Brooks Bulletin Magazine, Spring 2014 by Brooks School

BROOKS

BULLETIN • SPRING 2014

GI OVAN N I VARGAS ’ 1 7, starring in his first theatrical production at Brooks, performs a solo during the winter musical. Hear from other student-actors about the show, Page 19.

BROOKS BULLETIN

BOA R D O F T RU ST EES President William N. Booth ’67, P’05 Chestnut Hill, Mass. Vice Presidents W.J. Patrick Curley III ’69 New York, N.Y. Paul L. Hallingby ’65 New York, N.Y. Secretary Charles E. Bascom ’60 Marion, Mass. Treasurer Donald R. Peck P’11, P’14 Lexington, Mass.

Pamela W. Albright P’10, P’16 Topsfield, Mass.

Belisario A. Rosas P’15 Andover, Mass.

John R. Barker ’87 Wellesley, Mass.

Lynne A. Sawyer ’83 New York, N.Y.

Lammot Copeland Jr. ’50 Wilmington, Del.

Ashley Wightman Scott ’84, P’11, P’14 Manchester, Mass.

Anthony H. Everets ’93 New York, N.Y.

Thomas E. Shirley P’07, P’10, P’13 Beverly, Mass.

Carol W. Geremia P’10, P’14 Sherborn, Mass.

Ramakrishna R. Sudireddy P’15 Andover, Mass.

Steven R. Gorham ’85, P’17 Andover, Mass.

Isabella Speakman Timon ’92 Montchanin, Del.

Booth D. Kyle ’89 Seattle, Wash.

Joseph F. Trustey III P’13, P’16 Wenham, Mass.

Timothy H. McCoy ’81, P’14, P’15 Wellesley, Mass.

Alumni Trustees David E. Berroa ’13 Lowell, Mass.

John R. Packard Jr. Head of School Ginger Pearson ’99 Lowell, Mass. Charles C. Platt ’71, P’13 New York, N.Y.

Elizabeth C. Donohue ’12 Andover, Mass.

Trustees Emeriti Lucius A.D. Andrew ’57, P’81, P’83, P’87 Seattle, Wash. Henry M. Buhl ’48, P’82 New York, N.Y. Steve Forbes ’66, P’91 Bedminster, N.J. James G. Hellmuth P’78 Lawrence, N.Y. H. Anthony Ittleson ’56, P’84, P’86 Green Pond, S.C. Michael B. Keating ’58 Boston, Mass. Frank A. Kissel ’69 Far Hills, N.J. Peter A. Nadosy ’64 New York, N.Y. Peter W. Nash ’51 Nantucket, Mass. Cera B. Robbins New York, N.Y. Eleanor R. Seaman Hobe Sound, Fla. David R. Williams III ’67 Beverly Farms, Mass.

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B CONTENTS

BU L L E T I N • S P RI N G 2 0 1 4

Head of School John R. Packard Jr. Associate Head for External Affairs Jim Hamilton Director of Development Gage Dobbins

Director of Alumni Programs Emily French ’03 Director of Communications and Marketing Dan Callahan

Director of Admission Bini R. Egertson P’15 Editor/Writer Michelle Morrissey Design Lilly Pereira Contributors Erin Greene Emily Williams Photography Dan Callahan Hilton Chao ’14 Matt Grant Erin Greene Tom Kates Michelle Morrissey Mike Sperling Damian Strohmeyer

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 Michelle Morrissey: mail Editor, Brooks Bulletin 1160 Great Pond Road North Andover, MA 01845 email editor@brooksschool.org phone (978) 725-6326 © 2014 Brooks School

FEAT U R ES

D E PA RT M E N TS

20 Leading the Way

02 H ead of School’s Message

With a historic $5 million gift to Brooks, Nick Booth ’67, president of the board of trustees, is showing that he’s committed to the institution he’s leading, and he aims to gain the support of the alumni and parents who share that commitment.

28 This Campus Life

Residential life comes into a new focus as programming expands, day students find new opportunities to join in and parents agree that the boarding school life at Brooks is something that supports their children both academically and socially.

03 News + Notes 16 In the Classroom 43 Brooks Connections 50 Class Notes 80 Parting Shot

36 Winningest Winter

Both boys squash and wrestling recorded historic wins this winter. Student-athletes talk about key moments, and about how they supported each other even in sports that focus on individual performances.

INSIDE FRONT COVER The girls of Hett East battle it out over a tug-of-war at Field Day, just one of the many dormteam and day-student team activities that make up the fun side of campus life. See story, Page 28.

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

Winter Wonders As February began, we found ourselves

“T here will be much more to come, but we do all of this work intent on achieving our mission.”

emerging from Winter Term, beginning the spring term with cold and snow all around us, and thinking about an imminent Boston Reception and full weekend with the Board of Trustees. The reception was held the night prior to our board meetings, and the confluence of 175 alumni and parents at the reception, along with 24 trustees giving time and expertise to the school for two full days, left me feeling excited about winter wonders and next steps that will improve the school. After three years of Winter Term experiences, I find myself in a state of thoroughly impressed disbelief when observing colleagues and students immersing themselves in the manner that they do. During a philanthropy class, I witnessed the commitment of our students to learning about four local nonprofit organizations, and to competing for actual dollars to give to those organizations at the course’s end. I was invited to be a judge in the competition and cannot recall when I felt more pride in our students than I did when trying to contribute to the impossible dilemma of selecting a winning team when all of them were winners (See story, Page 16). I wrote to myself during the presentations that these students are why others should support Brooks School: the class reached them deeply, and none of them will think about organizations in need in the same way again. The sense of leadership, citizenship and responsibility each of them will take forth, furthered considerably by this class and school experience, is why we all should support Brooks. On Saturday morning with our trustees, this philanthropy class was joined by classes that had spent Winter Term as social entrepreneurs and as students of

the terrain of the North Shore. All three groups presented their work to the board, and the conversation moved from seeing spotted owls and animal tracks in the snow to working with a girls’ school in Afghanistan in ways that inspired them to work collaboratively and tirelessly to improve the student experience at the school. They met families living in Habitat for Humanity homes, flew over the North Shore to see it from a new perspective and built a solar panel for the Afghan school. To see students so fully invested and committed to school was moving and inspiring. At Brooks School we seek to provide the most meaningful educational experience our students will have in their lives. That’s our mission. During the coming year, we will find our way to a curriculum that recalibrates in a more intentional way the balance between skills, competencies and content. We will embark this spring and through the current calendar year on an incredibly exciting total renovation of the Ashburn Chapel — modernizing, enlarging and preserving this iconic building for generations to come. We will construct a synthetic turf field fit for all teams who compete in the fall and spring. There will be much more to come, but we do all of this work intent on achieving our mission; intent on doing all we can for our students learning about philanthropy, the North Shore in winter, social entrepreneurship and so much more. Students and colleagues have led me to a state of thoroughly impressed disbelief, and it is with them squarely in mind that we move forward intent on being a better and better Brooks School. Thank you for all your care and support. Have a great start to summer.

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NEWS + NOTES IN THIS SECTION 04 News from Campus 14 Campus Scene 16 In the Classroom

Steven Ives ’15 studies the names at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., as part of his Winter Term class, The Vietnam Experience. For more on the class trip to the nation’s capital, see Page 9.

NEWS + NOTES

Brooks Bucket List Fifth-former Christine Shin’s photo project asks students to think about goals they want to achieve before graduation Christine Shin ’15 came across something Christine Shin ’15 used a modern version of a Polaroid camera to capture her fellow students’ bucket list items.

See some of Christine’s photos on Page 80.

online she thought was pretty interesting. On buzzfeed.com, she saw the work of Brooklyn-based photographer Nicole Kenney, who asked people in several big cities to complete the statement: Before I die I want to … “She took their pictures, and then the people wrote on the Polaroid picture what they would do. I thought it would be cool if we could do it here at Brooks,” said Christine. She tailored the project to Brooks, making the question, “What do you want to do before you graduate from high school?”

Then she started working with faculty member Heather Lazar, and getting support for purchasing a modern version of a Polaroid camera and the special film needed. Once Christine announced her project to her fellow students at School Meeting, they were lining up to take part during lunch periods over several days earlier this year. Now, the photos are hanging in the Student Center for public enjoyment. The answers included classic “bucket list” ideas like skydiving, but others were more surprising, said Christine.

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SU STAINAB IL ITY

“One of the kids I know is really quiet, and she said she wanted to take more risks,” she said. Other answers were little more than inside jokes between friends, but even those will be valuable memories when those friends can look back on their Brooks years, said Christine. Some answers were quite interesting: “Learn more people’s names and have a conversation with them,” “Be a leader” and “Have an impact on a teacher’s life.” And of course, some might never come true: “Someone wrote that she wanted to drive the Zamboni at the ice rink,” Christine said. The fifth-former said she was most excited when planning with Lazar where the photos would hang as an art installation, and thinking of her peers’ reaction to seeing it all together. Shin hopes people will look at the display and marvel at the broad range of things that students want to accomplish. “This project had an impact on me. I’ve looked at all the photos together, and it’s really cool. It’s the faces, the handwriting … it’s unique. Whatever someone wrote about themselves says a lot about them.” Christine said she hasn’t been very active in the arts at Brooks, but found a love of art by doing this project independently. “This project means a lot to me, but it also says a lot about Brooks. I am just one student who had one idea, out of all the students, and I got so much support for it from my friends and the faculty. I just had the idea and now I’ve accomplished it. It shows that Brooks is so supportive, you can do anything here. At another school, I don’t think I could have done it.” So what was Christine’s one thing she wanted to do before Prize Day 2015? “Mine was ‘Be the change you wish to see in the community.’ I had a lot I wanted to do, but it came down to that quote. It’s been my favorite quote for a while. I want to be the change I want to see. I want to leave an impact.”

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Brooks competes against Exeter and Governor’s to reduce energy usage Earlier this year, Brian Levenson

Brian, Brant and Catalina

’14, Brant Abraham ’14 and

used School Meeting

Catalina Robert ’14 led a student

announcements and a

movement aiming to raise cli-

Facebook page to get

mate-change awareness on

the word out. They also

campus. The Reduction Rivalry is

hosted a local foods

an annual event that pits Brooks

dinner where sliders

dorms against each other and

were served and they

two nearby schools to see which

screened a movie

school can reduce its energy usage

explaining electricity

by the greatest percentage over a

reduction tips.

two-week period. The competition began

Director of Environmental

You can stay up-todate with Brooks environmental endeavors on the new sustainability page on our website: www. brooksschool.org/ sustainability You can visit the Reduction Rivalry website for more information, www. reductionrivalry.org

February 10, when representa-

Stewardship Brian Palm

tives from Phillips Exeter and

said gaming systems and

Governor’s Academy came to

refrigerators use up the most

Brooks to discuss how they were

energy in dorms, so students were

going to measure energy usage,

encouraged to unplug gaming

and shared ideas about how to get

systems when not in use, and

their fellow students interested

share one refrigerator per floor.

and excited about the competition. “Exeter is a lot bigger than

“Over a two-week period you see some savings, but it’s not big

Brooks,” Brant explained. “So the

in the scheme of things,” Brian

big challenge for them is the size

said. “The hope is to build those

of their dorms, which are huge.

good habits.”

It’s harder for them to get their kids fired up.” Governor’s had a different sort of challenge. The school

Brant agreed. “The goal was to come together as a school to build something bigger than we are,” he said.

uses old, manual electricity meters, so students have to read the meters and collect the data themselves. Brant said dorm leaders who set the fun tone for the competition were integral to Brooks coming in second, with energy usage down 11.9 percent. Catalina, who is a leader in her dorm, said the girls of Gardner are competitive and took on the challenge enthusiastically.

NEWS + NOTES

“It was like we won a World Cup or something,” says Seif Abou Eleinen ’14 of the celebratory mood during the street protests in Egypt last summer.

You have been witness to a historic revolution back home in Egypt. What was that like? When everything started heating up, I was calling my parents every day, asking them what was happening. Once I got home last summer, I went to the streets for like a week. I was literally there, in the streets, part of the protest. The first day I was terrified; I didn’t want to go. But my dad said, “We have to go.” My dad’s reaction surprised me; he hasn’t always been like that. He said, “If we don’t do anything, nothing is going to change.” When the opportunity came [to take part], my dad said, “I’m doing it for you, I’m doing it for your brother.” When I finally went, I saw my classmates, my teachers; my grandfather was there. It was like we won a World Cup or something; it was a huge party. I feel like it’s my duty to talk about what actually happened, because the media coverage hasn’t really told the real story. It’s not really settled, but we know where we’re going. We’re pretty optimistic.

2 Fast 5 // Q+A Seif Abou Eleinen ’14 is one of the top junior squash players in the world, but there’s more to him than what fans see on the court. Eleinen is from Alexandria, Egypt, and has been witness to political protests there — and active in sharing his knowledge of The Arab Spring and other current events with his peers at Brooks. He talked with the Bulletin about his life here and back home, as well as his future plans. 6

Here at Brooks, you’re a leader in a lot of ways, namely in your dorm. How has it been in Blake? I feel a strong connection to Blake House; it’s the only place I’ve lived during all three years at Brooks. This year the prefects have worked hard to bring the dorm a lot closer, and it’s worked. Younger students aren’t intimidated by upperclassmen as much, so we’ve got sophomores hanging out with juniors and seniors. It’s more about being from the same dorm than being in different grades. It’s been challenging, too. Sometimes you’re all sitting in a room together, and everyone is watching a movie, and then it comes to be 11 o’clock, and you have to tell people to go to bed. You’re trying to have fun, but also telling people to

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Quote / Unquote

go to bed, or keep it down. It was really hard at first to play both roles.

You’re one of the top squash players in the world — how did you start playing? I started playing sports when I was 3 or 4, and then around 12 or 13, I fell in love with squash and soccer. It was a hard decision between the two — I love soccer, but I sprained my ankle when I was younger, and squash made the most sense. In Egypt, I was practicing four hours a day, five times a week, and was entered in something like 14 tournaments a year. My family and I made the decision for me to come to a school where I could play squash but also get a really good education. I thought a lot about it, and thought about what would happen if I got injured.

You’ll be graduating in a few weeks. Any favorite memories you’ll take with you? I’ve learned there’s a lot more to life than just squash or just school. I got to experience so much here. It helped me here to know that squash was “my thing” but I also am proud of the fact that I tried new things; I got to be in student government here, got to be a dorm prefect. Everything helped me find what I enjoy. I’m really glad I took the opportunity to come here.

What’s ahead for you after Brooks? I’ve been accepted to Harvard, so I’ve been playing a lot more squash this spring. I have to earn my spot to play at Harvard; I’ll have to work really hard, but I’m willing to do it. After college, I’m not sure. I really want to go back to Egypt, even if it’s not right after I graduate. My dream is to work for a multinational company that has me in both places. I feel like going back home was the whole point of me coming to Brooks.

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“ From a great distance he really shaped my life. As a teenager, I learned what was important in the world from his values and his actions. And I especially loved how he could get people singing. I learned that from him.” Interim Minister ALDEN FLANDERS on American folk singer and activist Pete Seeger, who died on January 27 at the age of 94. Flanders dedicated a January Chapel service to Seeger, and led students in singing Seeger songs such as “Turn! Turn! Turn!” which Seeger adapted from Chapter 3 of the Book of Ecclesiastes, the biblical passage that also served as the chapel service’s reading that evening.

AS K TH E E X PE RT

Peter Olrich, Dean of College Counseling With summer just around the corner, are you a parent worried that your son or daughter is thinking more about beach days than his or her college plans? Our resident college expert, Dean of College Counseling Peter Olrich, shares his advice from the experts he trusts: the college admissions representatives who will read Brooks students’ files. “Each February, we host our fifth-form kickoff event here with college admission reps and juniors and their parents. The college reps are always asked about the importance of summer internships, service, camps, etc., and inevitably their answer is the same: Students should do things that are aligned with their interests, and that help them to grow in ways that are authentic to them. If a student loves acting, then theater camp can make all the sense in the world. If a kid is a recruited athlete, then those college athletic camps can be a great choice. If a student has loved a job as a camp counselor or an ice cream scooper, then he or she should continue to dig into those interests. If a student has been committed to community service, then by all means, build those houses in Costa Rica, or closer to home. If a student is engaged intellectually, then take that summer course at a college campus,” said Olrich. “We tell students: Always find ways to grow and stretch yourself during the summer, but do so in ways that are authentic to you, and not what you think colleges are looking for.” And he reminds parents that while planning those activities, keep in mind that your kids won’t get to be kids much longer, “so don’t be too anxious if your teenager’s summer includes a good amount of fun with his or her friends.”

