The Magazine of Cary Academy | Fall 2018

The Magazine of Cary Academy FA L L 2 0 1 8

Global learning inspires local buzz Page 4

Professional development, CA style Page 10

Why we give Page 16

LUCID DREAMER: ENTREPRENEURIAL ALUM TAKES THE (VIRTUAL) WORLD

BY STORM Page 20

BLUE AND GOLD FACE OFF IN THE CHARGER CUP Page 18

FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

They call it the Wonder Bus. I’m not sure who coined the phrase, but I first heard it during a service trip with an eighth-grade advisory early this trimester. We were walking to the parking lot on our way to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle when one of the students, eyeing the row of Charger buses in the lot, asked, “Do you think we are taking the Wonder Bus?” She was referring to one of the two buses that are plastered with blue and grey question marks, a graphic representation of curiosity, and a notion that hits at the core of the Cary Academy experience.

In his new book Out of Curiosity, Bryan Goodwin writes: “We cannot make students become curious... we must lead them to it by creating environments and opportunities for curiosity to flourish.”

And that’s what we aim to do at Cary Academy: to create unique opportunities that spark curiosity and inspire questions that lead to deeper understanding, new ideas, and... new sparks and new questions.

I saw this in action when visiting an eighth-grade science class a few weeks ago. They began by seeing how many water drops could fit on a penny. After some questions, they theorized whether water is sticky.

Ms. Panhorst wet a paper towel, wadded it, and—to the delight of the students—tossed it against the whiteboard. With a satisfying squelch it stuck firmly, an unexpected moment prompting new questions: why did it stick? How long would it stay there? The giant spitball remained plastered there throughout the rest of class, a curious introduction to surface tension and hydrogen bonding.

A recent issue of the Harvard Business Review featured a story by Francesca Gino entitled “The Business Case for Curiosity.” In it, Gino highlighted the importance of organizational curiosity in helping companies flex and creatively adapt to uncertain market conditions rife with a host of external pressures.

In yesterday’s industrial economies, there were significant advantages to building systems and following directions. There was little room for curiosity or creativity. But, in today’s ever-shifting knowledge economy, curiosity—nurtured by ample opportunities for discovery and innovation—is what can keep you from being prematurely obsolete.

We continue to sharpen our focus on cultivating and nurturing curiosity, as evidenced by much of the work in our recent strategic plan and our commitment to learning that is personalized, relevant, and flexible.

As you’ll see in this issue, that approach doesn’t end with the classroom, but extends to transformative experiential and service learning opportunities (now organized through our Center for Community Engagement), and even to our approach to faculty professional development. With this work, we are building on something that has been embedded in our DNA since our founding.

Josh Setzer (‘04), featured in this issue’s Alumni Spotlight, discusses how the curiosity cultivated at CA helped him embark on his pathway into the world of virtual reality: “It was an interdisciplinary model that challenged the conventional separation of arts to art schools and technology to tech schools. The constant interplay supercharged the creative with the technological and vice versa. It was a powerful approach that I carry with me into my work today.”

His reflection is all more remarkable when you consider that the tools he currently uses for VR did not exist during his time at Cary Academy. And, that’s the norm; we are preparing our students for success in a world that hasn’t been created yet, for professions we can’t fully comprehend.

I cannot think of a more compelling reason to nurture the curiosity of our students, a journey which begins, according to our Middle School students, on the Wonder Bus.

Mike Ehrhardt, Head of School

The Magazine of Cary Academy FALL 2018

In this issue

COMMUNICATIONS TEAM Mandy Dailey Kathleen Mason Dean Sauls PHOTOGRAPHY Kathleen Mason Steve Muir Teresa Porter The CA community HEAD OF SCHOOL Michael Ehrhardt DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS Heather Clarkson DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS Mandy Dailey HEAD OF UPPER SCHOOL Robin Follet DIRECTOR OF FACILITIES Jess Garcia DEAN OF FACULTY Martina Greene HEAD OF MIDDLE SCHOOL Marti Jenkins DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION Karen McKenzie DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Ali Page CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Deborah Reichel

4 Heard the latest buzz?

Three enterprising seniors are bringing a bee colony to CA thanks to a hyper-local experiential learning project with global roots.

10 Out of the (professional development) box

Think you know what professional development looks like? Think again. CA is reimagining and redefining faculty learning, one personal, innovative, collaborative, and curiosity-driven project at a time.

20 Alumni spotlight: Josh Setzer

Josh is a virtual reality entrepreneur leveraging his creative courage and contagious passion to revolutionize the corporate landscape.

is published three times a year by Cary Academy.

CARY ACADEMY 1500 N. Harrison Avenue Cary, North Carolina 27513 (919) 677-3873

Campus News 2

Snapshots 18

Alumni News 26

The Big Question 28

www.caryacademy.org

As we head into the final year of our five-year Campaign for Cary Academy, we’d like to take a moment to extend our heartfelt thanks to everyone that has helped us close in on our $12 million goal. To date, we’ve raised just over $10 million. As our community stretches towards our final goal, some of our supporters share why they have chosen to support the campaign. page 16

Campus News

Community comes together For a community that encourages students to make a positive impact on the world, meaningful community service and helping others is the norm. In September, while our local community collectively breathed a sigh of relief that Hurricane Florence changed course and left CA with minimal damage, focus quickly shifted to how the CA community could help those to the east who were left in Florence’s debilitating wake.

CONGRATS, CHARGERS!

Another great fall sports season is in the books.

The Charger field hockey team earned a “threepeat” of the TISAC conference title after an exciting shootout win vs.

