Cate School 2017 Spring Bulletin

CATE Spring 2017

WHAT CONNECTS US?

Editor Sarah Kidwell Design Phillip Collier Design Studio Copy Editor Jeff Barton Class Notes Editor Andrew MacDonnell Student Editors Serena Soh ‘17 Annie Lu ‘17 Writers Jeff Barton, Gaby Edwards, Joe Gottwald ‘10, Sarah Kidwell, Annie Lu ‘17, Selena Mone, Kara Ööpik ‘10, Katheryn Park, Wade Ransom, David Wood Photographers Sarah Kidwell, Wendy McFarland, Ashleigh Mower, Serena Soh ‘17, Angie Meneses ‘17, David Wood Correction: In the fall issue of the Bulletin we made an error in the title of “Serving Us and Them.” Of course we didn't conserve with Will Holmes – we conversed with him. Sorry for the error.

Headmaster Benjamin D. Williams IV Assistant Head, External Affairs Charlotte Brownlee ‘85 Director of Marketing and Communications Sarah Kidwell Multimedia Coordinator Ashleigh Mower Archivist Ginger Williams Director of Advancement Lindsay Newlove Cate Fund Director Colin Donovan Director of Alumni Relations Andrew MacDonnell Director of Major Gifts and Planned Giving Chris Giles The Cate Bulletin is published three times a year

by Cate School and is distributed free of charge to alumni, parents, and friends of the School. Send correspondence and address changes to: communications@cate.org The Cate Bulletin is printed by V3 on Topkote paper.

MISSION STATEMENT Through commitment, scholarship, companionship, and service, each member of the Cate community contributes to what our founder called “...the spirit of this place...all compounded of beauty and virtue, quiet study, vigorous play, and hard work.”

TA BL E OF C ON T E N T S

IN EVERY ISSUE 2

FROM THE ARCHIVES

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FROM THE HEADMASTER

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ON THE MESA

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CLASS NOTES

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IN MEMORIAM

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ENDPAGE

WHAT CONNECTS US? Connection is a word we hear often on the Mesa and from alums. In this issue of the Bulletin we explore what brings us together, how we keep in touch, and why the Cate connection is so powerful.

18 STEP INTO MY SHOES Novelist Colum McCann’s 2014 release TransAtlantic was this year’s school-wide read. The fiction writer joined the community for Convocation this past winter.

22 CONNECTING THE ROCKS Inspired by his most recent trip to Japan, teacher David Wood installed a rock garden where messages are written in stone.

28 I'M WITH THEM Two speakers presented and defended their conservative politics to a community that is often perceived as overtly liberal.

30 THROUGH THE LENS These seldom empty spaces on campus are a study in community and place.

36 DISPATCHES It's no surprise that alums, even recent ones, depend on each other as they move forward in their lives and careers. They use their abilities to connect as an asset in their working lives.

24 I’M WITH HER Cate delegations joined hundreds of thousands of marchers during January's Women's Marches in D.C. and L.A.

Front Cover: The character on the cover, 結, can be translated as tie, join, or connect. It is used in such words as marriage, conclusion, and solidarity. It is also the Chinese character that the Japanese, through history and mythology, attached to the concept of a force that unifies often opposing elements, entities, and even spirits. Photo by Ashleigh Mower.

ON THE WEB  Peruse the event calendar and look up old friends at www.cate.org/alumni.  Find the latest Cate news at www.cate.org/news.  Find all of this and more on our mobile site at www.cate.org on your smartphone.  LINKEDIN: Join our LinkedIn career networking group “Cate School Alumni & Friends” at cate.org/linkedin.  FACEBOOK: Befriend Curtis Wolsey Cate and become a Facebook fan of Cate School.  TWITTER: Follow updates on Cate’s twitter profile “Cate_School.”  INSTAGRAM: Follow @cate_school on Instagram for your daily dose of life on the Mesa.

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F ROM T H E A RC H I V E S

See just how far we've come. Read this excerpt about email from Mesa News March 1993.

Communicate With Internet It’s faster and probably more reliable than most postal systems, cheaper than overseas phone calls, and slightly more confidential than a fax. If you have access in your home or workplace to an electronic mail (E-mail) system with Internet capabilities, say goodbye to unanswered phone calls and sluggish mail that hampers communications with your Cate student. Now, Cate is plugged into the Internet, which employs an electronic bulletin board enabling users to communicate via computer and modem. Students can leave and retrieve messages from the Internet using computers in the Keck Computer Lab. Some have their own E-mail addresses already. But if your child does not, and you’d like to communicate with him or her via E-mail, contact Donna Dayton (using Internet, of course). She or her able assistant Aaron Denney ’95 will help them log on. Donna’s email is ddayton@cate.cerf.fred.org. Aaron’s is addenny@cate.cerf.fred.org.

Members of the class of '85 and '86 learn BASIC with Sanderson Smith in the Keck Lab.

Rob McLaughlin '90 and Rachel Mayorga '89 with technology of the day.

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F ROM T H E H E A DM A S T E R

The Comfort of Connection We have reached that time of the school year when the pace quickens and our momentum seems to be carrying us all too quickly towards Commencement and the end of another school year – Cate’s 107th. I suppose I should not bemoan the march of time. Many of our students and faculty are no doubt looking forward to the summer that looms not so far in the distance, and there is something immensely gratifying about sending yet another class of students out into the world – or at least into the realm of higher education - and to watch as those who were underclassmen on the Mesa become upperclassmen and seniors. For all of us, this impending end is actually a harbinger of another beginning.

Isn’t that the funny thing about beginnings and endings, that they are almost always connected in some meaningful way not simply to our journeys in this world but to each other? Colum McCann, who authored this year’s community read TransAtlantic and is featured in this issue of the Bulletin, told us in a presentation in January that after he finished writing the book he went back and reworked the beginning.

He wanted the two to be connected purposefully and thematically, such that they would seemingly dissolve into an ethereal circle of experience and impression.

It works, particularly in that novel, which is comprised of stories that take place in different eras yet are ultimately and inexorably connected to each other. Time itself becomes - in answer

to our inquiry question - one of those forces that connect the characters to each other. And McCann’s time is distinctly non-linear. It is more random and episodic, moving indiscriminately through a narrative that ends, at least as far as time is concerned, just before it begins.

Surely that is a lesson for those of us who – like schools – live life in cycles of some form, cycles that repeat even as they advance us temporally. Our connections are informed by those cycles and Cate is organized around them and defined by them.

One would think, given such architecture, that I or any of my colleagues on the faculty would be more adept at handling the cycles or at least of managing the inevitable endings that are intrinsic to education.

But for a community distinguished by connections, disconnection has to be

unpalatable even when it is necessary and good.

Colum McCann’s final character in TransAtlantic notes the same as she imagines the closing of a chapter in her life; somber yet hopeful, she muses on her good fortune that “the world does not end on us.” The cycle continues.

Here too. For the 107th time we will in due course celebrate and acknowledge an ending, which we fittingly call Commencement. In so doing, not only will we welcome another remarkable Cate class to the family of alumni, but we will honor our connections by advancing them to another place and relationship. Cate does not end on us either. It simply goes on in a new form.

So do those who graduate.

And in a few months, the process will begin anew, fresh connections will form among those newest to Cate, and those existing will grow richer and deeper. It’s a comforting dynamic, actually, for it implies something that isn’t temporal but eternal. Surely 107 years of Cate graduates are evidence of a connection that is beyond any one of us yet envelops all of us.

For me anyway, that is a deeply comforting association.

Servons,

Benjamin D. Williams IV

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ON the MESA CONNECTING THROUGH SERVICE Kate Bradley ‘19 takes our motto of Servons to heart. Dedicated to giving back - both locally and globally - she is this year’s recipient of the Mark Metherell '87 Service Challenge Award. The award honors Mark Metherell '87 who was killed as a civilian in Iraq while training and supporting Iraqi Special Forces.

Mark championed public service at Cate, and believed that people have a responsibility to help those less fortunate to help themselves. Mark’s family, friends, and Cate classmates created the Challenge in 2009. With the help of this $5,000 grant, Kate will provide critical help to Burmese refugees and their children in a refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border.