NEWS + NOTES

Trustees Winter Meeting

Busy Summer Ahead On Campus When the Board of Trustees convened in

February, much of the discussion focused on campus improvements and the busy months ahead. Check out some of the highlights on summer projects: Chapel Renovations: The Ashburn Chapel

will undergo a renovation and expansion to provide more seating as well as renovated meeting space in the lower level. With a goal of maintaining the iconic look and feel of the building, For more on these the renovated structure will and other campus “bump out” a bit on the sides projects, see Leading and in the front. Trustees the Way, Page 20. reviewed options for seating, and discussed the use of lower level space. Fundraising for this project is under way, and work will start in June and be completed this fall. The school has hired architecture firm Goody Clancy as well as Consigli Construction — the company that built the Science Center — for the project. The renovation is part of a larger discussion of the Chapel program, which a committee of teaching and administrative faculty is studying. Playing on New Turf: Trustees heard from

Director of Operations Dean Ellerton about the new turf field that will be part of the campus landscape this fall. Fundraising for this project is also under way, and trustees saw plans for the field, which will be located roughly where the boys 2nd lacrosse and boys 2nd soccer teams currently practice. The 80-yardby-120-yard surface will be used for fall and spring sports, and will feature terraced seating, lights for night games, a scoreboard and a storage shed for equipment. It is being designed by Huntress Associates of Andover. Work on the field begins in June and should be finished by September.

Visiting artist Jen Bradley works with art student Annie Payson ’16 in the art studios.

Winter Artists In Residence During the late fall and early winter, three visiting artists shared their talents with Brooks students and Lehman Art Center visitors. In November, Jen Bradley brought paintings and drawings from her Ape Drawing Project to the Lehman, based on her work with the gorillas at the Franklin Park Zoo. Bradley also worked with students in a 2-D art class during her time on campus, explaining how she began drawing the animals, and teaching students how to follow their own creativity. “I want them to allow themselves to follow something that interests them without knowing where it will lead them,” she said. Nella Lush displayed her paintings in the gallery in January, and worked with faculty members Amy Graham and Gage Dobbins on their Winter Term class, All Things Italian: A Cultural Study. For more information on the Lehman visiting artists, check out www. brooksschool.org/lehman

Students in the course studied everything from Italian art and fashion to the food and film of Italy. Lush’s visit was perfectly timed for the Italian Winter Term, as she grew up in southern

Italy in the region of Puglia “between the ubiquitous olive groves and the Adriatic Sea,” she writes in her bio. In February, Tony Decaneas brought his photographic work to the Lehman, and worked with visual arts students. During a 2-D art class, Decaneas talked with students about his work in the Lehman, commenting on the photographs he took of his father’s village in Greece. His own photography teacher had once told him to “photograph what you know or what you want to know.” He also worked with art history classes, based on his experience representing photographers Ernest Withers and Bradford Washburn through his gallery, Decaneas Archive.

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A sit-down with Senator John McCain The Vietnam Experience class goes to Washington to round out their Winter Term studies

Students in Head of School John Packard’s Winter Term class

ventured to the nation’s capital in January and got the special opportunity to meet Senator John McCain. Packard, who taught the Vietnam Experience course with faculty member John Fahey, said the three-day excursion to D.C. provided an opportunity for the class to experience the war both from a worm’s eye view, by hearRead more about ing about veterans’ experiences, and from this year’s Winter a bird’s eye view, by learning how wars are Term classes at www. conceived and determined. brooksschool.org/ academics/winter-term “The treat with McCain is that he has done both,” Packard explained. “There isn’t a more known or celebrated Vietnam veteran.” During the class visit, McCain showed the Brooks students a picture of the North Vietnamese taking him out of the Western Lake in Hanoi, where he had landed after ejecting from his Skyhawk dive bomber. Holding up the picture, he told stories of his time in the war, as the awestruck students listened intently. Matt McCormack ’16 asked how McCain’s experience in the war has affected his decision-making as a politician.

“As a politician now, I’m more aware of political prisoners. Unless you’ve lived through that, you can’t understand what it’s like,” McCain said. The D.C. trip also included a guided tour of the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, Va.; a visit to the White House with Brooks alum Greta Lundeberg ’97; dinner with Brooks alum Trevor Potter ’74 who spoke about campaign finance and his work with Senator McCain on the McCainFeingold Act; and visits to Arlington National Cemetery, the Holocaust Museum and the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial.

Students pose with Sen. John McCain during a trip to Washington. In the back row, from left are Zoe Dickerson ’15, Elizabeth Mahoney ’16, Sathvik Sudireddy ’15, Andrea Millard ’16, Mary Alston Herres ’16, Megan Neal ’16 and Cassandra Clements ’16. In front, from left, are: Liam Scott ’17, Ollie Gorham ’17, Will Gibeley ’17, Sen. McCain, Matt McCormack ’16 and Steven Ives ’15.

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NEWS + NOTES

Lessons in Culture Students attend diversity leadership conference, share what they learn with their Brooks peers

UN ITY DAY HI G HLI G H TS To mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January, students and faculty take a day away from Winter Term work to focus on diversity, inclusiveness and respect. Dubbed Unity Day, this year’s celebration included small group discussions led by student facilitators as well as film and documentary screenings. The day started with a gathering in the chapel, where Zach McCabe ’15 encouraged students to remember the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. Also speaking at the opening ceremony were sisters Kennedy Pounds ’17 and Jayda Pounds ’15, as well as Kenza Bouanane ’17 and Ikenna Ndugba ’16, who read an original poem he wrote for the occasion. Other workshops throughout the day focused on Civil Rights and The March on Washington and LGBTQ Voices.

When Analiese Fernandes ’15 listened

to a student from another school share her story at the NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Council (SDLC) conference in January, she was moved. The young woman Analiese was listening to had been born to a teenage mother and wasn’t close to her stepfather. Her mother had recently had a seizure, and her health was failing. “She was a junior, like us,” explained Analiese. “It was such a sad story, but the fact that she was able to open up, for me it set the groundwork of being as open as possible and not being afraid.” Listening to and sharing stories was central to the conference experience for the six Brooks students: Jayda Pounds ’15, Olivia Pearson ’15, Kenza Bouanane ’17, Zach McCabe ’15, Branden Shaw ’14 and Analiese. They all say they came home from the experience changed. SDLC is an inclusive, multiracial, multicultural gathering of student leaders at independent schools around the country. The

three-day conference focuses on self-reflection, leadership and community building through exercises designed to help students build cultural competency and develop strategies for social justice. Olivia, who was there for the second year in a row and was serving as a peer facilitator, said the issues discussed, such as homophobia and racism, could be difficult to talk about, but that the environment at the conference was open and non-judgmental. The Brooks students took part in discussions and exercises in groups large and small during the conference, and also heard from speakers such as Pulitzer Prizewinning author Junot Diaz and Michel Martin, host of NPR’s Tell Me More. Since coming back to campus, Jayda said she is keeping her commitment to the conference’s ideals close at hand. “I was aware of racial issues already, but the conference made me even more aware. Every night before I go to bed I think

To wrap up Unity Day, Boston-based dance company Jo-Mé performed in the auditorium. But before the dancers graced the stage, Diversity and Inclusivity Coordinator Shaunielle McDonald ’94 said she was grateful for the day’s program. “We’ve come to the end of our work today, but not the end of our work,” she said. “The learning continues.”

“ What we should think about is cultural competence — how you interact with history and how history interacts with your identity — and making sure a Brooks student is comfortable anywhere in the world.” DIVERSITY AND INCLUSIVITY COORDINATOR SHAUNIELLE MCDONALD ’94

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Gay-Straight Alliance Opens Up Conversations A small group of students gathered one winter evening to discuss

Branden Shaw ’14, Analiese Fernandes ’15, Zach McCabe ’15, Olivia Pearson ’15, Kenza Bouanane ’17 and Jayda Pounds ’15 all say they came home from the experience changed.

of a problem we have as a school and as a society, and I write down a solution.” Many of the students, including Analiese, worked to bring what they learned at SDLC back to their peers, especially for Unity Day, the school’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Olivia says she thinks students sometimes feel forced into doing activities focused on diversity, but that she wants to find ways to make it fun. Diversity and Inclusivity Coordinator Shaunielle McDonald ’94 said every year, the benefits of the conference reveal themselves back on campus, even though only a few students attend each year. “What we ultimately strive for is a school environment that is as equitable and accepting as SDLC,” she said. “What we should think about is cultural competence — how you interact with history and how history interacts with your identity — and making sure a Brooks student is comfortable anywhere in the world.”

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the Sochi Winter Olympics — not favorite athletes or sports, but the controversy surrounding the Russian laws banning homosexual “propaganda.” It was just one topic under the heading of “current events” that members of the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) have been discussing lately. The group, founded in 1999, has annually been an advocacy group on campus, supporting LGBTQ members of the community and striving to make the campus a safe and welcoming community for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. This year’s GSA leaders, sixth-formers Danielle Arseneau and Emma Gordon, explained that the group sponsors events such as a Paint Dance and a Brooks observance of National Day of Silence. But more than those events, this year they worked on fostering discussion among their peers about LGBTQ issues. “This year, we aimed to get more awareness out there of what the GSA is, and to raise awareness of different issues going on around the world,” Danielle said, noting For more on the GSA that other group discussions have included and other clubs, visit: talk about same-sex marriage legislation www.brooksschool.org/ student_life in different states. As for the controversy around the Winter Olympics, Danielle said she was pleased that the U.S. and other countries didn’t boycott the games. “Since the Olympics are a time for unity and peace, I hoped that the protection of all people attending would be the No. 1 priority. President Obama’s choice in delegation that includes two gay women was perfect. Without a boycott, he showed Putin and the world that he and the U.S. will not stand for hatred and intolerance — a very bold and beautiful move on his part,” said Danielle. As their hectic senior autumn gave way to more manageable schedules in the winter and spring, both Emma and Danielle hoped that more students would be interested in joining the discussion of topics on a Brooks level, as well. “I’d love to hear from some students who have opposing views on LGBTQ issues. We might not agree with you, but we are going to respect your opinion; it would be great to get that debate going so we can learn from each other,” said Danielle. Emma said this year the group has discussed life at Brooks, and looked at ways the GSA can help students who want to be openly gay but might be afraid to share that with their peers. Danielle agreed. Whether a student is gay, or has someone in his or her life who is gay or just supports Brooks being a welcoming community, she said, “We want them to know that this is a place people can come and be comfortable with who they are.”

NEWS + NOTES

Insight for Student-Athletes Brooks student-athletes often have big dreams of playing their favorite sport at college and beyond, and every year, many of them do go on to score big by playing on college teams. But the college recruiting process can be tricky to navigate for a student-athlete who has been working toward a big goal: playing competitively in college.

Alesandra Miller ’14 (at left) was recruited to play field hockey for Boston College this fall.

To help parents and students learn more about how athletics factors

into the college admission process, the College Counseling Office organized a panel discussion with college representatives: Christine Lowert, assistant director for compliance and recruiting at Boston College; Holley Tyng, associate coach of womDownload a pdf on Advice en’s ice hockey at Dartmouth College; and Brian for Student-Athletes at Hamm, head baseball coach at Amherst College. www.brooksschool.org/ academics/college/athletes “It’s important for both parents and students alike to get a better understanding of the timeline of the process, when coaches can contact students, the importance of being in touch and being proactive,” said Andy Campbell, associate director of college counseling at Brooks. “But most important, as the panelists pointed out, is the emphasis on ‘fit’ — finding the

right school and campus regardless of athletic commitment. We heard Holley Tyng say, ‘four years for the next 40 of your life.’ Sports are great but the social and academic experience in college is just as valuable. It needs to be a place you genuinely love and not only when you’re wearing pads and cleats.” All three panelists explained some key points for prospective college athletes to know — for example, when are you officially a recruit?

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Is a verbal scholarship offer legally binding? Is it more attractive to a coach to specialize in one sport during high school, or to show talent in more than one area? The college reps advised that Brooks athletes should be talking with their parents, coaches and a member of the College Counseling Office to chart their course to a possible college athletic bid. Hamm, Lowert and Tyng explained how their individual schools classify students, taking into account test scores, grades, athletic prowess, coaches’ input and their own interactions with the student. Parents asked several questions, wondering how much self-promotion their children should be doing to fulfill their dream of being recruited to play college sports. Once a college coach and an athlete have connected either via phone or email or through a coach, the college reps all said that they are the most impressed when a student — and not a parent — advocates for him/herself. “If you pick up the phone and call a coach, you are going to get his or her attention 95 percent of the time,” said Hamm. “It’s a little bit

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“ I ask my recruits to be selfish in the process, because we as coaches are going to be selfish. Coaches are going to tell you the strengths of the program, but also talk to the players, they’re going to be pretty straight with you about the pros and cons of any college program.” BRIAN HAMM, head baseball coach at Amherst College

less if it’s an email, and I can always tell when someone has had their parents type an email and sent it from their own email account.” Dean of College Counseling Peter Olrich said sometimes kids believe the myth that since they are so good at their sport, coaches or colleges are going to find them. “The truth is you need to be active … with the coaches and the programs you are interested in, and also be active with us [in College Counseling] in expressing your interest.” Much of the discussion of the day focused on making sure a college is a good fit beyond just the sport a student wants to play. “When possible, we want students to come to campus, see a game, meet the coaches, meet the players and also sit in on a class,” said Tyng of Dartmouth. “I encourage them to think, ‘Is this a setting I am comfortable with?’ I encourage them to spend a ‘day in the life’ on campus.”

Hamm agreed. “I ask my recruits to be selfish in the process, because we as coaches are going to be selfish. Coaches are going to tell you the strengths of the program, but students should also talk to the players, they’re going to be pretty straight with you about the pros and cons of any college program,” Hamm said. Campbell, who coaches boys hockey and baseball at Brooks, agreed with panelists’ focus on academics as well as athletics. “Admission offices admit students, coaches do not. No matter what message is being sent from a coach or how good a student athlete is at his or her sport, nothing is more important than maximizing time in the classroom,” said Campbell. “The more dedication you show academically and the harder you strive for academic growth will only open up the door to additional opportunities at some great places.”

CAMPUS NEWS + NOTES SCENE

FROZ E N FE NWAY

The boys of the Brooks 1st hockey team played Frozen Fenway in January against Buckingham, Browne & Nichols. Although Brooks lost, players said it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. “Just skating around, seeing the Green Monster, the stands around me, the Citgo sign over left field, it was overwhelming,” said Cam Armstrong ’14, assistant captain and defenseman.

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IN THE CLASSROOM

Jayda Pounds ’15 talks with students at the Reilly Elementary School in Lowell. The Philanthropy Winter Term class visited Reilly to learn how classroom volunteers help out on a daily basis.

Doing Good Class teaches students the ins and outs of philanthropy and nonprofits Third-former Jackson Quinn learned something during

his Winter Term class that he said will stick with him forever. It was the story of a veteran who was homeless and suffering from PTSD and other problems. “I was really shocked that a war hero was forgotten and left alone,” Quinn said of the story he heard at Lazarus House Ministries, a charity based in Lawrence that offers food, shelter, clothing and job preparation to people in need. “Now I see charities in a new light. I see what they are doing really impacts people. Even just reminding people that they are people. … The littlest thing like saying ‘hi’ can help,” said Jackson. He took the Winter Term class, Pass it On: Experimenting with Philanthropy, which taught students about charitable organizations and philanthropy practices while also placing them in a volunteer role at local charities and ultimately lobbying for individual nonprofits to receive a donation.