Durham Academy.

Both the girls and boys crosscountry teams placed second in the conference and moved on to finish as runners-up and third overall at the State championship meet.

And, our girls’ golf team placed second in the conference, sending two girls on to Whispering Pines to compete in the State golf match. Individually, the Chargers were well represented within the conference and state associations. CA had three TISAC “Players of the Year” amongst their fourteen AllConference recipients (plus four Honorable Mentions) and seven Chargers were the recipients of NCISAA All-State honors.

In the Upper School, student leadership spearheaded a Hurricane Relief Drive collecting nearly 800 pounds of canned goods, hygiene products, and cleaning supplies to benefit the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. The Middle School Student Leadership Club collected 2 full SUV-loads of diapers and formula that were donated to the North Carolina Diaper Bank. CA faculty and staff joined the relief effort by traveling to Warsaw, NC to tear-out homes that had sustained hurricane and flood damage during an Employee Service Day.

GREEN CA

CA makes every effort to be a good steward to the environment. Thanks to our composting program we’ve diverted over 46,116 pounds of waste from our local landfill in 2018 to-date, representing a greenhouse gas offset of 5,470 pounds of methane or 119,901 pounds of carbon dioxide. That’s the environmental impact equivalent of parking 445 cars for two weeks!

For more on our campus-wide green initiatives—like how much e-waste we diverted with our electronics recycling program (spoiler alert: it’s a lot!)—see bit.ly/green-CA.

PRINT ON!

This fall, the sixth and seventh grades joined their eighth-grade peers in completing Tinkercad (Computer Assisted Design software) training. Now, all Middle School students are prepared to integrate CAD and 3D printing into classes, participate in design challenges or just have fun creating their own 3D designs. Helping to take their 3D printing to the next level is a new printer, provided courtesy of a PTAA grant. The new Ultimaker printer features a more user-friendly experience, higher print-quality, and enables large-scale printing in dual color.

?

Two

The Magazine of Cary Academy

SPEECH AND DEBATE CELEBRATES AWARD

CA’s Speech and Debate program is the proud recipient of the National Speech & Debate Association’s Leading Chapter Award in the Tarheel East NC District. The award— which recognizes student participation throughout the school year—can be granted to an institution every five years and is the highest recognition that a school can receive from the National Speech & Debate Association. It is the third time that CA has received the award, having also been awarded in 2007 and 2013. It’s well-earned; CA’s Speech and Debate team has had a stellar season-to-date, placing first in overall sweepstakes at all five tournaments in which they have competed in North Carolina. Read all about the stand-out season at bit.ly/ca-speech.

TEDxCaryAcademy wows audience In September, CA wrapped its second successful TEDx event. Spearheaded and organized by a CA senior, this year’s event represented countless hours of preparation, faculty and staff coaching, and practice. And, it paid off. Ten speakers, including current students, faculty, and alumni, captivated a sold-out audience with engaging talks offering unique interpretations and explorations of this year’s curiosity theme. Topics included interdisciplinary activism, learning theory, travel, machine learning, time management, and more. Didn’t have a chance to snag the sought-after ticket? No worries, you can view all the talks at bit.ly/TEDxCaryAcademy.

HAVE YOU HEARD THE LATEST BUZZ? THANKS TO THE EFFORTS OF THREE DETERMINED SENIORS, A HONEYBEE COLONY IS COMING TO CARY ACADEMY.

What does global leadership, skill-building, project management, bee conservation, local activism, due diligence, a whole lot of PowerPoint presentations, a healthy dose of culture shock, and a new-found appreciation of CA’s collaborative self-directed learning approach all have in common?

They are all parts of an impactful experiential learning project undertaken by three Cary Academy seniors. And it’s poised to make an important oncampus contribution to the local fight to restore endangered suburban bee habitats.

Last summer, seniors Cade Spector, Maya Agnihotri, Alisha Rao, and their advisor, Upper School math teacher Delia Follet, packed their bags and headed off to the Student Global Leadership Institute (SGLI) summit in Hyderabad, India. The students, who were selected during a competitive application process, were chosen based on their complementary individual skill-sets and interests that best contributed to a well-rounded collaborative team chemistry.

Founded in 2010, SGLI seeks to develop international youth leaders dedicated to working together creatively across cultural differences to address some of the thorniest challenges facing the global community. This year, CA’s SGLI team would be working alongside peers from around the world, including the United Kingdom, India, and Bangladesh, to

solve a conservation-related issue in their home community.

CULTURE SHOCK The CA team left the United States for Hyderabad armed with a specific project idea—the relocation of endangered suburban bee hives to urban centers— and some preconceived notions of how the experience would go. Both were up-ended in short order.

“We had all experienced our tenth-grade world-language trips,” explains Spector, “so we thought we knew what we were getting into.” The ten-day SGLI summit, however, proved to be a more immersive experience.

“It was the first time I have ever experienced true culture shock, where I felt a sense of discomfort that challenged my worldview,” continues Spector, reflecting on his time spent exploring Hyderabad’s Old City.

?

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Five

Rao agrees, “With SGLI, we were totally reliant on our local hosts and international peers. There was a real emphasis on integration and social bonding. We forged a deeper connection with our fellow students because we were working together towards the same goal.” She continues, “The experience broadened my perspective beyond the insular experience of Cary Academy, exposing me to a whole new way of looking at things.”

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD And the slam-dunk project idea that they brought across the Atlantic? Their international peers were... less than enthusiastic.