The idea for the project began last summer when Kate placed in the top ten of an essay competition and was invited to speak with the founder of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust. It was through this honor and experience that she learned about the mass displacement and human rights issues affecting the Eastern Burmese people.

Ignited with passion, Kate volunteered the rest of her summer to work with the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN) in Thailand. Most of her time was dedicated to helping the children learn English and Art in the Ban Wiang Wai School (BWW), a safe-haven for the Shan refugee children in a remote Thai town.

BWW teaches skills and provides modest resources for over 400 children. Sadly, funding for BWW is limited and inconsistent.

This summer Kate will implement three initiatives to help with funding and resources to increase help boost BWW’s 4

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Children line up for physical education at the Ban Wiang Wai School in Thailand, where Kate Bradley '19 will volunteer this summer as part of her Metherell service project.

enrollment. The first will fix their broken water pump and filtration system. Water in this area is often polluted from pesticides used on nearby plantations; the new filtration system will assist the school and the local community by providing safe drinking water. The second will renovate and move their small store from the back of the school to the front road so townspeople can purchase goods, creating more income while also teaching students practical business skills. An added benefit is that the undocumented refugees will not need to go into the city to purchase daily needs, which might put them at risk for deportation or jail. The third will help to build a sustainable mushroom farm. As most Shan food dishes are made from mushrooms, students will learn how to farm this necessary product, as well as keep their cultural traditions alive.

The spirit of the Mark Metherell '87 Service grant is twofold: to help a community in need, and to have

project benefits be sustainable by the community. As faculty member and Metherell grant committee member Ivan Barry points out, Kate’s project fits that description well. “She listened to the local needs and has developed a project that will live up to the ideas of Metherell by providing service in the name of others.” In a record year for Metherell applications, the selection committee was impressed with the quality and scope of student proposals. Kate’s intended purpose and “realistic and achievable set of goals that will truly help the community” made her project stand out all the more, says Barry.

Next fall at an assembly, Kate will give a report on the work that she completed over the summer and an update on how the fragile community is getting along.

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CELEBRATING MLK JR. DAY Although the issues in question were serious ones, this year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebration featured an upbeat, energetic approach to addressing them. In a nine-hour workshop spread across two days, Brittany Baron – a speaker, writer, and social justice advocate – led the Cate community in a series of thought-provoking exercises and discussions. Among the seven skillful assistants she brought with her were Baron’s father (Dr. Ed Baron) and sister (Dr. Jessica Baron), both professors at Azusa Pacific University.

This year’s event prompted students and faculty alike to think in new ways about race, gender, sexuality, and related matters that continue to challenge us in modern-day America.

The program, which was organized by José Powell, Cate’s Director of Multiculturalism and Inclusion, began on the evening of Monday, January 16 with a presentation in the Hitchcock Theatre. With an easy-going attitude and a quick wit, Brittany Baron immediately won over the audience, even as she asked her listeners to prepare for some uncomfortable moments during the workshop. She emphasized that the discussions of race would be intentional, unlike the accidental conversations we’re more accustomed to having.

Jessica Baron, a race scholar and demographer, took the stage next.

She first showed a map that revealed the increasing minority population in the United States. Her next map zoomed in on the racial and ethnic diversity of Los Angeles, with a wide range of colors representing the different groups in the city. Starkly

Brittany Baron graced the Cate community on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with talks and workshops about race and social justice.

apparent to the audience (before Dr. Baron even mentioned it) was the degree to which L.A. is, essentially, a mosaic of neighborhoods segregated by race. This reality, she explained, has a lot to do with the opportunities available to people in each enclave; where we live determines, to a large extent, how we live.

Ed Baron then talked about how hard it can be to understand people who are different from us. In an exercise that delighted the audience, Dr. Baron illustrated this notion by projecting images that could be seen in various ways. One drawing showed either the body of a rabbit or the head of a duck, depending on the viewer.

As members of the audience laughed and shrieked while helping one another to see what they hadn’t seen before, Dr. Baron spoke about how, on issues of much larger importance too, we can use a different lens in order to perceive the world in new ways – to see it more clearly.

Among the activities on Tuesday was the “Privilege Walk.” For this exercise, the entire community lined up along the eastern edge of the football field. “If your parents own the home they live in, take a step forward,” the facilitators instructed.

“If you assumed from a young age that you would go to college, take a step forward.” After about a dozen such commands, some people found themselves nearing the center of the field, while others remained far behind. This eye-opening exercise caused some of the discomfort that Brittany Baron had predicted the night before. And in the debriefing that followed, those who had been out in front considered what it meant to have a clear path ahead, people who looked like them on each side, and no real idea what was happening behind them. For the folks at the back, the experience had been altogether different, of course.

In the remarkably diverse community that is Cate School, racial and socio-economic distinctions tend not to matter as much as they do beyond the Mesa. But thinking about them, and considering their importance both historically and now, was valuable for all concerned. It was enjoyable too – though not always easy.

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ON T H E M E SA

POCC CONFERENCE In December, just before the School started Winter Break, six students and three faculty members flew to Atlanta for the NAIS People of Color Conference. Director of Multiculturalism and Inclusion José Powell, who led the trip, says,”PoCC 2016 was historic in many ways, from an attendance that exceeded 5,000 participants, to the conference’s return to Atlanta, considered by many the birthplace of the civil rights movement.”

The theme of the 2016 PoCC was the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The PoCC, a branch of the National Association of Independent

Schools, is designed to inspire work for equity, diversity, and social justice.

“The mission of the conference is to provide a safe space for leadership and professional development... to improve and enhance the interracial, interethnic, and intercultural climate... as well as the attending academic, social-emotional, and workplace performance outcomes for students and adults alike.”

Powell says that for many Cate is as diverse a community as any they’ve previously experienced. “So, how do we recognize, challenge, debunk, probe, recalibrate, fall, rise, affirm and celebrate? After listening to the students who attended, I am encouraged

by their willingness to attempt to lend a contribution to answering that question.” Abnner Olivares '19, who took part, says that the result of the presidential election was the subject of many conversations . He and other conference attendees spent time “seeking answers to many questions that had come up in recent days.” He adds, “We, as a diverse community, realized that there has never been a more important time to come together and keep having conversations about diversity in our schools and with each other. The conversation can’t be stopped and it was our job to make sure our message as a community doesn’t get lost.”

BUILDING CATE: AN HOMAGE TO ARCHITECT REGINALD JOHNSON On Friday, January 13, McBean Library became the temporary home of the display Building Community: Reginald D. Johnson, Architect. For the past six months, the display, curated by the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, was housed at Casa de la Guerra in downtown Santa Barbara.

The display will remain at Cate until the end of February.

From the exhibit: Known for his lavish residential projects, many in the Santa Barbara area, Reginald Johnson's other local projects included Cate School, the Biltmore, and his most notable important public building, Santa Barbara's Downtown Post Office. Later in his career, he went on to prioritize community life through landmark public housing in the Los Angeles area. By showcasing the work and career of this exceptional 6

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Images of the work of architect Reginald Johnson were on display in the McBean Library this winter.

architect, we hope to draw attention to

Bishop Joseph Horsfall Johnson,

the role architecture plays in our daily

was the first president of the Cate

lives by creating an appealing place to

Board of Trustees. The opening

live and work, and reinforce the spirit

reception for the exhibit was

of preservation that has long been a

Saturday, January 14. Rose Thomas,

hallmark of this community.

a curator from the Trust, provided an

Apart from his extensive design work at Cate, Johnson's father,

overview of the exhibit.

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DANCE CONVOCATION 2017

SOLIDARITY IN SONG

Watch the video on Cate's Vimeo page.

Interpreting the music of Philip Glass, Cate's dancers lifted, leapt, and defied gravity.

The Cate Dance Ensemble wowed the Convocation audience on Monday, February 13 with modern and minimalist dance performances in the Hitchcock Theatre. The 20-member ensemble took the audience through a multimedia presentation entitled “Night of Glass,” featuring the music of contemporary composer Philip Glass. Relying on dance interpretations of Glass’s spare and haunting music, while mixing in video, stills, live piano music, evocative lighting, and technical wizardry, the dancers showcased skills and agility on stage that read more like a professional dance troupe than a high school ensemble.