Teachers Lillian Miller and Kathy Crowley matched student groups with four local charities: Lazarus House, the Greater Boston Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity of the Merrimack Valley and Cradles to Crayons. Each student group had to advocate for their chosen charity, swaying a panel of six adults — Shaunielle McDonald ’94, director of community service; Andrew Chaban P’17, CEO of Princeton Properties; Dave Welbourn, president and CEO of the Essex County Community Foundation; Brooks Trustee Pam Albright P’10, P’16; Head of School John Packard and Director of Communications Dan Callahan — to prove why their group should be awarded the largest donation. During their presentations, the students demonstrated their deep knowledge of each organization, appealing to the panelists’ emotions, as well as their financial sense. Students explained where

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IN THE CLASSROOM

the donations would be used, how many people would be helped and why their nonprofit needed the money the most. The winning organization, the Greater Boston Food Bank, received $2,000, with the other three organizations receiving $1,000. Highland Street Foundation (a Newton-based charitable organization that supports programs for children and families statewide) as well as parents and faculty members donated the grants. Miller and Crowley are proud the course gave students different kinds of opportunities. They spent time doing hands-on volunteering, as well as hearing from board members of various nonprofits and learning the financial ins and outs of charitable groups and philanthropic organizations. “Before this, the world of philanthropy was kind of foreign to me,” said Prinyaka Thakuria ’17, as she hammered nail-protection plates into the walls of a Habitat for Humanity house in Lawrence. “But we’ve been to so many places, I view the world a little bit differently now, because I have a better understanding of families who don’t have a lot.” The class was the brainchild of Spanish teacher Lillian Miller, who grew up doing community service in her native country of Peru. Through mutual friends and professional connections, she talked to people at the Highland Street Foundation and WEB EXCLUSIVES then was connected with John Payson Read what Dan Pallotta, P’16, chairman of the board at the entrepreneur, author, and humanitarian activist, told Essex County Community Foundation. students about charity “I wanted to plant that seed. I want when he visited class during students to get that thrill that you get Winter Term at www.brooks school.org/bulletin/pallotta when you do something good; it makes you happy. And once they get hooked, Hear how each student team they will keep doing it,” Miller said. advocated for its nonprofit at www.brooksschool.org/ “As they get older, there’s going to be bulletin/wtphilanthropy less time for hands-on volunteering. But from this class, they learned other ways they can help: they can serve on a board, be a consultant, organize a fundraiser.” The speakers’ visits provided valuable information for the students as they planned their final presentations. And the hands-on volunteer work provided them with the opportunity to hear first-hand the moving stories of the people they were helping. “They got to hear the stories of people who want to succeed, they just need help to succeed,” said Miller. “The students really gained an understanding of the humanity piece of it. They connected with that. Hopefully that’s a hook for them to stay connected throughout their lives.”

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All-Star Lineup The Pass It On: Experimenting with Philanthropy class visited with an impressive list of professionals throughout the three weeks of Winter Term, including:

EMERSON DAHMEN

DAN PALLOTTA

Building director, Habitat

Entrepreneur, author

for Humanity of the

and humanitarian activist

Merrimack Valley

who created the longdistance, multi-day

GAGE DOBBINS

charitable industry,

Director of Development

including events such as

at Brooks School

the Breast Cancer ThreeDay Walk and AIDS Rides

BARRY FINEGOLD State senator

JIM RULLO

(D-Andover) who is

Senior vice president at

also running for state

Wellington Management,

treasurer

Boston, and parent of John ’16

CAROLINE LAVOIE-SHUSTER

BRIDGET SHAHEEN

Assistant manager of

Executive director of

grants and services at

Lazarus House Ministries,

Essex County Community

Lawrence, Mass.

Foundation JOE TRUSTEY BRUCE LETWIN

Current Brooks trustee,

Vice president and

chairman of the board

secretary of the

at Shore Country

Merrimack Valley

Day School, parent of

Habitat for Humanity

Caroline ’13 and Anna ’15

Board of Directors, parent of Nick ’09 and Alex ’11

DAN WALSH Entrepreneur who

NOREEN MCMAHON

founded TeamIMPACT,

Senior director of

a nonprofit that matches

programs at Highland

children who are ill with

Street Foundation,

college sports teams,

Newton, Mass.

allowing them to become full-fledged members of

MARTY MEEHAN

the teams

Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Lowell, former U.S. congressman

NEWS + NOTES

Exchanging Cultures Visiting students reflect on their time at Brooks Late winter is a busy time on campus for the Exchange Program, with Brooks

A History of Activism Civil rights leader Diane Nash addresses students

students readying for adventure ahead in places like Scotland, Peru and Hungary, and visiting foreign students saying goodbye and returning home. The five most recent visiting students have done some pretty interesting things while they’ve been here. Adele Melia from Glenalmond College in Scotland played the organ in chapel. Tom Stodart, also from Glenalmond, played the bagpipes before a wrestling match. And the group Learn more about the Brooks exchange program at www. brooksschool.org/ academics/exchange program

has gone on several field trips, including one to Washington D.C. Ariana Bonilla from Colegio Trener in Peru sledded down the hill behind the gym — she had never been sledding before.

And Sebastian Silva of Colegio Trener loved having lunch in the dining hall, where he met a lot of people and said he felt very welcomed. The students lived in dorms on campus, went to classes and participated in afternoon activities as part of the Brooks Exchange Program. Founded in 1987, the program accepts students from partner schools in Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, Hungary, Scotland, Spain, France and Peru, and also sends Brooks students abroad to study at those schools. Those small moments are what the students say they will cherish the most back at home. “They welcomed us as new students and made us feel like a part of Brooks,” Sebastian said. When three Brooks students (Baker Moore ’15, Ellie McCoy ’15 and Olivia Pearson ’15) come to his school this summer, he hopes to make them feel just as welcome.

Diane Nash, civil rights activist and founding member of

the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), visited campus in March, sharing her story and inspiring students to take action for causes they believe in. Nash played a critical role in desegregating lunch counters in Nashville in the 1960s, and she organized and led the Freedom Rides in an effort to desegregate buses throughout the South. “She’s part of an incredible group of people who changed our country,” Associate Head for Academic Affairs and history teacher Lance Latham said. “She was determined to make a difference with her actions, and she did.” Nash grew up in Chicago, but in 1959 found herself in Nashville, Tenn., as a student at Fisk University. There, for the first time in her life, Nash encountered fierce racism and segregation. The stories of what she did to combat that racism captivated students’ attention. She described being arrested for teaching non-violence to students who were under 21 and serving 10 days in jail while pregnant with her first child. “At the end of that sentence I was stronger, because I learned I could survive with almost nothing,” she said. Nash not only survived, she became a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. She outlined some of the principles of non-violence that she learned from Reverend James Lawson, whose non-violent civil disobedience workshops she attended in Nashville in the 1960s. One of the most important principles was to take steps to make sure change continues after it’s been implemented. And she encouraged Brooks students to take responsibility for the future of their country. “For anything to be done, you have to do it,” she said. B RO O KS BUL L E TI N

IN N THE EWS CLASSROOM + N OT ES

WINTER MUSICAL Students perfect their comedic timing in Lucky Stiff Caitlin Kluchnik ’15 was wear-

“I saw how much fun my

by Lynn Ahrens with music

friends who did theater had,” he

gray wig covered with curlers,

by Stephen Flaherty, is based

said. “So I wanted to try it out.”

getting ready to put on the

on The Man Who Broke the

Lucky Stiff was chosen,

makeup she needs to appear

Bank at Monte Carlo, a 1935

said Theater Director Rob

much older, and grumpier,

romantic comedy.

Lazar, because it is accessible

than her years. “I didn’t know how to cackle,

What followed was an action-

to students who are new to

packed musical farce. The plot

theater as well as those who

I had to learn that for the show,”

gave Brooks students plenty of

are more experienced. It also

she said. “It took practice, a

material; the show is full of inter-

provides a welcome escape for

lot of embarrassment, and

esting characters and costumes.

the audience.

a lot of practice.”

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The production, written

ing a blue housedress and a

Giovanni Vargas ’17 was

“You can spend an hour and

Caitlin was playing the part

dressed in a suit to play the part

a half forgetting about every-

of the mean-spirited landlady in

of Harry, the nephew who inher-

thing else,” Lazar said. “It’s

Lucky Stiff, the school’s winter

its his uncle’s money. This

designed to be a fun adventure.”

musical theater production.

was his first experience acting.

Nick Booth ’67 makes historic donation to Brooks School

Leading the Way BY DA N CA L L A HA N

When Nick Booth ’67 announced his plans to give Brooks $5 million, it was a moment of more than just extraordinary philanthropy. It sent the message that as president of the Board of Trustees, he’s committed to the institution he’s leading. And as the school sets out on an ambitious capital campaign, Booth aims to gain the support of the many alumni and parents who share his belief in a Brooks education.

There was a full agenda planned for the Board of Trustee’s winter meeting. In addition to hearing from students and administrators about the current school year, the Board also spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the future. Under Nick Booth’s leadership, planning is under way for a comprehensive campaign that will guide fundraising in the years ahead. “In this campaign, our goal is to lift Brooks to new levels of academic performance,” said Booth. “We’ll do this by increasing

financial aid, upgrading faculty and student housing, breathing new life into the performing and visual arts facilities and making significant enhancements to the school’s endowment.” The last few years have seen the completion of several projects that have Booth and his colleagues excited about the direction Brooks is headed. Two years ago, Chace House opened to rave reviews from students and faculty alike and will serve as the prototype for the school’s nine other dormitories. Last year, the school renovated

spaces to carve out impressive new homes for College Counseling, the Writing Center and the Learning Center. Currently in progress are two more major projects: a Chapel renovation and a turf field. “Our campaign goals are shaped by our mission of providing the most meaningful educational experience our students will have in their lives,” said Booth. “The success of the campaign will depend on the generosity of the Brooks community — especially my fellow alumni. I am confident the support is there.”

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GETTING STARTED Booth’s place on the Board wasn’t something he might have expected when he first came to Brooks in 1963. After attending Fenn School in Concord, Mass., Booth felt he was ready to go away for high school. The Brooks campus was about 40 minutes from his home, which was far enough away that boarding made sense but close enough that he could stay connected to his family. “We always talk about Brooks being a small school,” said Booth. “But when I arrived as a third-former, the campus felt huge. Mr. Ashburn, the founding headmaster of the school, had a certain gravitas as did many of the senior faculty members. It was an intimidating place for a 14-year-old.” Over the next four years, Booth would thrive in classes and athletics under the tutelage of Brooks legends Graham Ward, Doc Scudder, George Waterston, Ox Kingsbury, Frank Jackson, Warren Flint, Tom Vennum, Ray Eusden and Jack McVey. The same was true in athletics with talented and experienced faculty coaches. “The school was a different place back then,” said Booth. “Brooks was an all-boys school. It was also a relatively young school with a much smaller endowment than its New England peers. It was a formal place with lots of rules, and you had to have your wits about you to do well.” Booth did well enough at Brooks to earn admission to Trinity College, where he was a history major. “I had some great professors, but unfortunately the late ’60s was a turbulent time with lots of distractions,” said Booth. “I wish I had taken better advantage of the academic opportunity.” Booth graduated from Trinity in 1971 and his first job out of

college was at State Street Bank and Trust Company in their trust management training program. “I had always been interested in investing,” said Booth. “And in the early ’70s, Boston and New York were at the epicenter of the investing world. State Street was a great place to get my feet wet and learn the business at a nationally recognized institution.” After a few years in Boston, Booth moved to New York to work at TIAA-CREF. “That was my first ex-pat experience,” joked Booth. “Up until 1978, I had spent my entire life in New England. Now all of a sudden I was living in New York, and the fast pace of the city was a great experience.” As much as he loved New York, Booth and his young wife, Molly, whom he married in 1976, soon found themselves back in Boston. After a short stint at David L. Babson, Booth jumped at the chance to work at Wellington Management.

Top: Nick Booth proudly attended his son’s commissioning in 2004 on board the USS Constitution at the Charlestown Navy Yard. Pictured are Nick’s wife, Molly, daughters, Alex and Phoebe, and USMC Capt. Sam Booth (commissioned as a lieutenant). Right: Nick Booth with daughter Alex ’06 at the Quinsigamond Regatta when she was coxing the boys 3rd boat.

THE WELLINGTON YEARS In the early 1980s, Wellington was a large and well-respected investment management company. Founded the year before the great market crash of 1929, Wellington offered the first balanced mutual fund in the United States. In 1979, 29 original partners bought back the firm and established it as a private partnership. “When I arrived at Wellington, it was a really unique time,” said Booth. “There were 100 employees when I got there and less than $3 billion in assets. Wellington today has more than $800 billion in assets and more than 1,800 employees.” Wellington’s globalization provided Booth with extraordinary

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“ If we want to live up to our mission, we need to take some bold steps.”

opportunities as an analyst and investor. With the introduction of segment and geographic reporting, Booth noticed that a significant source of earnings growth for his consumer products companies was coming from outside the United States. “I had spent most of my life to that point in New England,” said Booth. “But I knew that if I wanted to be successful, I would have to venture overseas. So I dipped my toe in the international waters by going to the place I figured I would be most comfortable: England.” Time in the UK was followed by research in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe, Russia and Latin America. Next came work on companies in Australia, Japan and China. In 2003, Wellington

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opened an office in Hong Kong, and Booth was asked if he wanted to move there and build the investment talent. So in 2008, he packed up once again and hopped on a plane for Asia, which, coincidentally, was around the same time the U.S. stock market crashed. “With the economic crisis in America, it was the perfect time to be in Hong Kong,” said Booth. “We took major positions in the Asian markets and had great success because of the talented people we had working there.” Booth continued to lead the Hong Kong office until 2011, when he decided to hang up his investing hat and enjoy retirement. With more free time on his hands, Booth has been able to renew his focus on helping the other institution he leads: Brooks School. RECONNECTING After he graduated from Brooks, Booth’s contact with the school was steady but not spectacular. A regular donor to the Brooks Fund, Booth stayed in touch but was mostly focused on his Wellington career. Then in 2003, his daughter, Alex, followed in his footsteps and enrolled at Brooks. Soon after, Booth was asked to join the board of trustees, and two years later, in 2006, he was named president of the board. During his tenure, Booth has played a significant role in a

number of important projects, most notably the school’s new science building that opened in 2008 and the Danforth Squash Center. But one decision stands out above all the rest when Booth thinks about his greatest achievement as board chair. “Without question, naming John Packard as the new head of school in 2008 was a critical decision as a trustee,” said Booth. “Ensuring a smooth transition of school leadership is the single most important responsibility of any board of trustees. And in John we knew immediately we had our man.” Together, Booth and Packard are a formidable team. They steered the school through the nation’s economic crisis in 2008. They adopted a new mission statement in 2010. In 2011, they put in place the most significant curriculum change the school had ever seen when they implemented Winter Term. But their greatest ambitions lie in the future. With other trustees and school administrators, they have started outlining the framework for the first comprehensive capital campaign in the school’s history. “Most of the fundraising at Brooks has centered on individual projects and on annual giving,” said Booth. “As we’ve been thinking about our mission statement and its stated goal of providing the most meaningful educational experience our students will have in their lives, we couldn’t help but notice that there are parts of the school — from the financial aid budget to arts facilities — that need our help and attention. If we want to live up to our mission, we need to take some bold steps.” The campaign will address three primary areas: financial aid,

“ I’ve always believed in the importance of giving back I hope this gift helps ignite a campaign that is transformative. The school deserves it.” faculty support and a number of capital projects, including a turf field, renovation of the Chapel, new arts facilities and auditorium, and the renovation of Russell House. MAKING BROOKS AFFORDABLE Rising tuition levels mean that Brooks is no longer a viable option for an increasing number of families. Since 2005, the financial aid budget has increased 76 percent (it currently stands at $3,300,000), yet the number of families receiving aid has barely budged — 79 students in 2005 compared with a projected 80 students in 2014. “Despite our best efforts, we haven’t made up any ground in this important area,” said Head of School John Packard. “Among the 40 peer schools we are benchmarked against, we rank 39th in percentage of students receiving aid.”