“As CA students, we had all seen the news about declining bee populations, particularly in urban areas like Raleigh and Cary,” explains Spector. “For some time, I had been wanting to get involved with a local organization that rescues endangered hives from suburban

?

Six

The Magazine of Cary Academy

locations and relocates them to rooftop urban areas. At first, we thought that was a great focus for our project.”

“Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that bee conservation wasn’t something that the local Indian students were that familiar with,” explains Rao. “We found that we had to explain the issue and defend our project idea, with our new friends serving as a pragmatic sounding board.”

“The feedback and different perspectives that the local students brought to the conversation pushed our thinking,” offers Agnihotri. “We felt empowered to aim higher, to create a new project that was hyper-local and that would benefit our immediate Cary Academy community, rather than simply volunteering for something that already existed.”

And so, the idea to bring a honeybee colony to Cary Academy was born.

“The other SGLI students challenged us to think of a way we could maximize our local impact and demonstrate the

power of small changes,” continues Agnihotri. “What better way to benefit our local bee population than to bring a hive to campus?”

The students hope that the project has the added benefit of raising campus awareness about the importance of supporting pollinators and encourages other students to get involved in the cause.

“We want to kick-off a chain reaction and show how a small change can have huge impact,” explains Spector.

LEADING ACROSS DIFFERENCE Over the course of ten days, the team worked together with other SGLI students to hone their idea. It was a peer-learning and collaborative workshopping approach that, while the norm at CA, was largely unfamiliar to some of the other students.

“At CA we encourage students to ‘own their learning,’ but there isn’t a space for that in the formal Indian education system,” explains Follet. “The students our team were working with were used to lecture-style classes, to being the recipients of knowledge, rather than coproducers of their learning experiences.

Our CA students had to learn how to lead across that difference, to mediate difficult situations, different cultures, and a new learning system to advance their project.”

Agnihotri chimes in, “It was very different from our experience at CA. I developed a newfound appreciation of the personalized learning style that CA promotes and its encouragement towards abstract and critical thinking.”

THE CHALLENGE OF IMPLEMENTATION Back in the US, the team faced a steep new set of challenges: How to convince CA leadership to approve the project? How to educate the larger CA

community about native pollinator decline and inspire broad support for the project? How to ensure the safety of the CA community and alleviate safety concerns? How to ensure the health and longevity of the colony? For every question answered, a new one emerged.

To navigate these challenges and roadblocks the team sought external expertise. Early in the fall, the students connected with apiarist Lee Bumgarner, who—in a serendipitous coincidence— had previously reached out to Head of School Mike Ehrhardt about the possibility of hosting a colony on campus.

An experienced beekeeper certified through the Master Beekeeper program of the N.C. State Beekeepers Association, Bumgarner has volunteered as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert for the team. He has shared his extensive insight into native pollinators, colony biology and health, and trained the team in beginner beekeeping practices and safety protocols.

“I DEVELOPED A NEWFOUND APPRECIATION OF THE PERSONALIZED LEARNING STYLE THAT CA PROMOTES AND ITS ENCOURAGEMENT TOWARDS ABSTRACT AND CRITICAL THINKING.”

— MAYA AGNIHOTRI

With his guidance, the SGLI team set out to develop a campaign to win the hearts and minds of the CA community.

They compiled a manifesto of guiding principles that explains the importance of developing nesting sites and gardens for pollinators and created a PowerPoint presentation that offers an in-depth explanation of the proposed project.

?

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Seven

Armed with these tools, the students identified and approached all potential stakeholders—including CA leadership, campus groundskeepers, medical staff, science faculty, fellow students, and parents—to solicit feedback, questions, and concerns. They’ve addressed each in turn, performing additional research as needed, and modifying project plans as necessary.

Safety has been a primary focus with numerous precautions planned to ensure that the hive poses no risk to campus.

These include selecting a secluded site away from the heart of campus, providing fencing and clear demarcation of the area, installing a fabric blocker to disperse the bees away from campus, and developing a last-resort risk management plan in consultation with campus nurse Ellen Doyle.

To ensure project longevity, the team has developed a four-year maintenance plan that includes establishing an apiary club in the Upper School to encourage student involvement with hive upkeep; applying for a PTAA grant to help subsidize any costs associated with the hive; developing landscaping plans in consultation with CA groundskeepers to create postage-stamp gardens to support native pollinators; ongoing communication efforts to spread awareness and enthusiasm within the CA community; and even honey cultivation.

?

Eight

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Bumgarner, who works at SAS and is currently undergoing the advanced journeyman certification in beekeeping, has promised to provide the bees, and establish and maintain the hive for the next four years. He will also instruct other interested students in beekeeping practices as necessary.

THE GREEN LIGHT In November, the team received approval from CA leadership to go forward with the project. They hope to install the hive this fall, before winter sets in.

For the students, the project has been challenging, but rewarding.

Spector reflects, “As a CA student, we often take for granted the invisible work and infrastructure that is required to support our learning. This project has given me much-needed real-world insights into what actually goes into getting a project like this off the ground.”

According to Follet, that’s the point. “The purpose of SGLI is for students to develop leadership skills, to engage a problem with their peers, identify a potential solution, and work independently to implement it.”

She continues, “Like most experiential learning, that kind of work means taking risks, trying new things, stretching yourself, and even feeling a little uncomfortable. It means letting students hit roadblocks. It means letting them struggle, and even fail. After all, it is often in that process where the most powerful learning happens.”

?

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Nine

OUT OF THE (PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT) BOX

Upper School chemistry teacher and Outdoors Club advisor GRAY RUSHIN received a professional development grant to support his thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail.