A highlight was an all-senior

piece performed on aerial wires, where dancers hoisted one another in the air and held their suspended bodies horizontally, demonstrating sophisticated control and strength.

Many of the numbers were choreographed by students, and the student tech crew was instrumental in creating the dramatic and professional feel of the evening.

Dance Director Rina van de Kamp, who oversaw the program with the help of dance instructor Brooke Melton, thanked members of the Arts Department for their role in the collaborative effort.

This year’s International Convocation started with a music video titled “Connecting.”

Senior Rose Xi says, “Connecting” is a song that consists of thirteen languages from all over the world. I asked people in the Cate community who come from different backgrounds to translate sections of the song into their respective languages, recorded them, and put it all together.” Rose directed and shot the video and also contributed her Chinese to the mix. The project was part of Rose’s Independent Art class.

Art teacher John Swain says, “Rose devoted her afternoons to art rather than a sport during the winter season, so she spent her afternoons pursuing a project of her own design.”

The video included Spanish, Korean, Tagalog, Hindi, Wolof, German, and Japanese. The senior adds, “The fact that about 20 countries are represented at Cate and that these are the people we are around all the time is something most of us take for granted, so it would be great if this song could bring appreciation to the amazing diversity at Cate.”

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CONVOCATION ROUNDUP

Bassist Jennifer Leitham performs during a Convocation, accompanied by the Cate Jazz Band.

The Convocation series brings movers and shakers from diverse fields to Cate. Nearly every Monday preceding formal dinner, the entire community gathers in the Hitchcock Theatre for a performance, speech, or presentation.

Read on for some highlights.

Jennifer Leitham The Hitchcock Theatre was swinging on the evening of Monday, December 12 with the Cate Jazz Band accompanying Jennifer Leitham, a well-known stand-up bass player. The band opened by playing “Oleo,” a Sonny Rollins standard, with Nick Thomas ’17 taking the first solo on his saxophone.

Under, around, and in the spotlight was Leitham. Bryce Huerta ’17, who also plays saxophone, described the experience: “It was like she was playing two different basses at once.”

After the opening tune, the Cate musicians exited the stage so that Leitham could tell her story. Forging an immediate connection with her audience of young adults, Leitham began her talk with the statement, “I always knew I was different than most folks.” The bass player spoke passionately, allowing the students to 8

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follow her path from budding musician to in-demand professional, passing through cross-country moves, a stint as a semi-pro baseball player, and a twenty-year marriage. The background to Leitham’s development was always a sense that she had to hide her true self; she is transgender, but was afraid that she would lose family, friends, and music if she came out to the world.

Leitham’s career prospered; she played with Mel Tormé, Doc Severinsen, and any number of musicians who wanted her in their studios. She traveled the world, sustained by her music but weighed down by her gender incongruity. Finally, she decided that she needed to take the risk and declare her true gender identity.

She was correct in her fears: Leitham lost her partner and many of her musical collaborators. However, she is now at ease with herself and the world; for Leitham, the change was absolutely worth it.

After Leitham’s emotional presentation, the Cate musicians took the stage again. With Leitham once again showcased, they played Trombone Shorty’s “Buckjump.” Junior Cambria Weaver on trombone, Junior Luke Beckmen on trumpet, and senior Zac

Towbes on electric guitar all took solos. Jeffrey Kim '19, Stefan Suh '19, Cullen Barber '19, Josh Shields '19, all on saxophone, Teddy Wecker '17 on trombone, Joshua Park '20 and Liam Mundy '19 on trumpet, Flora Hamilton '17 on keyboard, Huy Le '19 on electric keyboard, Colin Stevens '17 on drums, and Kenneth Liou '20 on clarinet rounded out the Cate Jazz Big Band.

Many students related to Leitham’s story of searching for her true identity, a process for each of them. And they were wowed by her music. As Charlie Corman '18 declared, “ I want to go right out and learn to play the bass.”

Kyla Mitsunaga '96 What passion do you want to pursue at Cate?

What mistake have you made and what did you learn from it?

What is one thing you’d like to do to change someone’s life?

Name three people at Cate for whom you are grateful. Tell them.

Students bent over the tiny auditorium desks on Monday, January 9 trying to answer these questions.

Launched by Kyla Mitsunaga '96, the questions punctuated her Convocation presentation, allowing students to participate in Kyla’s mission: What does it take to be happy?

Kyla characterized her life journey

ON T H E M E SA

as it began during her years at Cate, where she learned the lessons that brought her to today, teaching at Yonsei University in Seoul and presenting her Happiness Workshop at TEDSeoul and around the world.

For Kyla, happiness and learning are intimately linked. She offered the story of her life as a series of lessons: the moment Mr. Wood sent her a note in the aftermath of a disciplinary instance; the moment she connected with former headmaster Peter Thorp in Rwanda; the moment she became friends with a teacher. Kyla was high energy as she spoke, skipping back and forth in front of the stage and emphasizing her points with wide smiles and enthusiastic thumbs-up.

In her acting debut in the Hitchcock Theatre, in her prize-winning speeches to her Cate community, in the memories captured in her time capsule and shared on Monday, Kyla explained her emotions at the time and now, demonstrating the ways that both successes and failures add up to a life of happiness. Kyla spent several days at Cate, participating in Sophomore Seminar and hanging out with friends and former teachers. Her message is one the School heartily endorses: learn things, be happy, and Servons.

Erika Green Swafford From the start, it was clear that Erika Green Swafford's February 6 visit was not going to be an ordinary Monday Convocation. Her delivery was casual and friendly and she eschewed the wooden podium – opting to sit on the edge of the stage and conduct her presentation informally and connect directly with students.

Now a writer on the hit ABC show How to Get Away with Murder,

Green Swafford wanted to make it clear that her path to the rarified air of the television writers’ room has been far from linear; instead she called it a “big, weird, windy, twisty road” that wouldn’t have evolved as it did unless she approached all her experiences and learning with “joy and gusto.” That, she offered, “is what opens doors.”

“I was born in a non-state (Washington, D.C.) and raised in a nation (Texas)” she joked, evoking laughter and revealing her chops as a storyteller as she relayed commentary on her early years. Part drama geek, part athlete, and always a passionate chef, she spoke of hanging out with the “freaks and geeks” of her school before heading to hotel management school at Cornell, in the upper reaches of New York State.

Even though she completed her studies and headed into the restaurant business, she knew almost immediately that she needed to shift gears, she explained. “So I told myself I was a writer, that I was creative,” and made her way (via business school at UCLA) to the world of television production.

The most dramatic moment of Monday’s Convocation came in the form of a spoiler alert – members of the audience (clearly fans of How to Get Away with Murder) gasping when Green Swafford revealed the upcoming death

of a particular character. But her insights into the inner workings of the show’s writers’ room were just as instructive – she described the composition of the show’s creative people as diverse, openminded, and reflective of the “current American story.”

“What do you do when you have writer’s block?” asked one student during the question and answer portion of the Convocation. “I cook,” she replied readily.

That segued nicely to her final point for the evening. “Always stay hungry, be fearless, and be yourself.”

Frank Waln “Be proud of who you are and where you came from,” admonished musician, rapper, and poet Frank Waln in a Convocation visit to Cate on February 20. Waln, who was born and raised on the Rosebud Lakota Reservation in South Dakota, explained to the audience, “I take my culture with me wherever I go” so he can raise aware ness about the history of Native Americans, who covered the Americas long before it was settled by Westerners, a point he emphasized throughout his performance.

Waln told the story of a galvanizing moment for him: while studying in college, he rode in an elevator with a W W W. CATE. O R G

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CONVOCATION ROUNDUP (CONT'D) fellow student who observed his brown skin. The student asked him, “What are you?” When Waln answered that he was a Native American, the student replied, “I didn’t know any of you guys were still alive – I thought you were extinct.”

At the time, Waln was a Gates Millennium Scholar on a medical school track, but this encounter, along with others, prodded him to reexamine his goals. He developed an interest in performing and production and used his skills to tell stories of the Native American experience. Waln was blunt – he called the atrocities and discrimination against his people “a genocide,” noting that he, his family, and other survivors need to educate people about their culture and their history.