Lack of financial aid limits the options when the Admission Office evaluates applications and decides which students to accept. “The numbers are hard to ignore,” said Director of Admission Bini Egertson. “Last year, 36 percent of full-pay applicants were accepted, compared to an acceptance rate of 10 percent for those seeking aid.” In addition to losing out on a number of exceptional applicants who can’t afford to come to Brooks, the school’s dependence on tuition revenue puts it at risk in the event the country faces another financial crisis. “Of our $26 million operating budget, $18 million in revenue comes from tuition,” said Packard. “The rest is primarily income generated from endowment and annual giving. A larger financial aid budget makes us less reliant on tuition revenue, and insulates the school

from negative external economic conditions. One of the lessons we learned in 2008 was that the best way to ensure the long-term health of Brooks is to endow a larger portion of our financial aid.” SUPPORT FOR THE FACULTY “Being able to attract and retain teachers who have the passion and skills to bring our mission to life is essential,” said Dean of Faculty John Haile. “Brooks is only as good as its faculty” Since the mid-1980s, faculty compensation has been an area of strength at Brooks. Out of 40 peer schools, Brooks ranks 16th in faculty salaries and benefits. But compensation can take many forms. One of the most important for boarding schools is on-campus housing. “Whether the housing is in a dorm or in a house, having faculty on campus has several advantages,” said Haile. “First, it makes teachers more accessible to students. So much learning goes on outside of class, during study hours in the evening and on the weekends. When our alumni look back on their fondest memories of Brooks, they frequently single out those moments when they were hanging out with friends in a faculty member’s house, getting extra help, watching a big game or just relaxing. Second, in a part of the country where the cost of living is astronomically high, being able to offer a teacher housing on campus has a value that far exceeds its cost.” In Packard’s opinion, freeing up faculty time is another part of the compensation conversation. “Reducing the workload of teachers so that they have more time to spend creatively with students is imperative,” says Packard. “We want our teachers to have more opportunities to

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P LA NS FO R N EW + R ENOVATED SPAC ES fig. 1

CHAPEL (CONCEPTUAL DRAWING)

fig. 2

MAIN STREET CONNECTOR

fig.3

TURF FIELD

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Fig 1: When the Chapel renovation is completed, there will be enough seating to fit the entire Brooks community. Work will begin in June, once students depart for the summer. The project will involve reworking the lower level to create classroom spaces, installing an elevator, replacing all the pews, and improving the wiring and insulation. The goal is to end up with a Chapel that is essentially a new building, but one that retains the look, feel and character that thousands of Brooks students recognize and love. Fig. 2: A longtime goal of pedestrianizing Main Street will finally come to fruition this summer. Main Street is the central spine of the school, a road on which students and teachers walk with each other multiple times a day. At the end of the summer, vehicular traffic will be largely prohibited on Main Street, and a new connector road that will run between the tennis courts and the Danforth Gymnasium will provide north-south travel for cars. Fig. 3: A turf field will be ready for use in September. It will be located to the east of the boys 1st soccer/lacrosse field. The dimensions of the field will allow for field hockey, football, soccer and lacrosse games to be played on it. Lighting is also part of the project, giving Brooks the ability to host night games.

offer extra help to students, and develop new and innovative ways to educate. The only way we can accomplish that is to have more teachers at Brooks.” NEW AND RENOVATED SPACES The first two areas of the campaign — financial aid and faculty support — will give Brooks greater flexibility in shaping the community. The third area in need of attention involves the spaces where students and faculty — the community as a whole — come together. In 2012, Chace House opened as the first new dorm on campus since the early 1980s. Chace was built with mission in mind: from the student to faculty ratio (22 students and three faculty residences) to the way the faculty residences connect to the dorm, to a comfortable and central common room that immediately became the most popular spot in the dorm. The success of Chace has led to a closer examination of not only dorm spaces, but other school gathering spots. “During the next few years, we plan to work at dorm improvements to bring them more in line

with what we’ve developed in Chace,” said Packard. Chace was the first of several capital projects Booth and Packard feel are necessary to tackle. Next on the list of areas needing attention are two items that are well into the planning stage: a renovated Chapel and a turf field. The need to renovate the Chapel is obvious. When the Chapel was built, school enrollment stood at 150 boys. Today, the student body is made up of 375 boys and girls, and the faculty has grown at a corresponding rate. Some of the most meaningful moments of every school year take place in the Chapel, yet it is a building that can’t hold the entire community. “What goes on in there promotes and speaks to the school’s values. Conversations occur in the Chapel that do not occur anywhere else,” noted Packard. Work on the Chapel gets underway almost immediately after the school year ends at the end

of May. Seating will be expanded so that the Chapel will be able to hold up to 440 students and faculty. Under the current schedule, the renovation will be completed in the fall, with a hope that it will be open for use at the start of the 2014–2015 school year. In addition to the Chapel, the school will break ground on a synthetic turf field in June. Not only will the turf put the field hockey team on level competitive footing with peer schools, it will also provide a space for other teams to practice and play when the grass is unusable, often in late fall and early spring. Included in the turf field plans are lights to surround the field so that Brooks teams can play night games. “A few times a year, we play evening games at North Andover High School or Merrimack College,” said Director of Athletics Lori Charpentier. “In those moments, the entire school gathers to cheer on football or field hockey or

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Photos left to right: 1 The auditorium serves as an important gathering space for the entire school community, but the building is in bad shape, according to Director of Operations Dean Ellerton. 2 Chace House was built with the school’s mission in mind, and administrators are looking to retrofit other dorms to increase common space between dorm faculty and residents. 3 Students are using the new Writing Center to collaborate on projects, seek help on essays or just hang out and study.

lacrosse. The school spirit is amazing as students come together to support their classmates. We want to have those moments more often and on our own campus, which this field will make possible.” The turf field will be located to the east of the boys 1st soccer/ lacrosse field, on what is now the boys 2nd soccer/lacrosse field. “We are working with a landscape architect to make sure the field blends in with the surroundings,” said Director of Operations Dean Ellerton. “With field hockey and soccer games going on side by side, it should create an electric atmosphere.” As construction on the Chapel and turf field begins, longer-term planning will look at two other significant projects: a new arts facility and the renovation of Russell House. “The auditorium is a building we need to address,” said Ellerton. “It is in bad shape, and it doesn’t provide us with the practice space that is required for our popular music program. We’ve had architects look at it, and we’re told

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that it is beyond salvaging. The best thing we can do is start over. Ideally, we would rebuild on the same footprint.” Similarly, decisions need to be made about Russell House. When Chace House opened, Russell was no longer needed as a dormitory. It is currently used for faculty housing, and it will play an important role as the school renovates dorm space. A restored Russell that can once again house students would free up space in other dorms to create desirable common rooms and more ideal numbers. “As one of the original buildings on our campus, Russell has historic significance,” said Packard. “We are thinking creatively about how it might once again help our residential program. With the help of architects, we are thinking through the options, and once we feel like we have a better handle on the work that needs to be done, we’ll begin seeking support to fund the project.” With so many campus projects on tap, school administrators took a step back last year to think about a master plan that could guide decisions during the next decade and beyond. “As we began to think about what goes where and how people move around our campus, we realized that we needed to be careful not to make any decisions now that would limit our options in the future,” said Ellerton. Ellerton and others started by thinking about how people

first arrive on campus, especially with respect to prospective students, for whom a first impression is important. “We’ve known for a while that most people enter campus through the east gate,” said Ellerton. “That is our least attractive entrance, bringing you past the Facilities Department maintenance area and up to the back side of Wilder Dining Hall. In our campus master plan, we will have an intentional entrance through the south gate that will lead prospective students to an admission parking lot and up a path to the Admission Office.” The plan will also close down Main Street to cars. A new road to the east of Main Street will join the two ends of campus, leaving Main Street open only to pedestrian traffic. “We pass each other on Main Street many times a day,” Want to know more said Packard. “It is a unique about supporting quality about Brooks that we the Brooks mission and investing in our all love. Getting cars off the school’s future? road will improve on that Contact Director sense of connection.” of Development Gage Dobbins at The plans for the next five (978) 725-6288. to ten years are ambitious. “Our success in this comprehensive campaign will help us close the gap with peer schools,” said Booth. “Brooks today is a great school. As John Packard says, after this campaign we will be an even better version of ourselves.” Which brings us back to Booth’s gift. This isn’t the first time Booth’s generosity has benefitted Brooks. With this most recent donation, his lifetime giving to the school is approaching $10 million. “I’ve always believed in the importance of giving back,” said Booth. “I hope this gift helps ignite a campaign that is transformative. The school needs and deserves it.”

Life

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BY M I C H E L L E M OR R I SSEY

The dogs and the little kids gave it away. When Carol and Mitch Hatchett toured Brooks School with their son Ford last year they were impressed with many aspects of school life — athletics, academic rigor, campus setting. But when Carol saw a bunch of young kids playing outside, running around with their family dogs, that cinched it. What would otherwise be a trivial scene — faculty families enjoying some time outdoors — was a true “tell” to the Hatchetts, who live in Raleigh, N.C. “We knew if we were going to send him so far away, we wanted it to feel as much like home as possible,” said Carol. “When I saw that scene of family dogs and young children, I knew this would feel like a family, like a home.” >>>> 28

Fourth-formers Ceasar Adim and Henry Cormier move their stuff in Whitney Dormitory on Opening Day.

hey were already feeling good

about sending their son to Brooks, and when they saw that he would be a part of a community that lived like a family would — he would see his teachers not just in the classroom, but at breakfast in the Dining Hall, or watching sports together in a dorm common room — they felt Brooks was the right place. Ford, who had heard about Brooks from his involvement in hockey tournaments, agreed. “During my visit, this definitely felt the closest to home.” To deliver on the Brooks mission of providing the most meaningful educational experience students will have in their lives, the school has been honing its attention on residential life in recent years, with the knowledge that those off-hours between when classes and sports end, and when the next school day begins again are often where those meaningful moments can happen. “It’s in those times that there are opportunities for students to make connections outside the classroom, and become part of something bigger than themselves —whether it’s on a team, in the play, in a club or in the dorms,” said Associate Head for Student Affairs Andrea Heinze. “It’s working toward a goal with other students and an advisor or a dorm parent.” As generations of alumni can attest, part of their Brooks learning experience goes beyond what they learn from a teacher during class. Over their years here, students learn as much from sharing their “downtime” with each other, from meals in the Wilder to dorm movie nights, weekend dances, club meetings, or even a campus-wide Ping-Pong tournament in the Student Center.

“ Creating a sense of campus community for both our resident students and our day students starts with providing a sense of family.”

away from home, but making a home at brooks

The decision to send your child away to boarding school can be a heavy one for any parent. For Mia Proctor, deciding to send her daughter Chapelle Johnson ’16 to Brooks in 2012 was nerve-wracking but exciting all at once. Chapelle had been talking about going away to school since seventh grade, and when the family met up with Brooks admissions reps in their home state of Georgia, Brooks seemed like a good fit. Chapelle had attended the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta, a tightknit school focused on achievement, and her mother knew she wanted the same type of family-like environment for Chapelle in high school. Once they got a chance to visit, they knew it was the right place. Proctor recalls students she met on campus being very friendly, and she felt very confident leaving her daughter with advisor Shaunielle McDonald ’94, who also serves as the third-form dean

and inclusivity and diversity coordinator. “Chapelle has always been a studious person, she loves to read. At Brooks, she has flourished. She is killing it in math,” said Proctor. “Living at school has made her an even more responsible young lady. She’s only 15, but up there you have to manage your own money, figure out when and what you’re going to eat, make sure you do your homework.” Proctor believes that for her daughter, residential life has supported her academic success. “When she showed me her first year that she could do it, I thought ‘OK, she’s got this down pat,’” said Proctor. For Carol Geremia, trustee and parent, residential life was a chance for her sons to learn more about themselves. Her son Matt graduated in 2010, and Nate will graduate this spring. “Both really matured by living in the dorm; they each have very strong relationships with their dorm parents.” Geremia said Matt’s boarding experience taught him to find balance. “School wasn’t just around schoolwork, but it was about pulling it all together. Dorm life really requires kids to figure it all out early,” said Geremia, from time management to homework to relationships. For Jenn and Ross Elkin, deciding to send their son Seve here as a boarder was tough because they live right in Andover. “His older brother had boarded at a different school, and Seve’s image of it had him feeling like he wanted to be in the mix of it all, right in the middle of it. He looked at the friends his older brother had made in the dorm, and the connection he had with different kinds of kids he met, and that appealed to him, and to us.”

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The Elkins also worried that being in the middle of everything would be too much for Seve to keep his focus on academics. “We wondered, is he too social of a kid, would it be better for him to be home or be here?” said Elkin. She readily admits that boarding school life has presented some challenges, some distractions that haven’t been positive, but she’s seen them as learning experiences, all in preparation for similar circumstances he’ll face later in life. “Brooks understands that kids are going to make mistakes and they have a perspective on what are small, medium and big mistakes. They hold kids accountable in a very appropriate way,” Elkin said. “The school allows them to not feel like they’ve lost everything they’ve gained. I think for Seve, being on campus all the time, it’s required him to face some of those day-today challenges.” Elkin describes it as a “gradual release of responsibility.” Once outside the classroom, being at Brooks “takes students out of the parental framework and puts them in a different supervisory framework” of dorm parents, peers and advisors. “The community at Brooks has gotten to know him very well, and when he has stumbled and fallen, I think the community has always responded in just the right way for him. If he’d been at home, I’m not sure it would have been that way,” Elkin said. Heinze believes the dorms and other areas of campus life are the “informal classrooms where we can work with kids on those non-academic life skills,” everything from those tough choices to sharing chores like recycling. In that way, residential life is also a term that’s become synonymous with family and community. “Being part of a dorm at Brooks forces kids to be more responsible;

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Life

Top: Ford Hatchett ’16 and his mother, Carol, set up his dorm room in Peabody. Bottom: Claire Sheehan ’15 gives a hug to Emmarie Toppan ’15 during Opening Day.

they are no longer part of a four-person or five-person family, they are now part of a 20-person family of dorm mates and dorm faculty,” said Elkin. In many ways, the close community of Brooks allows students to discover themselves and take risks, but in a supportive environment. Carol Geremia’s younger son, Nate, spoke earlier this year in Chapel about following his brother to Brooks, and what he found out about himself as he learned to create his own identity at school. “It really speaks to the Brooks community that Nate was allowed to do that, and then also speak about

growing into being himself at Brooks,” said Geremia.

campus life not just for boarders anymore

The breakdown of barriers between day students and boarding students is part of a new initiative in residential life. There are new student leaders to make sure that day students feel the same sense of community as their boarding counterparts. When students returned to campus this fall, they met the six day-student prefects and heard the news that science teacher Laura Hajdukiewicz was the new daystudent advisor.

While Hajdukiewicz had been teaching here for the last three years, it wasn’t until her older son entered the school as a fourthformer in 2012 that she saw the need for more communication with day students. Boarding students often heard information from dorm parents or other students while in the dorm, but sometimes the information wasn’t reaching the day student population. “Boarders are walking into a family setting in their dorms, but it’s harder for day students to get that same family experience when they first start at Brooks,” said Hajdukiewicz. “The boarding program is so supportive of kids, we wanted to make sure the day students were feeling that same level of support.” One change made this year for new day students is that they are now required to attend sit-down dinners, as boarders are — boarders

“We want day students to stay on campus as much as they can to take advantage of all that the school has to offer them,” said Hajdukiewicz. And the offerings are expanding. When boarders created dorm T-shirts and competed against each other in Field Day at the beginning of the school year, day-student teams were in their matching shirts as well, taking part in the fun annual event just as boarders were. The event is part of the House Cup Challenge, during which dorm and day-student teams compete throughout the year in different activities to earn points. The winner is announced during Prize Day weekend. And when dorms are having meetings on Tuesday evenings, Hajdukiewicz is often using that time for day-student discussions or activities, like a recent video all students watched about dating violence and healthy relationships.

The aim is to have day students feel just as comfortable and at home in the non-academic part of their days and nights as do the students who live here. Will Adie ’14, one of the daystudent prefects, said the program has been a success so far. “Most of the questions I hear back from the group I mentor is about where to hang out during their downtime,” said Adie. For a day student who doesn’t drive and, during the winter, sometimes has a four- or five-hour gap between the end of classes and a team practice, downtime is a big topic. “The student center has undergone some major improvements from my freshman year to now. It’s a great place for day students and boarding students to come and hang out… everyone’s in a centralized location. That’s the idea.” On opening day, Will’s advice to a group of day students and their

“ The student center has undergone some major improvements … It’s a great place for day students and boarding students to come and hang out… everyone’s in a centralized location. That’s the idea.” WILL ADIE ’14, day student and prefect

go twice a week, new day students must go once a week. The dinners give them a chance to get to know adults who aren’t necessarily the teachers they see every day. For the third-formers, it also means a chance to socialize and get to know some older students, whom they also don’t mix with much during the academic day. It’s starting with the class of 2017, and will become the new normal for all day students from here on out, said Hajdukiewicz.