TREKKING THE PACIFIC COAST TRAIL FROM MEXICO TO CANADA. PERFORMING AS AN ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE WITH A NYC DANCE COMPANY. EXPLORING NEW TRENDS IN 3D GAMING. HONING YOUR CRAFT AT A WRITING RETREAT AT A PRESTIGIOUS UNIVERSITY. SUMMER VACATION? NAH, JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE “OFFICE” FOR CARY ACADEMY FACULTY.

“Own your learning.” It’s a phrase you will hear over and over again at Cary Academy.

It’s a reference to CA’s unique brand of learning that empowers learners by offering them a significant role in shaping their own educational journeys.

And it doesn’t just apply to our students.

CA strives to create an environment in which learning is deeply personal and meaningfully connected to an individual’s background, interests, experiences, and development. Students are offered a unique amount of flexibility and a significant degree of voice and choice around what, how, and when they learn.

That means that professional development at CA often looks a little different than the norm.

While there is ample support for conventional opportunities—like conferences, workshops, and professional accreditation—there is also support for the unconventional. That might include support for perspective-changing travel; conducting research and original writing; immersive experiential and service learning ventures; pursuing an advanced degree; cross-divisional specialized interest-driven task forces; self-directed skill-building; team-building exercises; or collaborative, interdisciplinary curriculum design—just to name a few.

Teacher Betsy MacDonald appreciates the diversity of opportunities and the flexibility to design her own learning experiences. MacDonald—who teaches art and design, 3D printing, intermediate programming, robotics, 3D gaming, and digital animation—is a grant recipient of CA’s William C. Friday Summer Fellowship program. The Friday Fellowship supports faculty in developing and pursuing summer projects that will strengthen them as teachers in their fields of expertise.

MacDonald spent the summer honing her 3D gaming skills and creating and vetting new instructional materials.

“My students are working at the bleeding edge of innovation in an industry that is continually changing,” she notes. “This grant gave me the freedom and support I needed to deepen my own skills to achieve

CA’s professional development programs are designed to encourage innovative thinking across disciplines and within fields, present opportunities for meaningful collaboration, extend real-world engagement, and even serve as a community-building mechanism that bridges both divisions.

“Given our campus culture, it only makes sense to treat faculty learning in the same way,” explains Dean of Faculty Martina Greene. “We want to encourage curiosity and growth, to put faculty in the driver’s seat for designing and developing their own unique professional development opportunities that advance their careers in ways that are personally meaningful, support CA’s strategic objectives, and benefit our community as a whole.”

?

Twelve

The Magazine of Cary Academy

the fluency that I need to support their learning and meet their emerging needs.”

MacDonald is applying what’s she learned in a redesigned curriculum leveraging a “buffet” of project options supported by micro-units that offer step-by-step examples of a variety of techniques. The new curriculum is designed to meet and engage students wherever they are on the experience spectrum, from beginner to advanced.

The Friday Fellowship is just one of CA’s grant opportunities designed to support faculty learning. Another, the

Innovative Curriculum Grant Program, seeks to inspire faculty innovation and collaboration by providing summer support for the creation of new curricula that embody the school’s strategic vision.

These grant projects might engage students in real-world learning experiences, explore a new application of technology, or help to expand cultural awareness. “We’re open to a wide variety of proposals that think creatively about how to cultivate self-directed and bold life-long learners who make meaningful contributions to the world,” notes Greene.

CA’s professional development programs are designed to encourage innovative thinking across disciplines and within fields, present opportunities for meaningful collaboration, extend real-world engagement, and even serve as a community-building mechanism that bridges both divisions.

Upper School math teachers Craig Lazarski and Kristi Sergent received an Innovative Curriculum grant to develop a class that they first conceived during a meeting of the Mastery Learning Team, a cross-divisional professional development initiative dedicated to considering alternatives to our current assessment, feedback, grading and reporting systems.

Their newly created class—Advanced Statistical Theory and Applications— brings more choice to CA’s mathematics offerings. “One of the effects of pioneering the Blended Calculus course was that we had an increase in students who had completed Calculus by their junior year,” explains Sergent. We realized that we had created an opportunity to offer a statistics class that presents the material with a calculus perspective.”

The new blended class, which features in and out of classroom learning, has afforded a flexibility that has opened up a host of opportunities—from introducing R programming and data visualization to future mentoring opportunities— that will help students translate these skills into the real world, even into future careers.

?

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Thirteen

It’s also an approach that represents innovative thinking within their fields.

“Often there is a perception that statistics is a different branch of mathematics that is disconnected from the traditional math courses,” offers Lazarski. “This class, which uses real-world examples to investigate inference—basically, how we extrapolate information from limited data to make far-reaching decisions—effectively

The grant afforded Sergent and Lazarski the opportunity to work together over the summer to develop the class. It was a particularly gratifying collaborative experience.

“While we had collaborated on course content, we had never actually co-taught in the same class,” offers Lazarski. “Having the space to think deeply about how to navigate that experience was invaluable.”

Sergent adds, “We each bring our own

“WE EACH BRING OUR OWN EXPERTISE TO THE CLASS. HAVING TO EXPLAIN OUR APPROACHES TO EACH OTHER MADE EACH OF US, I THINK, LOOK AT OUR WORK AND OUR TEACHING APPROACHES IN A NEW LIGHT, FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE. IT MADE US BETTER TEACHERS.” — KRISTI SERGENT

bridges the two fields. It allows us to demonstrate that they are both equally challenging and important. Statistics is just the application of calculus; when tackling real-world statistical challenges, like interpreting polling data, knowing how the calculus makes the statistics work enriches students’ understanding of both. It allows them to make connections between these seemingly disparate branches of mathematics.”

