly A. Carroll ’06 Matthew Cascio ’91 Elsbeth Caulo ’17 Tamenang Choh ’17 Carly Churchill ’10 William Collier ’11

David B. Elmblad ’80

Allison A. Ferlito ’06 Phillip W. Field ’05 Barry Finegold and Amy Finegold P

Peter D. Jones ’56 Elizabeth Kearney Forbes ’98 Haley J. Keegan ’11 Abbey T. Kissel ’99 Frank A. Kissel Jr. ’96 Hannah Nichols Landsberg ’08 Alison Pennelli Lawler ’01 Sean Leonard P Noelle Brussard Levis ’04 Nekima Levy Armstrong ’94 John Van D. Lewis ’65 Helen Lin P Christina Bradley Lincoln ’07 Greta J. Lundeberg ’97

Jason D. Fraser ’90

Brittanye J. Mackey ’07

Geoffrey ’77 and Tracy Fulgione

David J. Mackey ’01 Joseph R. Malarney Jr. ’06

Wit Gan ’12

Bailey M. Martignetti ’96

Andrew A. Garcia ’94

Max R. McGillivray ’12

Matthew A. Geremia ’10

Jesse McKallagat ’00

Jonathan F. Gibbons ’92 and Sarah F. Gibbons P

John A. McKallagat ’66

Timothy D. Glen II ’09 Matthew A. Godoff ’01

Sally Milliken ’88 and James Dooling P

Emma M. Goff ’14

Julia S. Moore ’17

Alesandra V. Miller ’14

Matthew R. Pendergast ’98 William C. Phelps ’90 Gwen Spencer Picard P William Pitkin III ’89 Christopher M. Pope Jr. ’04 Peter B. Rathbone ’64 Zahid Rathore ’96 Michael J. Reed ’02 George W. Reithoffer ’57 Christopher S. Rheault ’96 Anthony J. Rich ’01

SAVE T HE DAT E

Abigail D. Skinner ’14 Kristin Homer Small ’04 Christopher J. Smith ’12 David A. Spector P Kevin J. Sullivan and Jeannie M. Sullivan P Stephen H. Taber ’72 Jade M. Tate ’18 Katie Rogers Taylor ’92 Monica Berube Thibault ’08 Charles J. Thomas ’05 Isabella Speakman Timon ’92 William B. Townsend P Claire O. Trustey ’19 H. Lindsay Wagner Turner ’06 Sarah H. Visagie ’93 C. Stow Walker Jr. ’71 Robert S. Walker ’53, H’66 Lucas R. Walsh ’03 Michael J. Wanyo ’97 Quentin H. Warren ’73

Delia E. Rissmiller ’03

Charles Wellso and Carmel Wellso P

Gee Yeon Ro ’09

William D. Werner ’73

E. Graye Robinson ’11

Peter J. Wetzel ’97

Emily C. Roush ’18

Stephanie W. Whitehead ’96

John S. Runnells III ’82

James S. Williams ’12

Eubene Sa ’07

Katherine E. Wilson ’19

Katharine Childs Sayles ’00

Kingsley P. Woolworth ’00

Rebecca Seston Schillaci ’01

Jennifer G. Yuil-Steinberg ’91

Thomas M. Scott and Maureen A. Scott P

Craig J. Ziady ’85 and Joan P. Ziady P

Anne F. Serrao ’20

Nicholas R. Ziebarth ’95

Vivek Sharma P Katerina Markos Sheerin ’03 Sarah C. Shepard ’02 Lowell Bundy Sichol ’92 Connor M. Silva ’19 Allen W. Sinsheimer ’73

We extend our gratitude to the alumni, parent and grandparent volunteers who serve as dedicated ambassadors of the Brooks Fund. Your support of the school is vital to our success as we strive to raise $2.45 million for Brooks this year. Thank you!

B ROOKS S C HOOL BROOKS FUND

If you would like to join our team of Brooks Fund volunteers, please contact Director of the Brooks Fund and Family Engagement Mary Merrill at mmerrill@brooksschool.org.

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Please visit www.brooksschool.org/alumni/events for up-to-date information on Brooks alumni events.

Brooks fourth-formers relax and spend time together following an afternoon engaging in team-building activities in the opening days of school.

Brooks Bulletin Fall 2021

Articles inside

The Heart is an Organ

Rising to the Occasion

Mapping a Mission

Leading Brooks Forward