She relies on her day-student prefects to mentor new day students as well. In February, for example, the prefects checked in with their assigned new kids, asking them for their feedback on Winter Term and how their day-student status played into the nontraditional schedule of the January program. “What we’re doing is taking the greatest parts of living in a dormitory and making sure that gets translated to our day students,” said Hajdukiewicz.

parents was simple: Always eat breakfast here. Not only will day students get to partake of the tasty smoothies or hearty hot-breakfast offerings, but also they’ll get to spend time with boarding students of all ages. “We’ve been trying to encourage day-student parents who are dropping off their kids to drop them off up by the dining hall in time for breakfast, instead of by the academic building. That way, the day students get to eat breakfast, but

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also become part of that postbreakfast march with everyone else down to their first class,” said Adie. “They’re getting even more exposure to boarding students; it’s just another avenue to hang out with people. Eating breakfast here helped me a lot my freshman year when I was new.”

looking ahead, making improvements

When Chace House officially opened in 2012 as the school’s first new dorm since 1984, it was a celebratory day — students were excited to move into the new rooms, and hang out in the large common room, furnished with a flat-screen TV and new furniture. But amid all the oohs and aahs for the Chace House accommodations was also the glaring truth — while Chace was a dorm built with the mission of meaningful experiences in mind, other dormitories on campus were lacking in their ability to do the same. Since Chace opened, the school has been working to retrofit other older dorms with Chace-like qualities — nicer accommodations in common rooms mean students and faculty are more likely to gather there to hang out. All common rooms got a fresh coat of paint, flat screen TVs with HD cable, and many have garnered new furniture. “Our goal is to do major renovations to create more adequate Chace-like common spaces,” said Associate Head for Student Affairs Heinze. All dorms now enjoy wireless Internet access, and each dorm has at least one filtered-water “hydration station” (as do the academic buildings and the gym). For Carol Geremia, being the parent of both a current and a former boarder at Brooks, as well as a member of the school’s board of trustees, means she spends a lot

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of time thinking about the residential life program. “I think I can speak from experience with a view of dorm life as it applies to thinking about the next phase in the school’s future,” said Geremia. She said over the last few years the board has seen the development of a new focus on the dorms and residential life under John Packard’s leadership. “The stage that Brooks has grown into, residential life has been such a critical piece to focus on. Continuing to invest in residential life and taking the dorm to the next level has really been elevated since Chace. There’s a clear focus and a plan now. It’s not just something being discussed.” Part of that discussion centers on the next big question in residential life: what type of renovation will take place at Russell House (see sidebar). Evening programming is taking shape this year, to create more together time between dorm faculty and students. Tuesday nights have an earlier dorm check-in time, and dorm parents are taking full advantage of the extra time with their boarders. February Fun Nights were reborn in PBA, where dorm parents Jenelle Ries and Mary Jo Carabatsos hosted milkshake parties, make-your-own-Valentines sessions, and other outings with the 23 girls in the dorm. Some Tuesday nights have been used for more serious topics. Ries, who also serves as the fifth-form dean, this year spearheaded a new focus on healthy relationships. “There are certain things that can be addressed consistently across all dorms, and with day students through the prefect system, that you can’t address as well during other parts of the student experience,” said Ries. “One of those is relationships of all kinds — with your roommate,

Life

The Russell Possibilities

When Chace House opened and Russell House was taken offline as a dormitory in 2012, nearly everyone had an opinion about what it should become — a space for grouped faculty housing, a renovated dorm, a space for admission and alumni offices. Ultimately it was decided the building would remain a space for students and faculty housing. With the idea of renovation came the chance for innovation. Rather than simply renovate Russell to be a newer dorm, administrators and trustees are taking a look at the residential life possibilities with a wider lens — what kind of dorm would it be? What could it add not only in terms of living space, but learning space as well? While thinking about the physical structure, other ideas began to percolate, according to Interim Director of Operations Dean Ellerton. One of the first questions — would it be all boys or all girls — lead to a new question; why is our ratio of boys to girls the way it is? Would we want to be truly 50/50? What are the pros and cons of doing so, beyond a dorm (how would fewer boys and more girls affect sports teams, for example)? Another question being pondered is the idea of an all-freshman dorm (not necessarily Russell), and specialized programming that would accompany that. It’s the same idea behind the Brooks Beginnings class all third-formers take, during which they discuss the transition from middle school to high school life, personal responsibility, study habits, health, wellness and other topics unique to the high school freshman experience. Could a third-form dorm allow for that same specialized programming for students making their transitions to the new world of high school? The idea is under review by deans, administrators, Head of School John Packard and trustees. The future of Russell is part of a broader campus master-planning process for Brooks, looking at what can be reclaimed or redone, all with Chace in mind as a road map for what the school wants to see in dormitories. So questions about the male-to-female student ratio, the number of dorm parents associated with a dorm, the benefits and drawbacks of vertical housing (the mixing of different grades in one dorm) and adequate common gathering spaces are all being discussed. “If we’re going to touch every dorm at some point in the next five, 10 or 20 years, now’s a good time to examine what we do in terms of residential life, and why we do it that way,” said Ellerton.

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Life

with your boyfriend or girlfriend, with the adults in your life, with your friends.” Ries convened a group of adults last year to discuss what the programming would look like, and together they created a calendar and some discussion topics — everything from icebreaker ideas to roommate contracts to a list of “dorm norms” (community-wide acceptable behavior). “We wanted these Tuesday night activities to be led sometimes by the adults and sometimes by prefects, in the dorms and for day students. We wanted it to feel organic, so that students could tailor it to their peers as they thought best,” said Ries. One such Tuesday night activity — the video students watched about healthy dating relationships — dovetailed with an evening presentation featuring University of New England actor Brian Chamberlain who acted out a one-man show, followed by a panel discussion that featured Brooks School psychologist Judy Werner;Director of College Counseling Taylor Ware (who has a background in psychology and counseling); Kate MacDougall, director of Family Crimes and Sexual Assault Unit at Essex District Attorney’s Office; Linda Molchan, trauma/SANE coordinator at Lawrence General Hospital and Aurelis Huertas of the Lawrence YMCA. A February Ping-Pong tournament turned out to be a popular event, part of the House Cup Challenge. With brackets and assigned match times, students crowded around Ping-Pong tables in the Student Center as well as the common room of Blake House to cheer on their teams. With physical upgrades and programming improvements, one thing that remains the same is the relationship between dorm parent and dorm resident.

For Merriman dorm parent Kate Zipin, dorm bonding this year has focused on empowering the dorm prefects to be true leaders in their home-away-from-home. “It really is interesting to watch them interact with each other in the dorm. You get these relationships that you would not get in the classroom … the girls really come to see each other as confidantes and support systems,” she said. Zipin, who has lived on campus for three years, has been working with the Merriman girls on recycling, holding them personally accountable for the cleanliness of where they live. Zipin said she and other dorm parents see themselves as project managers, keeping track of lots of little pieces that make up the living atmosphere in Merriman. “At the beginning of the year, we make a huge list of all the things we want to accomplish in the dorm. Then we want to make it more realistic for the prefects and more collaborative. We’re asking them ‘what can you do, and how can I support that?’” said Zipin. “I’m asking myself, ‘How can I help them to be better?’” A positive relationship with dorm parents is what Blair Congdon ’10 remembers as one of the highlights of her time at Brooks — although in the beginning, she wasn’t quite sure. “At first I thought my dorm parents were kind of intimidating, because they were teachers, but at the same time we were all basically living together in one place,” said Congdon, now a student at Wake Forest University. But she quickly learned that dorm parents were just another layer of support for students like her. “Other than my advisor, the dorm parent my freshman year was someone who I really saw as an adult I could go to for more than just

academic questions. If something was bothering me, I could talk to her, even just about life in general,” Congdon said. When she was living in Merriman, faculty member John McVeigh was assigned to the girls dorm as an associate dorm parent. With his background in college counseling, he became a confidant of Congdon’s. “I really looked up to him and took all of his advice to heart. We’d sit down and talk about applying to college or even just thinking about my future; he was always very good to talk with about those things,” says Congdon. It’s a collaborative relationship that Heinze says is a prime example of the benefit of dorm life. “Our dorms are best when there are adults who really engage with kids.” When Congdon lived in Hett West as a sixth-former, she was a dorm prefect. “Our dorm parent, Leigh Perkins, was really trying to build a team. We would all sit down together and think about how we wanted the year to be, and how we could make it an awesome experience for all the girls,” Congdon said. “It was great to have her treat us like mature individuals and not just students.” Congdon lauds Perkins and other faculty members for “bringing out student potential,” especially when it comes to campus life outside of class. “Creating a sense of campus community for both our resident students and our day students starts with providing a sense of family. That includes everything that any family would experience — celebrating a high score on a math exam, enjoying a TV show or favorite movie, sharing a late-night dorm snack, but also dealing with challenges and setbacks, teaching young adults the skills they need to be successful in school and in life.”

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Clockwise from top left: Fifth-formers Seiji Engelkemier, Naveen Rajur, Caitlin Kluchnik, Brian Fogarty and Zach McCabe share a laugh on campus. Jack De Jong Jr. â&#x20AC;&#x2122;17 and his mother work on setting up his dorm room in Whitney. From left, sixth-formers Ben Riley, Hilton Chao and Colin Burlingham help set up bunkbeds in Whitney. Dorm and day student teams have been competing against each other throughout the year in the House Cup Challenge: the girls of PBA make their way to Field Day festivities, while the boys of Thorne battle it out during a tug-of-war contest.

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THE WRESTLING + SQUASH TEAMS GARNER HISTORIC WINS FOR BROOKS

WINNINGEST

WINTER David Crosby ’16 pins his opponent from Loomis Chaffee during a wrestling match.

BY MI C H E L L E M O RRISSEY

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All of the hard work, coaches’ advice, tough practices and grueling workouts the wrestling team went through this season — all of it boiled down to one thought. “Let’s not screw this up, guys.” That simple idea, shared by the team members this year, might sound overly blunt or even a bit harsh — but it wasn’t meant to be either of those things. What that phrase conveyed was the idea that for the first time, thanks to an unprecedented mix of powerful talent and driving passion, the wrestling team had a strong chance of capturing the New England title. What it meant was that if they kept doing what they were doing, and maintained their focus, they would be champions. The same was true for the boys 1st squash players. Steadily they had been building a deep team of elite players, honing their skills and handily defeating their opponents match after match, week after week. For squash, an even bigger stage — the Division II Nationals — was where they could see themselves being champions. “This does not happen every year; the stars were aligned just perfectly for this to be the moment,” said Squash Coach Doug Burbank. Squash shares with wrestling an interesting duality. In many ways both are individual sports — it’s just one player against another player, either on the court or on the mat, facing down an opponent, mentally and physically. But it’s also a team sport, where those individual performances add up to the team goal of winning.

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That duality is true every season, no matter how talented or challenged the particular makeup of a team might be. But the difference this year was that those two things came together for each of these teams — the individual performances were bolstered by the team mentality. Not only were individual athletes playing with the knowledge that they were working toward a team goal, they had their teammates right there with them, standing up, cheering, urging them on, coaching them from the sidelines. “Coach Burbank instilled in us this idea: You have to play, but then you immediately have to be a coach for your teammates right after. That only happens here,” said squash player Seve Elkin ’14. Seif Abou Eleinen ’14 agreed. “You finish, grab a water, and then immediately go to another court and start coaching your teammate.” In wrestling, it was the possibility of a title that helped add to the team mentality. “It’s always been sort of an individual effort, maybe because we weren’t expected to win any team titles. But this season, knowing that we could win the championship, it made it much more of a team effort,” said Graham Grieve ’14.

“ We started off the season with three or four wins, and everyone knew then that this wasn’t going to be a regular season. From the start, we started beating some teams we had never beaten before, and we all knew.” Seif Abou Eleinen ’14 (foreground)

BOYS 1 ST SQ UAS H The squash team is no stranger to success — last year, they garnered the New England Class B title. Nor is the team a stranger to strong standout stars. Since coming to Brooks in 2011, Seif Abou Eleinen ’14 has been winning matches and wowing crowds who gather to watch the magic on the court. But this year, there was something different — a maturity among the players, a rising of other superstars, strong leadership from the senior members of the team. All of it, say team members, led to them clinching the national title. “We started off the season with three or four wins, and everyone felt then that this wasn’t going to be a regular season. From the start, we started beating some teams we

had never beaten before, and we all knew,” said Eleinen. Brooks qualified to compete in the 16-team Division II of the Nationals in Philadelphia in early February, based on their 11-1 regular season record that included victories over Andover, Exeter, Milton and Groton. In the first round, Brooks faced Horace Mann School of New York, with Seif winning his match, 3-0. In the second, Brooks faced Choate Rosemary Hall. Brooks won quickly at the 2 and 7 spots as Mahmoud Yousry ’16 and Clayton Rice ’15, respectively, won with what Burbank calls “intelligent yet aggressive squash.” No. 5 Moubarak Ouro-Aguy ’17, Seve and Seif clinched the team victory for Brooks, 5-2, in that

round. In the semi-final, Brooks squeaked out a 4-3 win over Milton, thanks in part to Gabe Garcia ’15, who overcame odds and won a thrilling comeback victory, 12-10, in fifth-game overtime. With Seif winning his match, it came down to Seve to decide whether the team would advance to the finals the next day. “That match against Milton, Seve played the best squash of his Brooks career in the most important match of his four years on the team,” said Burbank. “He didn’t let the emotion of the moment overwhelm him; he was in the zone from the beginning.” Seve won, 11-4, 11-5, 11-4, to clinch a Brooks spot in the finals. The next day, it was sixth-former Andrew Swapp’s turn to step up,

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even as the stakes were getting higher in the finals. Andrew found himself down 1-2 in games against squash powerhouse Haverford School. His racquet skills forced his opponent to make errors and eventually allowed Andrew to take the fifth and final game, 11-9. That set up team captain Seif to win his match (in just 20 minutes), securing the national title. That big win, and other successes this season, were due not only to the players’ team mentality but also the maturity of the team as a whole. “We had a lot of older kids, including the managers, and a lot of our seniors lead in different ways off the court,” said Seve. “We’ve got a few younger kids who are all talented. I think that combination, of the seniors setting the tone early on, and the managers being on board, also helped set an example.” “We have a player who is the captain of the tennis team (Andrew), another is captain of the soccer team (Seve) and one of our managers is a captain of the lacrosse team, so we’ve got quite a bit of leadership and drive there,” echoed Burbank. Part of that maturity includes the two team managers, sixthformers Brian Levenson and George Lucey. While other teams’ managers are responsible for equipment cleanup, water and other smaller tasks, George and Brian are much more integral parts of the boys varsity team. They serve as team nutritionists, alarm clocks for early workouts, coaches, support systems, practice-match opponents and intensity monitors — they’ll let a player or the coach know if someone is dragging, or if their game is a bit off on any given day of practice. “It helps that they are both varsity athletes in other sports; you

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don’t normally get a varsity athlete who wants to be a manager,” Burbank said. It was Brian who, right after the team won nationals, brought the team back to reality. “Right after nationals, Brian said, ‘Guys, we’ve got a league match in two days, we’re not done. We need to stretch now, and delay the celebration a little bit,’” Burbank recalls. The team went on to beat Nobles, ranked 9th in Division I, and garner two more wins to finish the season, 18-1. Andrew said he believes team members are “a lot more invested in our teammates” than in previous years.

“We think about our individual matches, but in the sense of what they can do for the team. It’s not just about your record; you need to do well, so the rest of your team can do well.” Seif agreed. “I don’t think any of us has said ‘I want to win’ or ‘I want to play better.’ We’re always talking about ourselves as a team, that was the key this season,” he said. In the New Englands in late February, Brooks again put on a strong showing, although nothing could beat their national title. The school hosted 16 prep school teams in the Class A division, and the boys team finished eighth.