Using the example of Tiger Lily, the daughter of a native chief in the Disney movie Peter Pan, Waln posited that most children learn about Native Americans

through a cartoonish lens, and that he aims to challenge the stereotypes those images perpetuate. “They are getting their stories from non-native people,” he explained. “It took me a long time to figure that out.”

Waln performed his song, “7”– its lyrics bold and direct.

Let us ride on the lands where our ancestors died Breathing life into our cultures they said were petrified They tell a history that our peoples don’t recognize The US government should be charged with genocide Spitting rhymes in a time of blood quantum and suicide We survived staying strong all those times we should’ve died I confess, I’m depressed Sometimes I can’t take the stress Living is a test, distressed up in the

HEADMASTER'S NOTEBOOK: RIDDLES There’s a riddle I was told when I was a kid that has stayed with me. You reach a fork in the road. One trail leads to everlasting happiness and the other leads to your doom. There are two brothers – twins – standing at the fork in the road. One brother always tells the truth. The other brother always lies. And there is no way to tell one from the other. You may ask only one question to one of the brothers. What question do you ask to assure that you will take the right path?

I still share the riddle from time to time – like when I am in the backcountry with students and we’re marching for hours on the trail. It’s a great way to pass the time, and there is nothing like the intellectual challenge of a good brainteaser.

Most of us who are confronted with a riddle of this sort focus primarily on an answer, or more particularly “the answer,” because there’s only one. On the trail, students shout out possible answers, mostly because they’re trying to eliminate options. It’s one of the few places, in fact, where students and adults don’t seem to worry too much about being wrong. The idea 10

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isn’t to get to a solution quickly. We’re on the trail, after all. Eventually will do.

Strangely, though, at least for me – perhaps because I know how to solve the riddle – I see it more as a cultural artifact than an exercise in intellectual discernment. Within the puzzle are a series of rather telling assumptions: that our choices have consequences, that we can’t make them without input from others, and ironically that we can’t always trust the guidance we are given.

It’s a fascinating conundrum – not just the puzzle – but the assumptions themselves. Essentially, we have much at stake and we need help… but we can’t rely on any potential assistance being helpful unless we know the right question to ask. Only our intelligence (or perhaps our cunning) saves us from the wrong, perhaps

wild west My fam suffers The land suffers I hate the silence I hate statistics I hate the prisons I hate the violence I hate these politicians making the wrong decisions I hate these men that inflict this violence upon our women They hate to see us rise We’re on their TVs man Remind these settlers that they’re up on treaty land I did this with my music A CD in my hand A microphone in the other now watch me take a stand As Waln continues to take his stand on stages across the country, he urges change through song. “Listen with an open heart – music is the way.” disastrous, path.

It is probably best not to read too much into a riddle. It’s just a game, right? I remember becoming very frustrated my sophomore year of high school when my English teacher, Mrs. Howard, kept asking me to look beyond the story to find the meaning. Isn’t the story enough? Apparently not for Mrs. Howard.

This riddle tells a story too. It’s about twin brothers, a fork in the road, and a well-constructed question. It’s about consequences, choices, selfreliance, and strategy. It’s about habits of mind, inquiry, and bias.

But it’s also preparation for dynamics we’ll face in the world, for protecting or furthering our own interests, and for cultivating our minds. It’s about choices, not simply the ones we make at a fork in the road, but every day in the manner we cultivate our minds, interact with our peers, construct our futures.

Is that what the author of this riddle intended all along? Who knows. But I imagine there was a reason the author conceived it, and it wasn’t simply to occupy the minds of high school students on the trail. Frustrating as it might be, there is always more to the riddle…than the riddle. Mrs. Howard was right.

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GIVING BACK TOGETHER

Students fanned out around the county to pitch in on various projects for Public Service Day 2017.

Cate students and teachers spent

Defense Center, and Monroe

Wednesday, February 22 volunteering

Elementary School, among many

as part of Cate’s annual Public Service

other organizations from Oxnard to

Day. The 335 volunteers took Cate’s

Goleta.

motto Servons (“let us serve”) to

Susannah Gordon from Casa

heart, visiting 39 organizations and

del Herrero wrote, “Your crew did

logging over 1000 volunteer hours.

a wonderful job working in the

Each year advisory groups drive

Arizona garden, pulling together as a

en masse into the community to lend

team, and exuding that warmth and

a hand to nonprofits for the day. This

appreciation that we are coming to

year the groups visited the Foodbank

recognize as a Cate School hallmark!”

of Santa Barbara, the Environmental

The teachers at the Family School

in Carpinteria said, “Your students were enthusiastic, courteous, and awesome role models in our academic environment as well as out on the playground. We sure appreciate their service in our little community.”

Although they made an impact on the community, the day represents only a small fraction of the work and time students commit volunteering and serving others. Service takes many forms at Cate, from student organizations to weekly volunteer options to full-fledged summer service projects.

“I am really proud of all that we were able to accomplish as we engaged with the community, served others, and made a big difference,” said Director of Public Service Will Homes. “The contacts that I have made at a number of the organizations are truly happy when I get up with them each year to plan Public Service Day. This event certainly strengthens our relationship with the local community.”

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ON T H E M E SA

THE BROTHERS HA

Brotherhood and tennis talent serve Kevin '17 (left) and Ethan Ha '20 well on the court.

The world of sports is often filled with tired clichés. Watch or read any press conference and you’ll hear a laundry list of remarks you’ve probably heard many times over. One of those phrases that gets thrown around is that teammates are “like brothers.”

For Cate’s boys varsity tennis team, that cliché has taken new life thanks to Kevin and Ethan Ha. The Rams are off to one of their best starts in program history.

Currently sitting at 9-0 and ranked third in Division 3, the Rams have taken down all comers this season.

The list of Cate wins includes a who's who of local powerhouses. With three wins against the three biggest schools in the area, Santa Barbara High, Dos Pueblos High, and San Marcos High, and a win against the talented Tigers of San Luis Obispo High, the Cate boys have established themselves as a team to fear in the greater Santa 12

CAT E BULLET IN / S P R I N G 2017

Barbara area this season.

While high school tennis is certainly a team game, the Rams can attribute a fair bit of their success to one bloodline. Kevin Ha ’17 and his younger brother Ethan Ha ’20 have helped guide this already accomplished program to new heights, going undefeated in nonleague play. The two Carpinteria natives grew up playing in individual tournaments in the area. Kevin has been playing tennis for about eleven years now, while little brother Ethan has been at it for nine.

Their success hasn’t happened by accident. As their father Kenneth Ha said, “the Ha boys are hard working boys.” A few times a week the boys and their dad are at the courts before the start of the school day. Under the soft sunrise and in those misty mornings, the two fine-tune their games, and, almost as a byproduct,

grow together as brothers. The two have long been involved in individual youth tournaments growing up. Now, however, they both get to compete on the same team. It’s a feat that doesn’t go unnoticed by Kenneth.

“To see our boys playing tennis together is like seeing our tennis dream coming true. It's exciting, joyful and fulfilling, but also nerve wracking sometimes,” he said. More often than not, those nerves are felt by their opponent on the other side of the court as well. Kevin knows how special it is for his family to be able to watch him and his brother together and takes their words to heart. “My parents always stress that Ethan and I are strongest when we're together, and I truly believe that, as indicated by our strong start to the season,” he said.

For Ethan, competing with his big brother is a true joy. “I remember always watching my older brother and father play as a little kid, and when I was old enough I rushed out to the courts for my chance.” When he was finally able to hit the court with his brother, the outcome wasn’t so great. “I remember losing so much,” he added.

Kevin is as proud as any big brother would be when watching his little brother have a good start to his high school career. “My brother has transitioned very well to the tennis team. He is enthusiastic, hard working, and a great presence during matches and practices. Ethan's awesome to have as a teammate and I love that I can rely on him to do his best and win three,” said Kevin.

The older Ha has spent most of the Cate season at number 1 singles.

As captain of the team, it’s Kevin’s job to keep his teammates sharp, even when success seems to come easily.

ON T H E M E SA

ATHLETIC TRAINING HONOR “This is the most talented team I've been a part of these last four years but also the most lackadaisical. Our intensity and focus is there during matches but what separates good teams from championship teams is the same intensity applied to practice days,” he said.