?

Fourteen

The Magazine of Cary Academy

expertise to the class. Having to explain our approaches to each other made each of us, I think, look at our work and our teaching approaches in a new light, from a different perspective. It made us better teachers.”

CA faculty get twenty-one days for professional development every year, scheduled mostly in week-long blocks.

This calendar is designed to provide extended periods of time for faculty to immerse themselves more deeply in

processes of exploration and creation with their colleagues.

“That’s unusual,” reflects Greene. “It is another indicator of our commitment to cultivating a campus-wide culture of curiosity.”

Middle School and Upper School dance teacher Jasmine Powell knows the power of an immersive professional development experience. Earlier this year, CA granted Powell course leave to pursue a chance of a lifetime.

As a recipient of the Beth Young Scholarship, Powell participated in a rigorous two-week residency workshop to study African diasporic dance with the Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE Dance Company. It was a transformative learning experience and one that has had a significant impact on her classroom.

“This was a physically and mentally taxing, yet incredibly rewarding opportunity for me,” explains Powell. “I saw the real value in not only learning but also understanding different styles of dance. To be able to bring those experiences back to CA—to the dance majors and the revamped minors program—while it is fresh in my body is inspiring.”

Powell continues, “This experience has allowed me to bring more variety to our dance programs and to invite important conversations around cultural history into the studio. It has enabled me to use different modalities in my teaching, to tell stories, and to find different gender-neutral ways of expression that increase inclusivity by supporting both male and female gendered bodies in our dance program.”

Powell’s palpable enthusiasm for her work is echoed by other faculty who have had similarly transformative selfdirected learning experiences. “We ask faculty to provide reflective feedback on these professional development

opportunities, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive,” notes Greene.

Sergent agrees emphatically. “Being so supported in the classroom, being given the autonomy to create a new class, to pursue a passion, to take a risk—its unmatched in any other school. It makes me want to continue to improve, to stay passionate, and continually work to enhance the classroom experience for my students.”

And that is no surprise. “We’ve seen it time and again,” Greene offers. “As with our students, when faculty are given the chance to pursue their own interests, and direct their own learning, it inevitably produces more engagement and more excitement. Ultimately, it translates to better, more meaningful learning experiences for CA students.”

WANT TO LEARN MORE? READ ABOUT ALL OF OUR GRANT RECIPIENTS AT bit.ly/PDatCA

?

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Fifteen

WHY WE GIVE The Campaign for Cary Academy

With only one year left in our five-year Campaign for Cary Academy, we’ve raised more than $10 million towards our $12 million goal. During this season of generosity and thankfulness, we’d like to take the opportunity to share the perspectives of those who have donated to the campaign and extend our thanks to you — our community — for helping us close in on our goal.

ROBYN & MIKE CURRAN

Cary Academy made a meaningful impact on our family and provided a solid foundation for our three children, first for their college experiences, and now for their personal and professional pursuits. Giving back to an institution that encourages curiosity and successfully trains young minds to think strategically is our investment in future generations.

CHRISTINE & BILL BEVAN

It has always been important to us to give to the Annual Fund in order to broadly support CA and help close the gap between tuition revenue and school expenses. With the creation of the Campaign for Cary Academy, we felt that our daughter, Brooke, would benefit from the technological innovation, resources, and opportunities that new Center for Math and Science will provide. Pledging to the Campaign for Cary Academy has allowed us to plan and budget our gift over the next several years; it’s a gift to Cary Academy, the community, and our daughter.

PARUL & HIMANSHU SHAH

As the parents of two current students, we chose to support the campaign because we feel invested in the future of Cary Academy.

We see our relationship with the school as active and long-lasting.

We have volunteered in various capacities throughout our years here, and when the campaign launched, we were thrilled to learn how we can also contribute to the future of CA financially. We have seen firsthand how our children have benefitted from the generosity of past donors, and this is our gift to ensure a quality education for all those who come after.

GIZELDA & RALPH WILLARD

We are very impressed with the excellence of Cary Academy. From baseball to volleyball to the Speech and Debate program and more, the wide variety of intellectual, athletic, and social activities made available to students have been of great benefit to our children. We are pleased to do our part in helping to continue Cary Academy’s success by contributing to the Campaign for Cary Academy.

MONICA & HOWARD UDELL

At Cary Academy our daughters, Jaclyn (’10) and Alex (’15) developed their capacity to lead and their love for the Chinese language. As a family, we formed lifelong friendships through our fabulous learning community. Our gift to the Campaign for CA is a tangible way for us to express our gratitude: to our founders for their vision and unparalleled commitment, to the leadership team for the innovative strategic direction and to each faculty and staff member for their dedicated teaching and instructional support to all students. A successful Campaign for Cary Academy will expand our culture of success, leverage 21st-century experiential education, and sustain our ability to make a difference in each of our students’ lives.

In October, Middle School students took to the field for the annual CHARGER CUP CHALLENGE. Blue Team took home bragging rights for the year after a hardfought (and hot!) battle, but fun was had by all.

Snapshots In November, we welcomed very special guests to campus for GRANDPARENTS AND SPECIAL FRIENDS’ DAY. Visitors were treated to a morning of arts performances and classroom activities with their student hosts.

In honor of VETERANS DAY, the Middle School was honored to welcome service members who discussed their experiences and fielded questions from students for a memorable history lesson.