SHINING MOMENT: SQUASH

Andrew Swapp: Grace Under Pressure Andrew Swapp hadn’t won a match the whole weekend of Division II Squash Nationals, having what he describes as a “pretty poor weekend,” but after wins from teammates Mahmoud Yousry ’16 and Moubarak Ouro-Aguy ’17, it all came down to Andrew to take the title. It’s hard to picture Andrew, the soft-spoken, generally laid back sixth-former, enjoying the drama of those pressure-cooker moments. But those moments, he says, are when he tends to play his best. “When lots of people are watching me, usually it’s a big moment, I think I rise to the occasion and play better than normal,” said Swapp. The match wasn’t a clear-cut decision at the outset. By the fourth game, Swapp had been successful, but he found himself down 3-7 in the fifth. “He was playing well, but needed to find another gear or strategy,” said Coach Doug Burbank. He relied on his experience on the tennis courts — he’s varsity team captain — and “decided to take greater advantage of his superior volleying skills to put even more pressure on his opponent.” “I knew in the back of my head that it meant a lot,” Seve Elkin ’14 (left) and Andrew Swapp ’14 at Nationals.

said Andrew. “Seve [Elkin] said to me, ‘If you win this match, we win the championship.’ It didn’t make me more nervous, it bolstered me.”

When he looked out of the glass and saw his whole team rooting for him, Swapp found himself relaxed. He took the fifth and final game 11-9, setting up his teammate Seif Abou Eleinen ’14 to win his game, and clinch the national squash title. “It worked out, I guess,” Swapp said.

“ We were all drilling together, everyone new we had to push ourselves just to get where we wanted to be, and that meant we all had to be invested.”

Clayton Rice took fourth place, Seif took fifth place, as did Mahmoud, Moubarak took eighth, Seve took ninth, Gabe took 11th and Andrew took 15th in their respective positions. As his season drew to a close, Coach Burbank drew some similarities between his sport and wrestling. “Individual performances matter, but they aren’t the whole story. Seif’s victory counts no more than Andrew’s. If someone has a good day on the court, it’s not like everyone else can just take a pass that day.”

Andrew Konovalchik ’14 (right)

BOYS 1 ST WRESTL ING No one took a pass on the wrestling team this season, team members agree. It was a season characterized by a lot of cheering for each other, and pushing each other to be their best. All the work culminated in the New England Championship win — the school’s first — led by sixthformers Andrew Konovalchik and Nate Gibeley. The win came on the heels of winning the ISL and Graves Kelsey titles, and just ahead of competing in the Prep Wrestling Nationals at Lehigh University. Jun Yabuki ’14 noted that this season there wasn’t a gap between the JV wrestlers and the varsity guys; indeed, they all served as one team for competitions. Jake Bradford ’14 agreed.

“We were all drilling together, everyone knew we had to push ourselves just to get where we wanted to be, and that means we all had to be invested,” Jake said. Jun said that moment when Jackson Quinn ’17 clinched the final match of the day against Brooks’ biggest rival, Belmont Hill, in the ISL Championship was a pivotal one. “It was electric. His win really summed up the year for us,” Jun said, recalling the cheers, hugs and high-fives that followed for Jackson as his teammates crowded around him following his dramatic win. It was a mix of experience and young talent that brought the team so far this season. “We had an extremely experienced varsity lineup, but we

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SHINING MOMENT: WRESTLING

Jackson Quinn, Comeback Kid Tommy Connelly ’14 will tell you that the highlight of his wrestling season was actually a match he lost in the dual meet. “It was right after I lost my match, and I just couldn’t move. Coach K was helping me up, and we both looked up and Jackson Quinn has this kid pinned,” Tommy explained. “I thought it was over, and then watching Jackson pull this off. It was an incredible thing to watch, after feeling so horrible just a second before.” It was incredible for a lot of reasons. It got the crowd on its feet, screaming and cheering along with the team, celebrating Jackson’s win. It meant the team had captured the ISL title for Brooks. It made Jackson the hero of the day. And it meant a more personal triumph, too — over leukemia. Jackson had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a treatable form of leukemia, three years earlier — his medical treatments, which included steroids and chemotherapy, had just ended in March 2013.

Mary Schwalm photo, courtesy of The Eagle-Tribune

had some kids who had never really wrestled before, like Drew Ginsburg ’16 and Jackson. They really came through for the team when the team needed them,” said Jake. Connelly noted that the team took a military mentality to help boost their efforts this season, and had some outside help from a guest to Brooks. Last year, former Navy SEAL and humanitarian author Eric Greitens spoke at the school, touching at times on the legendarily tough training that SEALs go through. “We really thought about what he said, that you’re doing it for the guy next to you, not for yourself, and we took that into consideration both in practices and in matches,” Tommy said. “He made us think: By doing your very best, you are helping the team,” echoed Nate Gibeley. That was the idea during the three weekend tournaments: the ISL Championship, on Feb. 1, the League Tournament a week later and the New England Championships a week after that on Feb. 14 and Feb. 15. Brooks hosted the New Englands, and had a packed house — much of the team is from the local area, so parent support was high throughout the season, and especially at the tournament, Coach Konovalchik noted. “In addition to Andrew Konovalchik and Nate Gibeley winning their weight classes, other Brooks grapplers placed that day, qualifying them for the nationals the following weekend: Tommy Connelly ’14 (heavyweight), seventh place; Geoff Fulgione ’14 (195 lbs.), fourth place; Tom Caron ’15 (113 lbs.), sixth place; David Crosby ’17 (126 lbs.), second place; Andrew Bolte ’15 (145 lbs.), fifth place; Nick Konovalchik ’17 (145 lbs.), third place; Jake Gottfried ’16

And less than a year later, Jackson was pulling off the best turnaround in wrestling history. “I’ve been involved in a lot of big wins here and that might be the biggest … I still get chills talking about it,” Coach Alex Konovalchik told the EagleTribune newspaper. Jackson was nervous about his match, especially since he really hadn’t wrestled before coming to Brooks. To watch the video of Jackson’s winning moment, go to www.brooksschool.org/ bulletin

“I was very, very nervous,” Jackson told a reporter afterwards. “I was almost sick to my stomach when I realized it

would all come down to my match. But I had to find a way to not think about that.” There were cheers of “C’mon, Jackson, c’mon!” and other encouragements as the crowd grew more and more anxious over the match, the two boys grappling to a stalemate. And when Jackson broke away and put the Belmont Hill wrestler on his back, the crowd went wild. For 30 seconds, the screaming built to a crescendo before the ref slammed the mat and Brooks won the tournament. The video of the winning moment — Jackson’s jubilation, his sister Megan ’14 running from the stands to give him a hug, his teammates lifting the 106-pounder up in the air — went viral on Facebook and other sites. It was shot by his mother, Julie, who said the older team members have really taken Jackson under their wing. She can be heard in the video cheering on Jackson, and then saying “thank you” as other parents in the stands offered their congratulations, perhaps without even realizing the importance of the moment for the Quinn family. Congratulations, indeed.

(182 lbs.), fourth place and Owen Rosenberger ’17 (220 lbs), seventh place. On the eve of the team heading to nationals, Coach Konovalchik said his goal was to try to sneak into the top 10 — the closest the team came to that was finishing 11th in 2004. It was a strong nationals finish for the team, with Nate earning fifth place and Andrew earning sixth place, and the team finishing in the top 20 in a field of more than 100 teams. The team’s sense of championship possibility carried them throughout the end-of-season competitions, starting with the ISL Championship. “We started off that dual meet losing three of the first four matches” said Jake. We weren’t happy about that, but for some reason we weren’t freaked out; it didn’t take the wind out of us like it might have in the past.” Once Nate Gibeley pinned his opponent to tie up the match, “we were all doing the math, thinking ‘Wow, we could actually win this,’” said Graham. Coach Konovalchik said the team’s success, much like the boys squash team, is due to the depth of talent and the senior leadership. “Even for the seniors who weren’t starters, in past years they might not have been as enthusiastic, but this year they were. We’ve got a lot of depth for a pretty small school, so to do what we did against bigger schools, or all-boys programs, was amazing,” Konovalchik said. He lauded the younger talents of Owen Rosenberg, Will Gibeley, David Crosby and Nick Konovalchik, among others, as well as the middle tier of the team — namely Chris Cervizzi ’15, Jake Hesse ’16 and Andrew Bolte ’15 — as “really strong starters and supporters.”

Squash shares with wrestling an interesting duality. In many ways both are individual sports — it’s just one player facing off against another player, either on the court or on the mat, facing down an opponent, mentally and physically. But it’s also a team sport, where those individual performances add up to the team goal of winning. The coaching talents of faculty member Mel Graham and alumnus and wrestling rock star Sean Bilodeau ’07 also bolstered the team. Graham joined the coaching staff last year, and has been instrumental in working with younger wrestlers on fundamentals, as well as supporting the senior members of the team. “My best moment of the season was when I wasn’t doing so well in a match, and Coach Graham leaned over to me and said, ‘I thought you said you weren’t going to lose anymore?’” said Jake. “It was very motivating to me, and you don’t get that level of motivation anywhere else.” Bilodeau also joined the coaching staff last year and has been a source of inspiration for the wrestlers, no matter what their talent or age. For Tommy, it was like training with a legend. “His name is all over the room on banners from things he won while he was at Brooks,” he said. The guys used to dread practices with Bilodeau, said Graham Grieve, because they were so tough, but

“they really paid off, especially when we were facing Belmont Hill.” Coach Alex Konovalchik said in his decades of coaching wrestling, he’s never coached a team with this much depth. “Winning the New Englands was incredibly satisfying; the team achieved something, the program achieved something historical. That will always be one of the defining elements of the program, no matter what happens in the future,” said Konovalchik.

MORE WINNING SEASONS! As this Bulletin went to press, several winter varsity teams had found their way into post-season tournament play. Girls hockey played one of the most intense games of the entire winter season in the New England Championship. Despite fighting hard into double-OT, they lost to Gunnery, 3-2. Boys basketball also had an outstanding season, placing them in the Class B NEPSAC championship finals, where they fell to Cheshire Academy, 66-56. For more details and photos of both teams, and to read all the varsity coaches’ thoughts on their winter season, visit www.brooksschool.org/ athletics. And be sure to look for spring sports coverage in the summer edition of the Brooks Bulletin.

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BROOKS CONNECTIONS IN THIS SECTION 44 Alumni News 50 Class Notes 78 I n Memoriam

Can you name these three happy chaps from the late â&#x20AC;&#x2122;70s? Bonus points if you can identify the dorm resident in the window. Email Michelle Morrissey, editor, with your guess: mmorrissey@ brooksschool.org

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Sharing old memories, making new ones Each year, the class celebrating its 50th reunion puts together a priceless publication, chronicling the five decades since their Brooks School years Tales of circus life, Wall Street and

The annual 50th Reunion book features an alum’s original yearbook photo, as well as current photos, and a question-and-answer writeup for each person.

medicine in far-flung places. Memories of Lake Cochichewick, founding headmaster Frank Ashburn and walking to West Boxford. Advice to future Brooksians: focus on math and English, as both are necessary to understand the world. All of the above can be found in the recent editions of the 50th reunion book, a commemorative publication that every 50th reunion class puts together with Brooks staff ahead of Alumni Weekend. The book, which features old and new photos alongside biographical information on classmates, has become a beloved reunion staple during the past decade. Some pages are filled with stories of adventure and achievement, but much of what makes “real life” real can also be found — marriages, divorces, children and reflections on life at Brooks and beyond. Garnering and editing both the exotic and commonplace accounts is no small feat. It starts with a questionnaire, crafted by a volunteer book editor from the 50th class. Then comes the call for participation, as the editor and reunion committee members reach out with requests for submissions. While most alumni enjoy the stroll down memory lane and updating classmates on what’s happening in their lives, some are reluctant. “For whatever reason — and there are lots of them — some

people just aren’t keen about writing about themselves,” said James Rousmaniere ’63, who served as 50th book editor. The goal of the book is to reconnect classmates, as well as to get them excited to attend their reunion. It’s become a tradition that classes look forward to as they celebrate the 50-year milestone. Using the Alumni Office’s extensive database, classmates, the Internet and the postal system as sources usually yields a number of contacts. But sometimes the book editor is a bit of a detective as well. Tracking down information on the deceased can be more difficult, but also can be more rewarding. For example, classmates lost touch with Fred Seggerman ’56, and by the time their 50th rolled around, Seggerman had passed away. Book editor David Grant ’56 recalled that both he and Seggerman lived in Tuxedo Park, N.Y., during the 1970s. Grant’s wife called an old friend, who called an old friend, who called an old friend, and, soon enough, Grant had the email address of Seggerman’s widow. He was able to pen a proper tribute to Seggerman, sharing details of the previous decades of which classmates weren’t aware. Rousmaniere recommended turning over the In Memoriam section to a journalist in the class. Bob Turner ’60 felt his 45 years as a reporter and editor at The Boston Globe helped him to keep the tone of

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the book true to life, without sugarcoating any negative experiences some classmates might have had. In one case, he was able to skillfully edit an entry of a classmate: “I redrafted it in a way that was still a fair representation of the point he wanted to make without being as personal or angry or sharp as the original. … I’m a reporter. I didn’t feel this was a little, happy memory book; it was a real memory book,” Turner said. Stan Macdonald ’61 felt his journalism background — he spent the majority of his career as a reporter and editor at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky. — brought a trained eye for detail and clarity to the book. He was also quite impressed with his classmates’ writing. “People at a 50th reunion are wiser and more reflective, far less concerned about position or status. That can make for a compelling reunion book,” Macdonald said. “My classmates dug down deep and shared memories about hardships as well as triumphs. … It was fascinating for me to edit, and I think it gave us all a better appreciation of each other.” The book is typically circulated only among the reunion class itself. However, as Turner pointed out, you never know in whose hands it will turn up. Turner wrote in a similar publication his class put together for the 25th reunion that deceased classmate Jon Bingham ’60 was responsible for him entering the world of newspapers. Turner later received “the most amazing note” from Bingham’s father, Barry Sr., the longtime publisher of Louisville’s The Courier-Journal, whom Turner had met only a few times. “He was touched that his son had something to do with someone working in newspapers. The sentiment was lovely … I carried that with me as something to think about when working on the 50th book: that it can create the most extraordinary connections you wouldn’t even imagine.”

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Belief in Giving Back Greg Melvin ’74 talks about why he supports Brooks Greg Melvin will be the first to tell you he wasn’t particularly

thrilled when his mother sent him and his brother to Brooks in 1972. Melvin is a self-described “townie” — his mother still lives in the house he grew up in near North Andover High School — and he wasn’t all that interested in joining the boarding-school ranks of Brooks as a day student. “I really didn’t want to go. I was on the basketball team at North Andover High, we were state champs, I had a lot of friends and I didn’t want to make the change,” he said. But Melvin’s mother could see farther into the future than the next basketball game, and so Greg and his brother Michael ’73 enrolled at Brooks. And not only did the Melvin brothers benefit from that decision, but countless other Brooks students have benefitted from it as well. Now a successful investment banker as president of Dartmouth Capital Advisors in Wexford, Penn., Melvin is one of the biggest supporters of financial aid in the school’s history, recalling his own scholarship to Brooks School. Melvin supports Brooks’ financial aid efforts because he can account for his success starting here on the shores of Lake Cochichewick. “My brother and I were both on scholarship, and attending Brooks got me into Dartmouth, got me into Harvard Business School, got me my first job interview,” he GIVE BACK: Visit the recalls. “Brooks gave me the credibility I Brooks homepage at www. brooksschool.org and click needed to be successful.” on “giving” to find out how He counts another Brooks success story — you can help. Bill Perocchi ’75 — as one of his closest friends to this day. He said the two bonded as fellow day students and financial aid recipients. Perocchi is now the CEO of Pebble Beach, as well as a strong supporter of Brooks in his own right. “Oh, we were the nightmares,” Melvin says, recalling that it was he and Perocchi who led the charge to turn a faculty member’s Volvo on its side and leave it in the classroom building. Melvin did have a fondness for founding headmaster Frank Ashburn, whom he says “earned the respect” of all the students under his care. Memories aside, for Melvin, supporting Brooks comes from a deep sense of fairness, and wanting to help other students like him succeed. “There comes a point when you have way too much, and you just think: Now it’s somebody else’s turn,” he said. “I support the kids who have worked hard, and maybe they are the first ones in the family to go to college. They have to be good at two things: they have to be very smart, but they also have to be very dedicated to working hard toward a goal.”