The occasional lack of focus hasn’t taken away from his love for his teammates. “I love this team; they are like my family and there's no one I'd rather have to replace any member of my squad. Tennis is a beautiful sport that most deem as entirely individual, but the team dynamic, being in a group of guys that you live with and see throughout the day, makes you want to play with all your heart,” he added.

The Rams have five regular season matches left before the start of the playoffs. No one knows how this season will end up for Cate. The hope, of course, is a CIF-SS championship.

Tennis is a sport that many folks will continue to compete in long after their high school or even college days are done. All you need, of course, is a racket, a court, a few balls, and a partner.

For the Ha boys, that last part won’t ever be a problem.

Under the watchful eye of Strength and Conditioning Coach Erik Hansen, students build muscles and vital training knowledge.

Most athletes will say that it’s competition that keeps them going. Just like when our students take a test in class, athletes see games as their chance to demonstrate their abilities. In both athletics and academics, showing up for a game or test without preparing is a road map for failure. For Cate’s athletes, that preparation is where Erik Hansen is vital. Hansen has been Cate’s strength and conditioning coach for four years and has helped shape the way students view and use the weight room.

Hansen’s work has already been recognized and lauded – the School was a recipient of the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s Strength of America Award in 2016. According to the NSCA, “The National and Strength and Conditioning Association and the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition are proud to announce Cate School in Carpinteria, CA as a 2016 Strength of America Award recipient. This award recognizes Cate School to have represented the gold standard in strength and conditioning programs.” Several Rams, both past and present, were also recognized for their individual efforts in the weight room; Jessica Liou '16, Celia Foster '19,

Oliver Welch '16, Michael Nettesheim '16, Dean Smith '16, Keller Mochel '16, Ajibola Bodunrin '16, and Isaiah Washington '16 received All-American Athlete honors from the NSCA. For Hansen, the goal isn’t the awards, or to produce juggernaut athletes and future bodybuilding champions. “My goal as a strength coach is to have students leave Cate healthier than when they arrived.”

Hansen’s system all starts with a basic understanding of movement prep.

“Music teachers teach notes, scales, and chords to play songs. Math teachers have order of operations for algebra.

We all get that. It makes sense,” says Hansen. “But for some reason our society is culturally blind when it comes to movement. Coaches send kids out to play sports without recognizing that the things they’re asking them to do are supported by basic movement skills and strength. It’s unfortunate.”

Good educators will tell you that learning takes place both inside and outside the classroom. And Hansen’s classroom isn’t filled with desks and pens, but rather dumbbells and resistance bands. The learning, however, takes place just the same.

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ON T H E M E SA

WINTER SPORTS ROUNDUP

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Visiting competitors are no match for Neema Mugofwa ’20 as she powers toward the goal.

Chase McCaw '17 dominates opponents on the basketball court.

It turned out to be a magnificent winter here on the Mesa, with steady rains returning to Santa Barbara after a five-year absence. The wet weather caused many rain delays and postponements, wreaking havoc on the sports schedule. However, by the end of the season, we were treated thrilling games and a high level of success from our Rams. Individually, we had a couple of players achieve Player of the Year honors in league. Christian Herman '17 was named Offensive MVP of the Tri-Valley League in boys soccer, while Marko Pliso '18 was named Co-Player of the Year in the Frontier League for boys basketball. In addition, Pliso was named First Team All-CIF in basketball. Other students to be named First Team All-League include: Mason Mackall '17- Boys Basketball Ryan Borchardt '17- Boys Soccer Amber Thiery '17- Girls Basketball Isabela Montes de Oca '18- Girls Soccer Neema Mugofwa '20- Girls Soccer

first time. It was the culmination of many miles traveled and fun adventures along the way.

The boys varsity soccer team started the season with two wins and a draw, and showed they would challenge in every game this year. The Rams had the lead in nearly every match played this year, but struggled to find a consistent winning result.

The Rams had exciting league wins over Nordhoff and Grace Brethren.

Christian Herman '17 led the team in scoring on his way to League Offensive MVP recognition, while Ben Jessup '18 emerged as the anchor of the defense. Cullen Barber '19 was one of the most improved players on the team at his goalkeeper position, boasting over 40 saves on the season.

The Rams will look to rebound with a strong group of returners next year.

The girls varsity soccer team fought for a playoff spot until the last week of the season. The team improved

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Halie Straathof '17- Girls Water Polo Ella Hendriks '19- Girls Water Polo The squash team was able to participate in the emerging Southern California High School League again this year. The league now boasts high school teams from Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego. It has created an exciting opportunity for students to compete in juniors-only competition and for the league to crown annual champions in the A and B divisions. The team made stops at UCLA, the Santa Barbara Athletic Club, Access Academy in San Diego, and the Renaissance Clubsport in Orange County. In the High School Championships, brothers Ian MacFarlane '18 and Dylan MacFarlane '20 advanced to the round of 16 in the boys A draw, while Brandon Man '20 advanced to the semifinal of the Boys Level II B draw. In the girls championship, Kate Bradley '19 advanced to the quarterfinals for the

ON T H E M E SA

Aparna Iyer '17, Liana Schmidt '17, and Halie Straathof '17 have built a winning attitude that has become the foundation of the squad moving forward. This group leaves behind a legacy of hard work and success and it seems fitting that they will exit alongside a teacher who has given so much to the program and the School.

The boys basketball team also thrilled fans this winter, cracking the CIF rankings for the first time in seven years. The team peaked at #4 in January and, come playoff time, proved they are a team on the rise. The Rams placed second in the Frontier League and won their opening playoff game

Aparna Iyer '17 splashes towards the opponents' goal.

over Westmark by 40 points! The Rams each week, posting 5 of their 6 wins in league play in January and February.

The team was led offensively by Montes de Oca and Mugofwa, while Emily Burns '18 and Sophie Johnson '18 were standouts in the middle of the field alongside Maddie Erickson '19. The team had a thrilling win over Thacher, avenging an early-season loss, while capping 2017 with a win over Santa Clara. The team returns a large group of talented starters and heads into the offseason with high expectations for next year.

The girls varsity basketball team entered 2017 in rebuilding mode, after graduating a talented senior class in 2016. This season saw Amber Thiery '17 and Morgan Prinz '17 emerge as leaders and talented two-way players with one of the two leading the team in scoring in nearly every game this season. The season was highlighted by wins over Malibu and Villanova, while the most exciting victory of the

year came over Bishop Diego in a lastminute thriller. The team will graduate only Thiery and Prinz, returning a young nucleus for the next three years.

This winter we celebrated the final season of Charlie Plummer, the founder of water polo at Cate. Fans were treated to a fantastic match with Villanova for the league championship. Although the Rams came up one goal short that day, students, players, and alumni alike were able to celebrate Charlie and give him a wonderful send off. The team was able to rebound a week later with a first-round playoff win over Chadwick School. Last year, the team won their first wildcard game in over a decade; this year, the girls won their first playoff game in over a decade. The team lost to eventual champion Santa Ynez in a thrilling match that came down to the final moments. This season is a true testament to the hard work of all the girls, especially the seniors, who have been fantastic. Lila Dressler '17,

then played in front of back-to-back sellout crowds in Sprague Gymnasium, defeating #10 ranked Mesa Grande Academy by a final score of 90-49. In the final game of the season, the Rams played their first CIF Quarterfinal match in fifteen years. A raucous crowd filled Sprague Gym to the rafters as the Rams battled valiantly against #2 ranked Pacifica Christian. The Rams gave the Tritons all they could handle, but the eventual CIF Finalist and state qualifiers knocked the Rams out of this year’s playoffs. The Rams received great contributions from Chase McCaw '17, Pierce Lundt '17, Bryce Huerta '17, and Mason Mackall '17 all year long. This senior group helped turn around the program, improving their record each year on varsity. The team is in great shape moving forward, and we are excited to see what they can achieve next year.

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STEP INTO MY SHOES

by Sarah Kidwell

When author Colum McCann was twenty-one, he hatched a plan for adventure with some of his Irish friends. They were living on Cape Cod at the time and working at lowpaying jobs when they had the idea to buy a bus and travel across country, a la Jack Kerouac.