We pride ourselves on the creativity and ingenuity of our students and HALLOWEEN was no exception. Epic group costumes were the theme of the day, much to the delight of the entire community.

Seniors celebrated their newly-minted status during the annual SENIOR BEACH WEEK in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

We kicked off our year with one of our favorite CA traditions: the HANDSHAKE CEREMONY.

Juniors participated in a wreathlaying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier during the annual WASHINGTON, D.C. CLASS TRIP. The students were chosen for the honor after submitting personal statements.

Students cheered on their Chargers, participated in a scavenger hunt, and enjoyed burgers and ice cream during the FALL TAILGATE sponsored by X-Factor and the PTAA Charger Club.

Eighth and tenth-graders participated in SERVICE LEARNING DAYS at numerous sites across Durham and Raleigh. Their efforts included sorting donations at a local food bank; chopping down invasive bamboo at Eno River State Park; gleaning sweet potatoes for donation to local food banks; tending beds at the Goodwill Community Foundation and Interfaith Food Shuttle farms; just to name a few. Â

Alumni Spotlight

WORLD BUILDER Joshua Setzer is a virtual reality entrepreneur on a course to revolutionize the corporate landscape, one immersive experience at a time.

Imagine learning about the Roman Coliseum, not by reading about it online, but by experiencing it as if you were sitting in the arena during a gladiator bout in ancient Rome. Test-driving a car without ever leaving your living room. Viewing a complex pharmaceutical interaction at the molecular level from the perspective of a red blood cell.

Walking the fully-realized halls of a research lab or data center that exists only in architectural drawings.

It is precisely these kinds of high-impact immersive experiences and simulated environments that Joshua Setzer (’04) is bringing to the business world with Lucid Dream, his Durham-based software company.

Co-founded by Setzer and a longtime friend, Lucid Dream harnesses the power of virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) to develop interactive software applications — including 3D sales demos, immersive tradeshow booths, virtual recruiting tools, and hands-on training simulators — that enable users to learn in new ways and interact with brands on a deeper, more visceral level than is achievable with traditional, screen-based media.

As a graduate of Duke University, former sales trainer for Fortune 500 companies, and a leader in his family’s boutique design studio, Setzer has always looked for creative approaches to business challenges.

“Before founding Lucid Dream, I was working in enterprise sales and training.

The way salespeople, marketers, trainers, and even recruiters at large organizations were conveying information and sharing their brand stories felt archaic given the advances in technology,” Setzer explains.

But, it wasn’t until 2016 —when his future business partner, Mike McArdle, snapped his mobile phone into a virtual reality viewer—that the light bulb flashed.

“At that moment, we realized it.

Virtual and augmented reality were no longer some far-off technologies of the future—reserved for gaming and entertainment or requiring cumbersome and prohibitively expensive gear—but something that could leverage what everyone already had in their pocket.

Suddenly, I could see the potential, I could see it scale, and I could see it being ubiquitous. That’s when the idea for Lucid Dream was born.”

According to Setzer, the implications of advanced virtual and augmented reality technologies are on par with the enormity of the advent of the internet and the impact that instantaneous access to information has had on how we live, work, and learn.

“We’re in a transition from the Digital Age to the Experiential Age, from learning by looking at a screen to learning through direct immersive experiences that enable deeper, lived understanding,” explains Setzer. “The opportunities for businesses to more creatively engage and connect with their employees and their target audiences using these technologies are unparalleled.”

It is that synergy of the creative with the technological and the opportunities for

?

Twenty-two

The Magazine of Cary Academy

innovation that Setzer finds so intriguing and powerful. It is an interest that he credits to his time at Cary Academy.

“I was part of the first class at Cary Academy to go all the way from sixth grade to twelfth,” Setzer explains. “The emphasis that was placed on technological adoption was unprecedented—at that time it was unheard of to see a 1-to-1 student to computer ratio in every classroom.

Reflecting back, Setzer says “I was deeply immersed in cutting-edge technology from my very first days, often engaged in unique simulation-based and experiential learning opportunities that encouraged experimentation. I learned early on about the power of immersive learning experiences.”

Cary Academy was ahead of its time not only in its technology program.

“Alongside that technological innovation was a robust arts and music program for me to get involved in,” says Setzer. “There was a real effort to cultivate a deep appreciation of the arts in students.”

realms, even working on a collaborative research project in partnership with North Carolina State University’s Department of Psychology and faculty at Cary Academy.

“We were interested in learning more about the power of virtual reality as a teaching tool—how it might improve retention and knowledge transfer,” Setzer explains. “That project was fun because we not only got to work with Cary Academy’s Director of Technology and Innovation Karen McKenzie and teacher MaLi Burnett on developing an immersive biology lesson on photosynthesis but also on the metacognition piece. We used a series of sensors to collect multi-modal biometric data—such as eye-tracking, pulse, and galvanic skin response—to discern the physiological signatures of learning.”

As part of the ongoing research project, McKenzie will be presenting the findings at the Future of Education Technology Conference in January of 2019.

One of Setzer’s recent favorite projects?

Working with global tech giant Red Hat on the development and global deployment of an unconscious bias training simulator. “We’re using VR to virtually immerse their employees in real-world situations, to train them to recognize and take corrective action when subtle bias enters conversations and increases the risk that teams will make a wrong hiring or promotion decision.

Adds Setzer, “we learned a lot with that project, including what it means to build a thriving company culture that values diversity and assesses performance in an objective, consistent way.”

A value-centric community culture is particularly resonant with Setzer, who references Patagonia’s founder and socialentrepreneur Yvon Chouinard (who has written extensively on environmentalism and ethics in business) as one of his greatest personal inspirations.