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Alumni Briefs

HOPING TO END

Chinese couple who takes their ivory

A BLOODY BUSINESS

sculptures and returns them to an ele-

Travis Fulton ’61 designs and creates

phant’s tusk, which is brought back

sculptures for a living — from sleek

to Africa and given back to the elephant.

fountains to fire pits inspired by nature.

It’s a reverse-action fantasy that leads

His most recent work, however, isn’t intended to inspire peace and beauty, but it is a call to action. It’s found not

to the elephant being “reborn.” “When we stop buying, they stop dying,” the video concludes.

in a garden or park, but on a 40-by-60

Fulton hopes that his work can help

foot Jumbotron screen in the middle of

educate people about ivory poaching and

Shanghai Square, one of the busiest city

prevent further decimation of the elephant

centers in China.

population in Africa.

Titled The Elephant in the Room, the

It is a population to which Fulton

two-minute video that Fulton wrote and

feels connected. While shooting the

produced has a simple message: Buying

film, he stayed at a ranch on a private

ivory products supports the ruthless killing

game reserve. One night, as he sat with a

of elephants for their tusks.

geneticist who was taking notes on top of

The Chinese people

a Range Rover, he saw a beautiful elephant

comprise 70 percent

emerge from the forest. The geneticist

of the market for ivory

told him her name was Maya, also the

currently being poached in

name of Fulton’s 18-year-old daughter.

“It’s such an honor to be able to

Africa (much of the ivory

The elephant, it turned out, was also 18.

represent your country and a dream

sold in China is used to create Buddha figures),

“At this point, to me, the issue is

highest level, ” she said.

lation has been dropping

WORLD CUP CHAMP

players on the national team with a

dramatically since the

For Russell, who is one of the few When Jenn Russell ’06 was a third-for-

full-time job outside of lacrosse, training

1930s. The latest analysis of poaching

mer at Brooks, she decided to play

meant many early morning and late

data from the Convention on International

lacrosse because she had heard it was

afternoon sessions.

Trade in Endangered Species of Wild

similar to soccer and basketball, the other

Fauna and Flora estimates that in 2012

sports she played. That year, the team

“I think that’s something I learned about

some 15,000 elephants were illegally killed

went to Disney’s Wide World of Sports

at Brooks. It taught me a lot about lead-

in Africa, with the continent likely to lose a

Complex for its preseason, and Russell

ership but also just being disciplined and

fifth of its elephants in the next 10 years.

feared she had gotten in over her head —

working hard. Those are skills I continue

she couldn’t even catch the ball.

to carry throughout my life.”

Fulton’s interest in the cause dates back to 2008, when he went on a horseback

Ten years and two First Team All-

“It took a lot of discipline,” she said.

She’s planning to try out for the

riding trip across Kenya and felt an imme-

America titles at the University of North

national team next year, and hopes to

diate connection to the land.

Carolina-Chapel Hill later, Russell found

play in the World Cup again in another

herself once again with a lacrosse stick

four years. Though she has mastered the

around us. The hippos leaned up against

in her hand, back on that same field, but

balance between work (she’s an assistant

the tent,” he said. “On that trip, I realized

in a very different context. Not only had

director on the annual giving team at Dana

the seriousness of the ecological chal-

she learned how to catch the ball, she

Farber Cancer Institute) and lacrosse,

lenge facing elephants and other wildlife

was playing the final game before she

Russell has earned some time off.

all over the planet.”

became one of only 18 women on the

“We camped at night; the lions roared

Fulton’s film, a public service announce-

come true to play a sport I love at the

personal,” he said.

and the elephant popuTravis Fulton ’61

Jenn Russell ’06

“I will always be grateful for the experi-

U.S. Women’s National Team that would

ence I’ve had and the memories I’ve made

ment, addresses the demand side of

play in, and win, last summer’s Lacrosse

through my lacrosse career. I consider

the problem. The storyline follows a

World Cup in Ontario, Canada.

myself very lucky,” she said.

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VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT

Philanthropy

Parental Support

Parents showed their enthusiasm for Brooks by supporting the “Brooks Together” cam-

David Grant ’56

paign, which asked current parents to meet a lofty goal — to have every current parent participate in giving to the Brooks Fund. “We were so pleased that parents answered the call to support the Brooks Fund, and therefore the school,” said Director of Development Gage Dobbins. “Our programs rely on this support, and parents are helping to make meaningful experiences possible not only for their own children, but for all the kids at Brooks.” After six weeks, the final tally showed 82 percent participation — an impressive increase of 16 percent in parent giving. Dobbins lauded Susanne Beck P’14 and Paula Muto-Gordon and Jonathan Gordon P’14, P’16, who all served as Brooks Together co-chairs. Riding the momentum of a successful campaign, the Parent Programs and Development team then branched into other parent programming throughout the year: Receptions both on and off campus, game-day hospitality and Parent Committee meetings are some of the highlights of the school year so far.

Turf-field Coasters

Finally, a chance to support Brooks and do away with those pesky water-ring stains on your fine furniture. With more than half the ISL now competing on turf fields, Brooks is looking to join that group this fall with the installation of turf here on campus. Turf-field donors will receive these turf-field coasters as a thank you, and to remind you of the support you’re giving to the school. For information on the turf field, or how you can help, contact Director of Development Gage Dobbins at gdobbins@ brooksschool.org.

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Members of the class of 1956 converse regularly about a wide

range of topics, from politics to international travel, all thanks to Brooks volunteer David Grant ’56 of Newport, R.I. Grant first got involved with the school’s volunteer efforts in 2005 as a member of his class’ 50th Reunion Committee. Soon after, he took on the role of class correspondent, became a steadfast member of the Alumni Awards Committee and served on his 55th Reunion Committee. “David has a unique and effective way of keeping the class together,” said Emily French ’03, director of alumni programs. “He keeps the conversation going — keeping Brooks School in the thoughts and minds of his classmates. So when they are called to action, they respond. Like all of our volunteers, David does important work for us.” As class correspondent, Grant regularly e-mails his classmates with tidbits of campus and classmate news. When Peter Jones ’56 made the society pages in a New York newspaper, a bit of good-natured ribbing was disseminated electronically. And when news hit that the Romanian government David Grant ’56 returned Bran Castle to classmate Dom Habsburg’s family in 2006 (the Communist party first seized the Romanian estate, which served as inspiration for Dracula’s castle, some 60 years earlier), there was a great flurry of emails about shifting the class’ 55th or 60th reunion from North Andover to Romania. The more prolific email chains often have nothing to do with Brooks — they typically concern topics like politics and other “dangerous areas,” according to Grant. But they keep the communication between classmates constant, creating a sense of camaraderie decades after leaving Brooks. “It’s amazing how connected you can stay with just a click of a button,” Grant said about e-mail’s virtues. “After so many years, nearly 60 years, feeling like I’m in touch and close to all my classmates is just a great thing.”

01 02

03 05

04 07

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10 01 Adam Weigold ’94 introduces Head of School John Packard at the Boston Reception. 02 Cliff Irons ’63 at the Boston Reception.

03 Matt Mues ’04 (left) and Eric Amaroso ’04 at the alumni and parent reception following Frozen Fenway. 04 Left to right: Church Lewis ’69, Rob Walker ’53 and Peter Rathbone ’64 at the New York City Reception. 05 Sylvia Kimball Perry ’87 and her daughter at the Alumni Family Skate at Brooks. 06 Chris Abbott ’75, left, and Kevin Moore P’15 P’16 at the alumni and parent reception following Frozen Fenway. 07 Ashley Turner ’99, Jillian Booty ’99, Kim Carosella ’01 at the New York City Reception. 08 Hildi Moore P’15 and Wisner Murray ’75 at the alumni and parent reception following Frozen Fenway. 09 Members of the class of 2006 at the Boston Reception, from left: Mike Bruno, Kaitlin Conway, Austin Lee, Chelsea Feole, Alex Vendola, Jess Begen and Amy Campbell. 10 Alumni hockey players, back row, left to right: Chucky Tomes ’01, Donnie Andersen ’88, John Gurry ’07, Chaz Gurry ’04, Drew Morin ’04, Alex Vendola ’06, Joe Napolitano ’09, staff member Kevin Corkery, Jeff Marcoux ’01, John Mian ’01, Mike Manos ’01. Front row, left to right: James Missert P’06 P’11, faculty member Willie Waters ’02, Greg Delgiudice ’08, Derek Missert ’06, Eric Vachon ’06, Mike Bruno ’06, Tim Doherty ’01. 11 From left, Rob Whirty ’09, Tori Gardiner ’12, Taylor Goodyear ’09, Chris Halloran ’07 and RJ Tuller ’08 at the alumni and parent reception following Frozen Fenway. 12 From left, Steve Kemper ’82, trustee Tim McCoy ’81 P’14 P’15 and faculty member Leigh Perkins ’81 at the Boston Reception. 13 From left, Graham Nickson P’16, wife Dita Amory P’16, Phil Isles ’54 and Ashley Bernhard P’15 at the New York City Reception. 14 Jeremiah Gallington ’07, left, and Jordan Mickens ’08 at the Boston Reception. 15 Joe Napolitano ’09 skates at the Alumni Hockey Game at Brooks. 16 Lai-Sahn Hackett ’09 chats with faculty member Matt Grant at the Boston Reception, as Leah McKnight ’09 looks on.

13 16

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C LASS NOTES

Peter Nadosy ’64 R ET U R NIN G THE G IF TS O F SUCC ESS, POSSIBILITIES

In the fall of 1956, Peter Nadosy had just turned 12. He lived in Hungary with his parents, Erna and Kalman, and his older brother and sister. But just a week after his birthday, chaos erupted. A student protest in Budapest blossomed into a nationwide uprising, with rebels fighting against the Communist government. “My parents were what the Communists considered ‘class enemies,’” explained Nadosy. As fighting between Soviet forces and Hungarians continued into early November, the Nadosy family fled to Austria, where they had family friends. They remained there for about six months, and then his father, Kalman Nadosy, landed a job in Southampton, New York. Growing up in that tumultuous time left an imprint on Nadosy, particularly the way the Communist government maintained control over people.

“They sent you off to camps, not to shoot you, but their solution was to not educate people,”he recalled. “My older brother and sister were not allowed to go to school after they finished eighth grade.” The idea that education could be withheld as a way to keep people down is an injustice that has always stuck with Nadosy, and one of the reasons that supporting educational foundations and efforts — both financially and with his time — has been a lifelong passion of his. That early imprint of the importance of education was further

cemented by Nadosy’s attendance at Brooks. Shortly after arriving in New York, a family member suggested Nadosy attend Brooks, but for his family, the financial constraints of room and board seemed impossible. That’s where fate stepped in. Or, really, Headmaster Frank Ashburn stepped in. Asburn wrote to people he knew could help fund Peter’s enrollment. The first donor’s sponsorship lasted a year, and then Ashburn found a benefactor who would donate enough for Nadosy to complete his high school education at Brooks. From his early experiences as a child to his Brooks years, Nadosy knew education would be a lifelong priority. Now, Nadosy is doing for current and future students what those donors did for him years ago. “The importance of an education was ground into me from those experiences,” said Nadosy, who is among the most active supporters of financial aid at Brooks. “My No. 1 cause is helping people find a way to institutions where otherwise they couldn’t go. Because that’s what happened to me.” You could say his Brooks benefactors’ scholarship was money well spent. Nadosy has gone on to a highly successful career in finance, becoming a Wall Street bond expert, and serving as vice chairman of Morgan Stanley. Nadosy won’t take credit for his success; he believes he was set on

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that path through good fortune and the kindness of others. “I’ve had a lot of good luck in my life,” he said. EARLY EDUCATION AND CAREER

Before coming to Brooks, Nadosy spent two years at Southampton Junior High, where he excelled at math and perfected his English. “Think of it: In October [1956] I was in a Hungarian school speaking Hungarian; in January 1957, I was in an Austrian school speaking German; and by May that year, I was in an American school speaking English,” Nadosy said. “I had to learn the language, but luckily, at that age, you learn fast.” Despite those two years, when Nadosy arrived at Brooks, it was still a culture shock. Of course no one spoke Hungarian at Brooks, so it was a little rough at first. But soon it was no problem. “I had a lot of good friends,” he said. The boys he came to know as his friends were interested in his unique childhood. “We talked about it. We bonded through sports. I think you bond a lot faster that way with all kinds of kids, not just your classmates.” Through activities like tennis and soccer, Nadosy formed lifelong relationships. “I loved Brooks, it was a fantastic experience. Probably my oldest, best friends are from my Brooks days. It was a great learning experience with great masters.” His love of history and language courses at Brooks led him to earn a degree in Romance languages at Harvard, while perfecting his tennis game during his summers off. After graduating from Columbia Business School he got a job at Fiduciary Trust Co. in New York in 1970. In 1981, he started at Morgan Stanley, and stayed there for nearly 30 years. Around the time he moved to Morgan Stanley, he was hired by Amherst College to manage part of

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their endowment fund, and in 1988 they asked him to join their board of trustees. Since then, he’s served on several school boards, including Brooks’, thanks to his expertise with endowments, investments and the bond market. He also ran Harvard University’s endowment fund for about a year on an interim basis and has served on the board of the Harvard Management Company for the last 10 years. Most of his board service these days is spent with the Ford Foundation (which he joined in 2009), Central European University in Budapest (founded by George Soros) and the Doris Duke Foundation. He and several friends formed East End Advisors in 2008, a small firm based in New York. A PASSION FOR GIVING

Nadosy’s gifts to Brooks have had a significant impact on the school’s financial aid program, making a Brooks education a reality for students in need — in the same way that he enjoyed that experience years ago, thanks to the kindness of strangers. The process of awarding aid to worthy students is much different now than it was in the late 1950s. Gone are the days when the headmaster would lobby for a specific student, relying on friends of the school whom he knew had deep pockets to individually sponsor students. But that’s how it worked in the earlier days of private schools, before there were large endowments and an earmarked financial aid fund. Several years ago, more than two decades after graduating from Brooks, Nadosy actually got to meet the person who had provided financial aid to him. “I thanked him and got to know him a bit,” said Nadosy, adding that the donor preferred to remain private. “We had a nice lunch together. I was very thankful to him, of course. At the time I was a student,

I had no idea where that money was coming from or how it worked. I thanked him very much.” While he was grateful for the gift, he was really saying “thank you” for what it brought: a Brooks education. He believes the foundation of his professional success was laid at Brooks, and former masters like John McVey, Doc Scudder and Frank Ashburn had a greater influence on him than any teachers at other schools he attended. “It was their values — they were introducing you to what’s right and what’s wrong, there was no gray line with them. It was about what your obligations were,” Nadosy said. “It was just sort of a way of life of helping others who are less fortunate than you are. “Their personalities were so strong, caring and supportive … it was a wonderful ethic and a solid foundation. At that age, coming into a different culture … it really made everything else after that possible. I wouldn’t have ended up the way I ended up without that foundation.” These days, Nadosy is enjoying both work life and family life with his wife Patricia, three daughters, and grandchildren. “My life has been a lot of being in the right place at the right time, and not wasting an opportunity when it comes your way. You always have some mistakes that you regret, but as long as they’re not major.” He recalls returning to Hungary years after having fled as a youngster, and running into two men he had known as a child. “Seeing what happened to them, and how they looked at life: They grew up under Communism, where you get ahead by cutting corners, and thinking ‘what can I get out of the system by giving as little as possible?’ I guess that’s how you survived, but I thought, ‘My goodness, had I stayed there, that would have been me.’”