When that proved impractical, McCann settled for the next best thing, maybe – riding a bicycle instead – with the one friend who agreed. That journey stretched over many miles and many states, ending more than two years later in California, just up the coast from Carpinteria. And though, as McCann explained to a Cate audience during a January 23rd convocation, he’s never written about the trip itself, it launched him as a writer.

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S T E P I N T O M Y S HOE S

Visiting author Colum McCann shares insights and his love of stories with students in a Schoolhouse classroom.

“It was a moment of great grace for me when I finally understood that my job was to learn to listen. I met people from all walks of life. I was in the back swamps of Florida, in Louisiana, in Mexico, in New Mexico.

Fancy places in Aspen, Colorado.

I went to houses of the wealthy, I stayed with all sorts of people. All colors, all creeds, all ideas. The one thing that connected them was that they all had stories to tell but they also had a deep desire to tell those stories. It felt to me as I was traveling through on this bicycle that I was actually becoming a repository...and what they wanted me to do was to take their stories down the road and

give them to other people.”

The author of TransAtlantic, the School’s “common read” for the 201617 academic year, McCann also has nine other books and countless nonfiction pieces to his credit – as well as an Oscar-nominated documentary. His sprawling and deeply interconnected novel Let the Great World Spin won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2009. Yet McCann’s humility, humanity, and love of words and narrative came through clearly for students, who peppered him with questions about his writing process, his method for writing dialogue, and wondered whether he sees himself in any of his characters.

Students, faculty, and guests sat rapt as he read sections of TransAtlantic aloud, as well as excerpts from a series of columns he’s written aimed at young writers. His accent, an Irish lilt with twenty-odd years of New York City life layered on top it, brought an urgency to his call.

“The problem with so much of our reality, young writer, is that it operates from a flat surface, a screen, and it does not address itself to the contoured world we live in. So get off the couch.

Get out the door. Onto the page.

Justify your rage. Take pleasure in the recklessness of your imagination.”

McCann spoke of his early attempts at writing fiction, at which W W W. CATE . O R G

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S T E P I N T O M Y S HOE S

Reading from his book, TransAtlantic, author Colum McCann combines the power of artful language with the charm of an Irish accent.

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he admitted he claims to have“failed miserably.” The author, who also teaches writing at Hunter College’s MFA program, encouraged students to embrace failure, which he called “an extremely vivifying thing. I know that’s not often said to you, especially at the high school level, but failure to me admits ambition and there’s nothing better than you, and the people around you, trying to do that which seems impossible.”

During two writing workshops held in a Schoolhouse classroom earlier in the day, McCann queried students on their favorite books (they ranged from the Harry Potter series to Pride and Prejudice and Love in the Time of Cholera) and their writing processes. He detailed his own approach, and explained that he needs to develop an obsession with a particular topic or idea. TransAtlantic, he related, started with his obsession with Frederick Douglass, who as a runaway slave and then an antislavery lecturer visited Ireland just as that country’s crippling famine was beginning in the mid-1800s.

“I certainly had no idea that Douglass had ever been in Ireland, but what a beautiful story!” exhorted McCann. “Here is a black man, a slave, taking this trip across the ocean...and unfolding at his feet is this terrible famine that affects us still to this very day. We are talking about connection – we are talking about moments meeting moments, meeting other moments. Where we are now has absolutely been affected by the fact that Frederick Douglass

S T E P I N T O M Y S HOE S

To the likely dismay of some parents, Colum McCann urged students to "go off script," and to pursue an improbable, unprescribed path.

and others made these journeys and spoke out as they did.”

The other sections of the novel, about the Irish peace process and the impact of Senator George Mitchell on it, and the historic transatlantic flight by Alcock and Brown, commanded just as much devoted research and obsession, he explained.

In one of the writing seminars, a student tried to get McCann to home in on just how he creates a narrative. “So you do you all your research, and you have your material – then how do you decide what to include?” she queried.

In his answer McCann likened his method of writing to composing a symphony, and through practice knowing intuitively when to bring in particular language and detail.

“Here’s a bit of piano here, and now it’s time for the violin, and let’s bring up the contra-bass here, but,” he emphasized, “but you have to know all it of first.”

In one of the workshops he spoke of another form of connecting

“Above all, I am interested in the sound and music of poetry.” through stories, the non-profit Narrative 4, which he co-founded.

Narrative 4 rests on the principle of “radical empathy,” in which participants pair up to hear one another’s stories, and then retell them, having switched narrators. Aimed at young people, the catchphrase for the organization is “If you step into my shoes, I’ll step into yours.”

After joining students and faculty at formal dinner (he joked that Cate provided him with best-dressed crowd he’d ever spoken to, and that he should have shined “m’shoes”)

McCann sat down with a small group of faculty in a wide-ranging discussion about authors, teaching, reading, and poetry. He shared that he no longer accepts Christmas gifts from his three children – instead, he asks them to learn and recite a poem for him in lieu of giving him a scarf or a pair of socks.

“Above all, I am interested in the sound and music of poetry.”

Poetry, prose, written, or read aloud, McCann's evident love of words and story made a deep impression on students and faculty.

Yet he too seemed to benefit from his experience on the Mesa, telling his convocation audience, "You know how you can just feel in a place that there are things going on? It feels acutely alive here."

That observation also came with a challenge – to make writing and storytelling a "living portrait of yourselves." He continued: "Good sentences have the ability to shock, seduce and drag us out of our stupor.

Transform what has been seen, imagine the immensities of others' experiences, oppose the cruelties, break the silence, be prepared to risk yourself. Find radiance...Write young writer, write, claim your proper future. Find the language, write for the sheer pleasure we take in doing this but also for the knowledge that it might just shift this world of ours a little."

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Connecting the Rocks

by David Wood

Flakes of burnt incense, hesitatingly suspended by a light wind, hopped from a recent mound across the eroded roughness of a carved rock. Next to this rock was another, hosting five carnation stems, each straining to sip what remained of the water from a simple vase placed deliberately at the stone’s base.

There were many of these markers—forty-eight, actually—no longer needing to stand guard, but still loyally keeping each other company, as they had for over three hundred years.

As I knelt at Sengakuji*, squinting through dark glasses in Tokyo’s June sun, I reflected on what had brought

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as our inquiry topic for the year: What connects us to one another?

Throughout our four-week

me, what had brought us, to that sacred

adventure, we explored and shared our

place. It was the first day of our Cate

thinking and feelings on this topic. The

in Japan trip—my first such trip in six

obvious answers came most quickly.

years—and even as I tried to reconcile

Language, of course—isn’t that how we

my solemnity with the excitement of

connect to other people? Trains—isn’t

sharing this country with students, I

that how we connect to various places?

found myself in brief meditation on a

When we were welcomed by our sister

question we had been asked to consider

school, Yakumo Academy, however,

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and our students connected with their students, both at school and with host families, initial concrete responses became almost meaningless. Was it language that connected us, or, in some instances, insufficiently comprehensible language that provided opportunity for more profound connections with one another? To reference Antoine de SaintExupery, is it the engaging of each other that connects us? Or is it rather engaging with one another in a mutual endeavor that connects us?

Much like the breeze that floated the incense flakes from one rock to another, so did the Japanese shinkansen whisk us from Tokyo to Kyoto, with perhaps the major difference being the intentionality of the passenger. During our time in the former imperial capital, we visited temples, shrines, gardens, bamboo forests, rivers, tea huts, and more. To a greater extent than in any other year of this program, our students were taken by the artfulness of rock gardens. One, in particular, simultaneously transfixed and energized us.

C ON N EC T I NG T H E RO C K S

David Wood's rock garden takes many forms thanks to the creativity of community members.

The garden at Ryoanji, where rocks were long ago placed such that, no matter where one stands, one cannot see them all at the same time, elicited pleas for me to install a rock garden at Cate. I was amusingly flattered to think that my students were asking me to match centuries-old Zen design aesthetic and technique with an attempt at Cate. Nonetheless, I did begin to think about what it would take to put in a rock garden at our house on the Mesa.