“We’re in a transition from the Digital Age to the Experiential Age, from learning by looking at a screen to learning through direct immersive experiences that enable deeper, lived understanding.”

He continues, “At CA, technology and the arts were able to coexist in ways that you often don’t see. It was an interdisciplinary model that challenged the conventional separation of arts to art schools and technology to tech schools.

The constant interplay supercharged the creative with the technological and vice versa. It was a powerful approach that I carry with me into my work today.”

While Setzer’s primary audience is the corporate world, he’s also had the opportunity to extend his work to the nonprofit, government, and education

?

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Twenty-three

Lucid Dream is such that he’s able to step back from the day-to-day work of agile sprint development to take on bigpicture leadership strategy, cultivating his value-centric work company culture, and deepening relationships with core client partners.

As for what he is most excited to explore next, it is all about wearable augmented reality and the next generation of smart glasses slated to hit the market in beginning in the early 2020s.

“This next iteration is going to open up a whole new set of opportunities for collaborative learning. It is going to have a tremendous impact on the way companies function and engage, students learn, and people perform their day-to-day work.”

He continues, “We’re just starting to see what virtual and augmented reality can do. After all, it is still a nascent technology. If this trajectory was a movie, we’d just be in the opening credits.”

For Setzer, it is an exciting time, but one that must be approached with care, as each advance creates a host of new ethical and privacy challenges that will require special consideration, critical thinking, and thoughtful solutions.

Setzer is up for the challenge, however, and ready to revolutionize the corporate world with the promise of what lies ahead. “As the saying goes,” he says, “nothing is more powerful than an idea whose moment has come.”

“I believe as an entrepreneur and business leader, at the end of the day, when you build your own business, you do it because you want to see your values more explicitly manifested in the world.

If you do that well and authentically, then profits will follow.”

Setzer’s business philosophy is reflected in Lucid Dream’s five core values: contagious passion (for the work), continuous improvement (of products and processes), creative courage (for taking the “big swings” and trying new things), total ownership (for individual growth and accountability), and mutual respect (for fellow employees, for clients, and for the larger community).

“Everything we do at Lucid Dream gets filtered through our values. They guide our day to day conduct and every one of our decisions.”

He continues, “Our goal has always been to prioritize building an exceptional company over building a large one. A company built on shared beliefs and one that creates opportunities for all of our employees to thrive and positively impact the world by thinking critically about technology.”

It’s an approach that is reflective of Cary Academy’s own community values and commitment to discovery, innovation, collaboration, and excellence.

And what is next for Setzer? From a business perspective, the success of

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR CARY ACADEMY STUDENTS, PARTICULARLY THOSE THAT MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN STARTING THEIR OWN BUSINESSES? “Don’t rush it. Opportunity is always going to be abundant for the bold and courageous.

Focus instead on getting your education, pursuing your passion, and identifying existing workplaces where you can grow and hone your skills. Find and engage experienced mentors that will support you as you experiment and grow. Look outside your chosen discipline for inspiration and insights that you might otherwise miss. Figure out what values you care about and look for people and places that share them and that can help you articulate how they apply in the business world. It is critical to get a strong experience base from which you can decide if you want to strike out on your own.

Doing so will only contribute to your success later down the line.”

Josh Setzer, Co-Founder, Lucid Dream

?

Twenty-four

The Magazine of Cary Academy

AR/VR @ CA DISCOVERY AND INNOVATION ARE AT THE CORE OF WHAT IT MEANS TO INTEGRATE VIRTUAL REALITY (VR) AND AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) INTO THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE. WHEN DESIGNED THOUGHTFULLY, THESE SYSTEMS CAN MAKE LEARNING MORE IMMERSIVE, DYNAMIC, AND ENGAGING, CREATING VISCERAL CONNECTIONS THAT CAN AID IN KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AND RETENTION AND BOOST CREATIVITY.

Thanks to collaborative partnerships with Lucid Dream and NC State University’s Department of Psychology, CA has gained invaluable insights into designing, creating, and evaluating these systems to determine how they may be most effectively leveraged and taught at CA. To that end, CA has invested in different hardware and software platforms­—­ including HTC Vives, Lenovo Solo VR sets, Microsoft HoloLens, and a Meta2 for AR development—that enable students and faculty to experiment and create content using current real-world systems.

In 2017, CA successfully pioneered VR in a traditional classroom setting: a biology class where students got an up-close view to how photosynthesis works. More recently, VR has been central to a new 3-D game design curriculum, including an arts elective and a 3-D game design class. Both classes allow students to leverage Unity (a 3-D platform) and C Sharp (a programming language) to create their own unique VR experiences.

AR/VR has also unlocked significant peer-learning and experiential learning opportunities. One robotics student created a VR version of a competitive

robotics field so that his classmates could learn to drive their robots in tournament conditions. Another created a VR experience to help his peers learn quantum mechanics. Two students have proposed Discovery Term experiences that center around virtual reality and game design.

Both the Middle School Sci-Fi and Coding clubs use AR/VR to explore and interact with the fantastical worlds that students read about. How else might one

help droid R2-D2 fix the Millennium Falcon starship from Star Wars?

And, it is only the beginning. Students and faculty across campus have started to think about how to create innovative augmented and virtual experiences across a variety of subjects.

Curious? Ample online resources and open lab times are available for students and faculty to experiment, play, and test out projects and potential lessons.

?