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Jennifer Seuss Carter ’92 WO R K I N G PASSIO N ATELY FOR A GOOD CAUSE

additionally “because of what we know about the baby boomers aging. The facts and figures tell us that this is the most expensive disease, and Medicare will go bankrupt if we don’t figure something out; the research on Alzheimer’s is really so minimal compared to other diseases. “My personal connection is my No. 1 motivation, and then secondly is the fact that really I’ve learned so much about this disease, and the urgency that there is out there right now.” A LIFE OF SERVICE

In just the past 10 years, Alzheimer’s disease has jumped from being the 15th leading cause of death to being the sixth. It is among the diseases that hit the deadly trifecta: no cure, no prevention and no good treatment. While deaths from other conditions and diseases like stroke, HIV/AIDS and heart disease have declined in the last 10 years, Alzheimer’s incidents have increased by about 68 percent. Some 5.2 million people in the U.S. have the disease. For Jennifer Carter, those sobering facts, combined with her personal drive to make a difference and her family’s own struggle with the disease, have found her working in Alzheimer’s Advocacy for Massachusetts and New Hampshire. “I’ve always had this interest in public service or helping the public, even changing the world. I’ve learned all the different ways you can effect change.” It’s a job that keeps her constantly on the go, spending usually just one day in the office sitting at a desk, and the rest of the time meeting with legislators and volunteers, drafting grants, doing outreach and thinking about families like her own who have a loved one with the disease. “I feel strongly about it because of my own grandfather, who has Alzheimer’s, and a great aunt who died of the disease,” she said. But

Carter had always wanted to work in public policy or government affairs. At Sarah Lawrence College, her studies concentrated on government affairs, political science and history. During college, she worked at an internship for a public housing project, which was a co-op housing community for low-income families and senior citizens. She was an assistant to the program specialist, running everything from bingo games to after-school tutoring and summer camps. It was a job she loved, and luckily enough, when her boss there left, Carter was offered the position. She found success in some tangible results: thanks to her grant writing, new programs and equipment came, including computers for the youth and senior members of the community.

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“I saw it as a way of changing the status quo, of thinking of new ideas and getting to do them,” Carter recalled. She returned to school to get her master’s in public policy, and then headed back to grad school to get a PhD, studying economic development, completed her coursework and set out to Sri Lanka to work with refugees. When she returned to Tulane University, it was to a post-Katrina New Orleans, and her program had been defunded. She came back to her home state of Massachusetts and got a job working for the state doing communications and policy work for the HIV/AIDS Bureau. In June 2006, she started working with the Alzheimer’s Association. Through her schooling and life experiences, an important idea began to formulate for Carter. “I learned there are all different kinds of ways to go around and change things, and make people’s lives better,” she said. “There’s something about doing it ‘from the inside.’ You don’t have to join a movement — you can be a movement from inside.”

THE BROOKS YEARS Carter grew up in neighboring Haverhill, and said she had always planned to go to private school. She recalls that her mother seemed particularly pleased with the dress code at Brooks. Aside from friends (most of whom she catches up with over Facebook these days) and favorite teachers or coaches, she recalls that Brooks was a place where students were encouraged to try new things. “I had never really done sports, but I rowed at Brooks, which I loved and found out I was good at,” Carter said. She also did community service, which she helped lead by her sixth-form year. Maria Ward was her advisor, and while Ward was tough on her, Carter recalls the relationship as a formative one. “She was very strict and very hard on me, but I appreciate it, looking back now,” she said. Because Carter has ADHD, she tended to be a bit scattered. “Mrs. Ward was very organized, and she encouraged me to be more organized. She’d call me

ROUND-THE-CLOCK WORK

“I’m really fortunate that this job never came with a job description,” explained the energetic Carter. The person she replaced had been a lobbyist who hadn’t been able to get many bills passed in five years on the job. “My job is really exciting because I get to do a lot of really great things, and get to see a lot of change.” Carter brought her enthusiasm for digging in and getting busy to the position, and it paid off. “We had nursing home dementia special care unit regulations passed, the Silver Alert law passed, and an Alzheimer’s state plan passed,” she said. And a database

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to task if I didn’t do well.”

that had been just 1,000 people who wanted to be volunteers or legislative advocates has grown under Carter’s watch to 18,000 people. The Silver Alert plan is modeled after the Amber Alert system, and is an emergency communications system used when an adult with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia is reported as a missing person to any police department in the state. Governor Deval Patrick signed it into law in August 2010. A typical day is anything but typical, and involves constant checking

of emails and returning of phone calls round-the-clock, as well as checking on the status of bills she’s working on — The Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Project Act, to ensure the state continues its support of Alzheimer’s services and the Acute Care Act, which asks the legislature to call for a committee to draft a strategy so that acute-care settings would be capable of providing dementia care by 2015. She also spends her days checking in with three or four of the advocates she works with on a daily basis, volunteers who may have personal experience with Alzheimer’s, and who advocate for state and federal action on Alzheimer’s related legislation. She visits the Statehouse on a regular basis to meet with lawmakers to advocate for her cause, usually about twice a week. Her meeting roster also includes at least one meeting with a committee or a commission with common interests. Areas that Carter is focusing on now include dementia and driving, as well as an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) aging project, “to make sure those seniors have all the information they need about Alzheimer’s but also to make sure their partners are aware, and there’s not discrimination or other challenges for them,” Carter said. When she’s not working, she’s hanging out with her husband and their 4-year-old at their home in Amesbury, and enjoying her recent successes. She was recently named one of Merrimack’s “40 Under 40,” an annual list of influential movers and shakers in the area, and she’s been asked to join a special commission on elder protective services. “A lot of wonderful things have been happening … it’s been an amazing year.”

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Jamie Enos ’04 A R I C H L IFE O N THE WATER

Thanks to her job, Jamie Enos ’04 wakes up and looks out her window every morning to spy a new, usually breathtaking view. Some days it’s the clear blue ocean, stretching out for miles in front of her. Other days it might be a port on the coast of Spain, or approaching Antigua, or some other faraway place. “Every day, you essentially look out your window and see something different. I’ve been to 30 countries in five years and seen some of the most beautiful places; I never thought I’d be able to do that,” said Enos, who serves as the skipper of the Saphaedra, a classic 1965 ketch she’s lived and worked on for the past six years.

She’s even had to have extra pages put into her passport, thanks to her seafaring vocation. Sounds like a dream job, right? Enos won’t argue with that; she knows she has a unique gig, and truly loves the lifestyle that comes along with it. But being a sailboat captain also comes with work. Lots of work, actually, that seems never to be finished. “There’s a pride that goes into working on it; it’s a gorgeous, beautiful boat, but it takes a lot to keep it looking that way,” Enos explained. “You can spend all day sanding and varnishing, but at the end of the day, when you look at what you’ve accomplished, you can be proud of what you’ve done.” If sailing for a living sounds like a dream come true, Enos knows that it’s a lifestyle that comes with a lot of hard work, and a few social sacrifices. She noted that while her life includes travel and meeting people all over the world, right now it doesn’t include what some of her high school and college friends are experiencing: engagements, weddings, babies, settling down and buying a house. “Life stands still for me, in a way, but at the same time I have some pretty amazing experiences.” EARLY DAYS ON THE WATER

Enos’ experience with sailing started during her childhood. Her mother is originally from Kennebunk, Maine, and so Enos

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and her family spent summers there. She taught sailing there for 10 years, from seventh grade through her college years at Colby. And even though she did junior sailing up and down the coast of Maine, she admits she didn’t quite love it at first. “I was scared to go outside the cove when I was younger,” said Enos, who was back in Maine this winter while the Saphaedra underwent some needed improvements. But she grew to love going out to watch regattas, and spending sunny days on the bigger boats of family friends. She joined the Saphaedra in June 2008 as a deckhand. She got the idea about a life on the water from the boat’s captain. “I really followed her lead. I didn’t know much about what I was doing,” she said, but she found she was learning more and more with each day on Saphaedra. “I hadn’t realized it could be a career, but once I did, I took a captains’ licensing course, and took all the tests to get my license. I figured I’d do it for a couple of years, and now two years has turned into six.” LIFE ON THE WATER

The big date on the sailing season calendar is November 1, when boats typically are lined up out of ports like Salem, Mass., or Newport, R.I., to get out on the water. Because of insurance company concerns about hurricane season in the Caribbean, November 1 is generally the “go date” for boats from up north. Boats will be out until April or May, then they’ll be back in the boatyard for routine maintenance. They go back out from roughly June to October, out of the water for a month, and then back in the water for that go date of November 1.

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Enos, accompanied at times by one other crewmember or the boat’s owner, sails as much as possible along the route to Bermuda and then points beyond. She takes a break from captaining every once in a while to help on another boat, which gives her a different perspective — being a crew member rather than running the ship. Enos races the boat in various regattas each season, most recently the Antigua Classic regatta in April, as well as the Opera House Cup in Nantucket. “In a classic boat regatta, it’s like golf; it’s all about handicaps,” she explained. In 2012, the boat earned first in class and first boat overall out of more than 60 boats in the Antigua Classic. Last year’s race wasn’t as successful: Powerful winds broke the ship’s mizzenmast halfway through the race, so they were unable to finish. Of course the pressure of the race is a bit stressful, said Enos, but it’s also a great opportunity to learn. While her boat typically has just one additional crewmember, if that, regattas demand an expanded crew of about 10 to 12 others. “You’ve got all these people with all this different knowledge that they bring to the boat,” Enos explained. WORKPLACE ATMOSPHERE

To be sure, being a female skipper is something that some in the sailing ranks note as unusual, but it’s not something that Enos thinks about very much — until she gets some looks or questions pulling into port. “I’ll have people ask me if this is my father’s boat, or where the captain is,” she said. “Captains can always dock the boat by themselves, but sometimes you’ll pull in and 10 guys will run down to the dock and

end up messing it up, tying you too tight. I always get a kick out of it. You can’t really read too much into it because it’ll drive you crazy.” In sailing magazines and blogs, writers often make note of Enos’s young age and the fact that she’s a female captain, but she brushes it off. “Other people focus on it, but I don’t,” she said. FUTURE PLANS

While she did enjoy some skiing, home cooking and time on dry land this winter, Enos was ready to get back out on the water as Maine’s spring thaw set in. She knows a seafaring life isn’t forever, but Enos isn’t sure what her next career move will be. The next job won’t be in an office, she knows that for sure. “I’ll figure it out eventually. You get very sucked into the industry. That was everyone’s warning, from the beginning.” What she might feel she’s lacking in face-to-face interactions with pals is replaced by a Learn more about the sailsailing community boat Enos captains, and find out where she thinks the that’s tight-knit, best sailing in the world despite being spread can be found at www. out around the globe. brooksschool.org/bulletin “I don’t get to see any of my friends from home, but there’s a really great community of sailing friends,” Enos explained. “I can go into any harbor and see people I know. What I have is so rare and hard to find. For the first few years it was a little lonely, but since I move the boat around enough, I can easily call a friend and say, ‘Hey, want to go for a sail?’ It’s pretty amazing.”

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In Memoriam 1940

PETER H. DILLINGHAM Kailua Kona, Hawaii September 13, 2013 LORENZO SEMPLE JR. Los Angeles, Calif. March 28, 2014

1944

EDWARD VOGEL Williambsurg, Va. October 11, 2013

1947

WILLIAM RUSSELL Sun City Center, Fla. November 12, 2013

1950

JOHN VAN BEUREN Middletown, R.I. December 23, 2013

1953

DERWIN H. STEVENS Cornwall, Vt. October 21, 2013 GRAHAM LUSK Omaha, Neb. January 1, 2014

1954

EDWIN W. DEAN Boulder, Colo. January 9, 2014

1959

DAVID H. HARRIS Durham, N.C. January 17, 2014

1964

ZACHARY GOODYEAR Washington, Conn. November 13, 2013

1981

O B I T UA RY

PETER H. PILSKALN Buzzards Bay, Mass. December 28, 2013

1993

JOSHUA SCOTT Anderson, Ind. December 23, 2013

1997

RAWLEIGH HAZEN RALLS Minneapolis, Minn. December 8, 2013

2003

TRENT AUSTIN New York, N.Y. December 11, 2013 FORMER TRUSTEE JOHN RICHARDS Andover, Mass. October 5, 2013 FORMER FACULTY CARMEL RODRIGUEZ-WALTER Andover, Mass. December 23, 2013

Joshua Scott ’93 Every laugh could be described as infectious — it’s hard to hear someone else laughing out loud and not join in yourself. But when you heard Josh Scott’s laugh, it was more than that. “Josh’s was just a distinct laugh; I can still remember it now — very pronounced and genuine,” recalled Simon Bingham ’93. Classmate Allison Jackson agreed. “It was just this jolly, infectious laughter,” she said. Josh, who attended Brooks as a member of the class of 1993, passed away on December 23, 2013. Classmates were shocked by the news that came just before the holiday season, and many paid tribute to Josh on Facebook. Jackson said it seemed all the more surreal because the class just celebrated its 20th reunion last June. Jackson recalled Josh’s happy demeanor — a constant throughout his years at Brooks. “He was a classy guy; he always had a smile, always said hello. You couldn’t help but make eye contact with him when you were near him, and have him smile at you. You couldn’t help but smile back. If I was having a bad day, I remember he would shoot me that beaming smile, and it would turn my whole attitude around,” she said. A native of New Jersey, Josh’s family also lived in Anderson, Ind., and Denver, Colo. While at Brooks he took part in the Exchange Program with Alliance School in Kikuyu, Kenya. He finished his high school career in Denver, and attended the U.S. Naval Academy, Howard University and Anderson University. At the time of his death, he was a semester away from receiving his juris doctor degree from McKinney School of Law at Indiana University. At Brooks, Bingham and Josh grew to be friends because they were among a handful of third-formers in Peabody their freshman year.

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“ You couldn’t help but make eye contact with him when you were near him, and have him smile at you. You couldn’t help but smile back.” “Our entire dorm had this very collective, random, very goofy sense of humor,” Bingham recalled. Once they “borrowed” a tape recorder used in French class, and ended up in the common area of Peabody, recording an impromptu sing-along. “Someone was playing acoustic guitar, and we were taking turns coming up with names of songs, going around the room, making stuff up. It was a great dorm bonding moment. Josh was really great at coming up with impromptu stuff like that. He was one of the most popular guys at school, but in a quiet, unassuming way. He was just so likeable.” His adult life took him to several jobs and locations. He worked at ABC Clio Publishers as an assistant editor and was a partner in the popular Brothers Bar-B-Que restaurants in Denver. For a short time he was employed at the Scott Lowry Law Office. He left Denver in 2007 to become owner and CEO of TransAtlantic Collection

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Agency. He began at IU’s McKinney School of Law and shortly thereafter left TransAtlantic. Joshua worked in the Law Offices of Sheedy and Associates, interned at the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic and worked at Simon Properties. At the time of his passing, he was employed at the firm of Parr, Richey, Obremskey, Frandsen and Patterson. From the outpouring of memorials on social media by people from within the Brooks community and beyond, “it is very apparent that people received him in the same way that he was received at Brooks. People shared loving stories of Josh, and had distinct memories of him doing selfless acts,” said Bingham. Allison Anthony ’93 was a close friend of Josh’s during his time at Brooks, and said he left an impression on her she has never forgotten. “Josh was good and fair to the core, but also funny and fun and wise and a million different adjectives that came together to

Allison Anthony ’93 shared this photo from her senior page in her 1993 yearbook. Underneath this picture of her and Josh, she quotes a Blues Traveler song: “I’m not talking about us never being alone. I’m just suggesting we make the world our home. You’ve got to fly free and so do I. And this way we’d never need to say goodbye.”

make the most beautiful person,” Anthony said. Like many others, she wrote on Josh’s Facebook page when she heard about his passing: “You were one of my best friends at Brooks School, and a constant comfort to me during a time when we were all living away from our families at such a young age... I am glad to read from the testimonies of others how you remained a strength and a true and wonderful friend to so many more... My sweet, wise, funny and constant friend... I will be hoping you are looking down on all these people you touched and smiling.” — Michelle Morrissey, with material from the Herald-Bulletin, Anderson, Ind.

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May is the month of celebrations on campus, from Alumni Weekend (May 16-18) to Prize Day Weekend (May 25-26). We hope to see you for all the annual festivities associated with both events. The summer edition of the Brooks Bulletin will feature these two highlights of the school year, as well as special Alumni Weekend recaps from reunion classes, and spring sports and campus life news. The summer Bulletin will be out in August!

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