Upon returning to Cate, I was moved by a desire to fulfill an unspoken promise, a need to commemorate this special trip to Japan, and, quite honestly, an urgency to do something about the drought-stricken lawn! In addition, beach art that teachers Aspen Golann and Joy Doyle had orchestrated last spring seeded my hope that this project could be mutually engaging and connecting. So, rather than attempt to build something for the ages, something that would only be observed, I chose to apply our inquiry question to my newfound fascination with rocks.

I began with a universal symbol for connectedness – a circle – filled it with pebbles (the palette, so to speak), and then added grapefruit-sized beach stones in various shades. I thought it appropriate to inaugurate the garden

with a commemoration of the Ryoanji inspiration. At that temple there is a well whose stone top connects four characters with the same ‘mouth／ 口’ element—吾唯足知る. Read in a clockwise direction, the phrase roughly translates as, “I know only contentedness.”

At a school assembly early in the year, I shared my thinking with the community and invited any interested person or group—class, dorm, advisory, athletic team, Mesa family—to share a design. I received several inquiries about availability and process, but my initial design remained unchanged for weeks. Thinking that some felt pressure to produce something deep and meaningful, my daughter and I changed the design into a coffee cup.

We do, after all, connect over coffee!

It wasn’t long before Pete Mack and daughter Reagan took the opportunity to welcome Halloween with an inviting Jack-O-Lantern for all trick-or-treaters to enjoy!

Soon afterward the Knecht family installed a musical design and challenged community members to identify the piece it represented.

Simon Parker ’18 and Apple Lieser ’18 received gift certificates for correctly recognizing the design as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Special “Rock On!”

kudos also went to Rose Xi ’17 for noticing that the design transposed the piece to A minor!

From these beginnings, we have enjoyed designs ranging from the cerebral to the whimsical. A Chinese class design of the characters for “gratitude” right before Thanksgiving Break was followed by a New Year’s message of “Peace” represented in Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and English.

February brought us a heart for Valentine’s Day (thank you Salcedo family!) and March a shamrock for St. Patrick’s Day. I will betray my fascination with de Saint-Exupery’s thinking as I reference him for the second time: “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing with him the image of a cathedral.”

Even as we approach a crescendo in our consideration of the inquiry question for this year, I hope that this pile of rocks will continue to serve as a way of connecting us to one another through the expression of ideas, thoughts, dreams, and, perhaps especially, the simplest messages.

David Wood holds the Scott McLeod Distinguished Teaching Chair for Leadership and is Chair of the Foreign Languages Department.

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I'm With Her!

Former English teacher GABY EDWARDS traveled to Washington, D.C. in January to take part in the historic Women’s March. While she anticipated feeling a bond with fellow marchers, her experience turned out to be a study in the ties that bind, both at Cate and beyond.

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must admit I’d had some misgivings about this trip, deterred by fears of frigid weather and smothering crowds, as well as by the skepticism of those who asked, “What’s the point?” My daughter (and D.C. resident) Paula Edwards '88 convinced me otherwise, so we were off to LAX, parkas and pink hats in hand.

There was another draw – the promise of a premarch gathering of Cate alums,

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initially sparked by Emma '13 and Pharibe Pope '15, who were excitedly gathering a group to meet in solidarity. My daughter Nan’s '84 house in Cleveland Park seemed like the perfect spot, so with the help of the alumni office, the word went out on social media to gather at Nan’s for a potluck Cate dinner the night before the march.

As soon as we settled in at our Southwest gate at LAX, we met women who were making the same eventful journey. A woman my age had traveled from Hawaii, and a young woman next to her was returning

from LA to her home city of Baltimore to join her large extended family, who were all marching. It was my first hint that this would be much larger than anticipated (200,000 had officially registered).

There was already excitement in the streets of D.C. on

I'M W I T H H E R

of other friends who were there from across the country. Maybe everybody on the planet knows somebody who joined a women’s march somewhere in the world on that historic January 21st. It may be time to reconsider the famous six degrees of separation! e had no idea who would actually show up at our Edwards-Pope pre-march supper, but bowls of chips and dip were ready, along with trays of cookies, and the pizza had been ordered when the doorbell started to ring. A raft of recent alums who had traveled from their New England colleges appeared, each bringing college pals with them. Emma and Pharibe were there from Middlebury and Miami of Ohio, Eliza Giles had come from Penn, and Sumner Matthews from Dartmouth. Then there were the New Yorkers: Eleanor Bennett, Lexi Greenwald, Megan Falvey, and Jasmine Sherwood, all Class of '10, young career women out of college and full of fascinating stories about their jobs in the Big Apple. There was Sarah Vasquez '08, who teaches elementary school in D.C. Staying with her was classmate Hallie McPherson '08, who couldn’t make the party but whom I saw earlier that day. Cate drama teacher Jessica Block had just arrived from the West Coast and brought along her former advisee Tim Annick '10, now working in D.C. Nicola Sykes had driven over from Baltimore.

Nan’s sister-in-law arrived from Chicago with two friends, and Paula invited a friend she learned had come from Paris! What a lively mix of generations and professions, from Cate and beyond, all gathered for a common cause.

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A large group of Cate-connected marchers gathered at the house Nan Edwards Pickens '84 the night before the march.

Top row: Sarah Vasquez '08, Jazmin Sherwood '10, Lexi Greenwald '10, Megan Falvey '10, Eleanor Bennett '10, Nicola Sykes '83, Nan Edwards Pickens '84, Gaby Edwards, Paula Edwards Agnew '88.

Front row: Jess Block, Tim Annick '12, Eliza Giles '13, Meghan Killea '13, Emma Pope '13, Pharibe Pope '15, Sumner Matthews '15

Thursday, with young artists selling gorgeous posters and placards, and high-fives on street corners between young and old already sporting pink hats. In the grocery checkout line we were surrounded mostly by women with carts filled with bottles of wine, bags of chips, and flowers. When I inquired if they were planning preMarch parties, one replied, “Oh yeah, tonight we party, because tomorrow we get to work!” hat was the theme of a teachin Paula and I attended that afternoon at Politics and Prose, the famed independent bookstore around the corner from Nan’s house in D.C. This is going to be messy – the presenters told us – this loose coalition of so many causes. “All of these issues – economic inequality, healthcare, prison reform, LGBT rights – all of these are women’s issues,” they

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reminded the packed audience. “Don’t burn out, stay earnest, keep showing up,” they exhorted.

Waiting in a long line for the tiny bookstore restroom, I suddenly heard, “Mrs. Edwards!” And there was Nicola Sykes, Cate '83, daughter of dear colleagues Marty and Frank Sykes, and my advisee all those years ago. What a thrill it was to reconnect!

Minutes later I found myself next to Sarah Kidwell and her daughter Liza Borghesani '20.

There were other surprise connections as well. In an annual phone call to a dear friend from my own boarding school days, I learned that classmate Susan was driving to the march with her daughter and granddaughter from rural northern Illinois. Thanks to that chance phone call, we shared a happy reunion in D.C. In the months since, I’ve learned

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I’M W I T H H E R !

Liza Borghesani '20 traveled to Washington D.C. for the Women's March. She is wearing the hat Math Department Chair Annalee Salcedo knitted for her.

The morning of the march the weather was positively balmy – in the 50s – with high clouds, and my fears of freezing were dispelled. I was touched to discover that not only would our granddaughter Olivia join us but also our grandson Selden and his dad David. It turned out that the Metro stations were overcrowded, but the streets were empty of traffic, so we drove toward the National Mall, passing hundreds of families, student groups, costumed performers in pink, all pouring down streets from miles away, enjoying the mild temperatures and convivial spirit. s we got near and parked, we were suddenly absorbed into a vast swarm of people on every major street, ignoring stop lights and just flowing like wide, multicolored rivers toward the mall, then onto the mall, with

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waves of roaring cheers reverberating off the buildings. We experienced a rush of soul-stirring togetherness – no obstructions, no jostling (even when it got really packed), everyone getting a kick out of one another’s funny and creative signs, high-fiving, taking pics with cell phones. Many, both young and old, stopped me to ask about the 1976 ERA button on my pussy hat, loaned by a Carpinteria friend whose mother had campaigned for the ERA in Hawaii in the 70s. Many took photos of it. More than one sign carried by a woman my age read, “Can’t Believe I’m Still Protesting All This Shit.” Mine, reading “I’m With Her,” pointed to my daughters and granddaughter.