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Twenty-five

Alumni News

2004

17TH ANNUAL CA ALUMNI CROSS COUNTRY MEET Thanks to the 28 CAXC alumni representing eleven Cary Academy classes that attended the 17th Annual CAXC Alumni Meet on August 4! It was great to see everyone.

Class of 2003 Matt Chandler Bryan Fisher Garrett Roach Class of 2006 Mark Hallen Class of 2007 Sarah Helfer Fulk Class of 2009 David Dement Nick Kisley

Class of 2012 Alex Coeytaux Thomas Graham Anna Hamilton Kelsey Miller Juliette Parks Connor Riser Class of 2013 Kyle Henderson Class of 2014 Emma Astrike-Davis Sarah Hamon Thomas Marshall

Class of 2015 Josh Mitchell Class of 2016 Daniel Schulz Class of 2017 Davis Braswell Tommy Bright Emily Lane Class of 2018 Chase Coley Olivia Frazier Dylan Lamphier Coleman Mitchell Athina Zodl

David Foley (left) and Zack Hobbs (right) met up in Chapel Hill to celebrate the first birthday of David’s son Lucas.

Asher Smith started working for the legal department at Nintendo Headquarters in Kyoto, Japan in May of this year. He remains an active status lawyer in NC and Washington, DC.

2006

Tyler Graybeal and his wife Laura welcomed Baby Jack, who arrived June 9, 2018.

2012

Jessica Rowsey, one of the newest members of the Durham Police force, was recently publicly commended for her act of kindness on the job. bit.ly/CA-alum-commended

?

Twenty-six

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Alumni News

Rachel (Park) Ratzner and husband Isaac Ratzner welcomed their first child, Caleb David Ratzner, born June 23, 2018, 7:20 pm, weighing 8 lbs 8 oz, and measuring 20.3 inches.

2013

Caleb Norfleet received the Jean and Joseph Platt Freshman Prize at Harvey Mudd College, which honors a firstyear student who exhibited academic excellence and who contributed substantially to the college community.

His award included a $1,000 cash prize and three books of his choice, including A Wind in the Door, signed by the author Madeline L’Engle; a leather bound copy of A Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling; and an anthology of stories by C.S. Lewis.

NEW YORK REGIONAL ALUMNI DINNER Margaret (Birmingham Corbett) Zeillmann and Kevin Zeillmann were married June 9, 2018, in Holly Springs, NC.

2014

Emma Astrike-Davis was the first place female finisher in the Raleigh City of Oaks Marathon in November. Her finish time was 2:55:29.02.

2017

Rachel Johns got her first professional acting role with The Black Box Project. She played Shannon in a reading of the new play Fulton on October 8th.

Over the summer, a group of alums representing many different graduating classes came together for the New York Regional Alumni Dinner. For some, it was the first time they had met; for others, it was a reunion of old friends.

Either way, everyone had a great time!

?

The Magazine of Cary Academy

Twenty-seven

The Big Question

WHAT IS THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

AMAYA CROWDER

Class of 2025

“There is a 7th grader Aya who talks to me and checks in with me every day to see how I am doing, she always tells me ‘Don’t stress out if you have worked hard.’”

JOSETTE HOLLAND

SURYA CATTAMANCHI

JAIDA JETT

Class of 2020

Assistant Head of Upper School

“There are two things you need to do in life. First, be kind and, second, be brave.”

“What’s popular is not always right, and what’s right is not always popular. Stay true to your values even if it means distancing yourself from everyone else.”

LINDSEY LA SASSO

Class of 2025

BRIAN PUGSLEY

CA Library

Class of 2022

“The best piece of advice that I have ever heard/received is that ‘I was not born to fit in. I was born to stand out.’”

DAX WELBORN

Class of 2025

“Be kind, even when people are not being kind to you.”

Class of 2019

“Fail early, fail often.”

ADDY NEIRA

SANJANA CHILLAREGE

Class of 2025

Class of 2021

“When someone says you can’t do something, don’t listen to them; you can, just follow your dreams.”

“Don’t expect things to work how they’re supposed to.”

CHRISTINA MANGELSDORF

Class of 2020

“I remember one of my teachers in the 5th grade telling me a quote and I’ve really tried to apply it to everything in my life, ‘Whatever you are, be a good one.’ Growing up, I’ve applied this to work, school, and my personal life.”

JANAY EDWARDS

“Listen more than you talk.”

“Don’t give up on what you want most for what you want now.”

Class of 2022

“Life is hard, and you will fail often, but it is how you react to those failures that really shows your true character.”

ANDERSON COLANTUONI

MIRELLA DIGIULIO

Class of 2023

Class of 2025

“The first day of school I was really nervous for math class, but when I got there Ms. Smith showed us a video about these math scientists that do research on brains. They said if you don’t solve problems as quickly as other people, it can actually be good for you because you are working out your brain harder, which is good for it. Whenever I am working really hard, I now think ‘Struggle and stress make your brain stronger.’”

JARED SEIDEL

MAGGIE GRANT

Service Learning Coordinator “Some of the best advice I’ve gotten is ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ I use this as a personal, professional, and ethical guide for my life.

We all have unique gifts and privileges, with which comes the responsibility to use them in a way that positively impacts our neighbors and communities.”

“The best piece of advice I have heard is to be yourself.

You can only succeed and have a good time if you’re being the true you and that you accept it. If you are being yourself people will like you for it and you will like yourself too.”

1500 N. Harrison Ave. | Cary, NC 27513 caryacademy.org

TEAM MARIO KART BROUGHT HALLOWEEN SPIRIT TO THE QUAD. In accordance with our mission and the law, Cary Academy does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, national and ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or age.