There was no way we could get to the area where the stage was supposed to be, nor could we even hear any speakers. We soon discovered that not only was it not

The march was a family affair: Gaby Edwards was joined by daughters, Paula '88 and Nan '84, and granddaughter, Olivia.

just a women’s march but it also wasn’t really a march, as the hundreds of thousands of women, men, and children gathered there had nowhere to parade! The crowd extended the whole length of the National Mall and out into the streets beyond, wonderfully, mysteriously leaderless.

So after a few happy hours of weaving through the masses and imbibing the revelry up and down the mall, we found a Thai restaurant some blocks away and ate lunch while watching the impressive speakers and performers on a big screen – perfect! hen back out on the streets to discover that people were still pouring in at 2:30. We heard later that by 1:00 pm 470,000 had used the Metro to get there and more were still coming! We bought some great commemorative t-shirts on the street and headed home,

T

I ’M W I T H H E R !

truly fired up and full of this thing – a call to action – so much larger than ourselves. Hope. And then to hear that all over the country the marches were WAY bigger than anyone imagined they would be. As we heard chanted throughout the day, “Sí se puede!” ince the march, all the stories I tell seem to be about meeting, sharing, connecting with old friends and new, like those strangers in airports and in bathroom lines. Back home in Carpinteria, the connections sometimes occur in chance encounters. After our photo appeared in the Carpinteria weekly newspaper, The Coastal View News, on a whole page of locals who had marched in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, or D.C., a few clerks in small shops commented, “I saw you in the paper! Thank you for marching!”

More often the connections happen at meetings of like-minded people, like one at the library where eighty people showed up to join an Indivisible chapter, or one at St. Joseph’s church hall, where a similarly large crowd gathered to learn how to support our undocumented immigrant neighbors. Or at the Veterans Memorial Hall, where a panel of Mexican-American activists spoke about the fears of those neighbors.

At each of these, I was proud to see in the crowd faces of Cate colleagues and their families or groups of Cate students. What connects us is a lot more than politics, but at this moment in history, our shared concern for the future of our country is a powerful bond.

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Gaby Edwards was a member of the Cate faculty from 1964 to 2008.

LOS ANGELES WOMEN'S MARCH While a delegation of Caties took to the streets in DC during the Women’s March, another group headed to LA for one of the many sister marches. Organized

by Wendy McFarland and driven by Martin Vega, the group left at 5:30 a.m. on January 21.

McFarland says the march was an "incredible experience." Initially expected to have 100,000, marchers it ended with estimates of 750,000. At one point the Cate girls I was marching with played "Dancing Queen" on their phone speaker and were singing to it; within minutes the entire crowd was singing "Dancing Queen" in unison and it sounded amazing!!”

Even with a 5:30 a.m. departure this group was energetic and all smiles at the sister LA Women's March.

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I 'm Wi t h T hem

While the Women’s March became a means of connection for many Cate alumni, students, and faculty, not all donned a pink hat or stepped out to protest. In fact, the division in the nation’s political views, laid bare by the recent presidential election, also played out to some degree on the Mesa. In her Tuesday Talk on January 18, just before Donald Trump's inauguration, senior Delaney Mayfield offered her own form of protest – suggesting that Cate’s diversity fits only one definition of the word. Other alums called and wrote in support of her view. A portion of her talk is below; opposite is faculty member Katheryn Park's account of conservative speaker Ying Ma's visit to the Mesa on Monday, April 17.

TUESDAY TALK: DELANEY MAYFIELD We know that Cate is 40% students of color, and that’s a great quality of the school. But why is it that we care so greatly about cosmetic diversity rather than intellectual, or ideological, diversity? The pressure this school has put on us to all have the same beliefs has been unrealistic and immensely uncomfortable for many, including me. Honestly, I really don’t understand why my political and ideological beliefs offend so many of you. Do you fear someone being different than you? Do you fear someone challenging your beliefs?

Although many of you believe this issue is new to Cate and just arriving with the most recent election, its beginnings go back to before my sister arrived on the Mesa, and again, that was ten years ago.

I grew up in a family where we believe in more power to the individual, less control and involvement from the government, and a free marketplace that inspires innovation and allows people to earn money by creating value for fellow citizens. We are socially libertarians, but fiscally conservative because we believe that big governments lead to inefficiency. While most of my family members are registered Republicans, my sister is an Independent and she 28

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Delaney Mayfield '17 relays a conservative sentiment during her Tuesday Talk.

voted for Hillary. As a family we did not agree on all of the positions of the various candidates, but we did enjoy constructive and respectful conversations about the election. I vividly remember the night of the election; my family had a group chat going, and as the momentum towards Trump began, my brother said, “One state away but this is a great day for America! We have the President, House, and Senate – gonna be a great four years!” And my sister responded by saying, “agree to disagree,” with an eye-rolling emoji. This is a moment where, again, I realized the importance of hearing more than one opinion, even in my own family. I also learned that although my siblings

and I grew up in the same house and were raised by the same parents, we formed our own opinions through experience, and we’re now able to respect our differences. I’m not asking any of you to agree with me; instead I’m just asking that you at least tolerate others’ opinions with respect.

I don’t think you need to celebrate something with which you disagree, but simply respect each person’s right to express his or her opinions and differences.

While the focus of this talk is not on the election, it’s important to realize that it brought the issue of political differences out into the open for all to see. During the time when we posted our opinions regarding the election on the pillars outside the theater, one statement caught my eye. It said, “It feels like if you don’t support Hillary or Bernie, then you don’t belong here (at Cate).” This statement fully resonated with me because it’s exactly how I have felt for some time, and particularly this past fall. Knowing others felt the same way made me realize the importance of reaching out to people who have been struggling with the same issue I have, and doing my best to help them.

Today, I want you to think about the idea of diversity and what that really means at Cate.

Watch the full video on Cate's Vimeo page.

I'M W I T H T H E M

CONVOCATION: YING MA Ying Ma spoke to a Cate School audience on the night of Monday, April 17. Her credentials– 2016 Deputy Policy and Communications Director for Dr. Ben Carson’s presidential campaign, followed by a stint as the Deputy Director for a Super-PAC for Donald Trump—were juxtaposed against the background of Ma’s story.

She characterized her life as “getting to know freedom and learning to overcome hate,” experiences that led her to be a conservative voice in politics.

Born in post-Mao communist China, Ma’s childhood was marked by privation: no hot water, no toilets, no refrigerator, washer, dryer, or color TV and above all, no economic opportunities. When her parents had a chance to immigrate legally to the United States to join family, they seized the possibility. Landing in Oakland for junior high and high school, Ma was subject to intense bullying, especially due to her race and gender. However, she excelled in school, gaining a place for herself first at Cornell, then at Stanford’s law school.

Ma was quite clear that she has never asked for special quotas or preferences or asked the government to do more for her because she had less than others. As she noted, “We fought poverty the old-fashioned way.

We worked.” Ma was direct in her message to Cate students: inequalities exist in a free society. For Ma, the idea that everyone should have the same led to the poverty and hardships of her Chinese childhood. She stands as her own example of the power of hard work and personal responsibility to lead to economic opportunity and success. Her summary: “The path to success is not paved with grievances.” She offers her story to illustrate the virtues of America being available to any and everyone willing to work for them.

A native of China, Ying Ma discussed her upbringing in the US and her recent work for Dr. Ben Carson and President Donald Trump.

Ma invited questions after her speech, and many students were eager to speak. “As a person who emigrated from an oppressive regime to find a better life,” asked senior Lillian Perlmutter, “Why do you support a president who does not support immigration?

Ma calmly reiterated her support for Trump as in part due to her support for a president who takes Homeland Security seriously. She also noted that when Ben Carson spoke to Syrian refugees, their priority was to go home, not to go to America. Sophomore Tilly Bates expanded upon the topic when she asked whether Ma believed that the chance of terrorist activity was worth enacting a racist ban. Detailing a more nuanced definition of Trump’s travel ban, Ma said that it is not correct to accuse everyone who is interested in fighting extremist terrorism as Islamophobe.

Moving back to the story of Ma’s childhood, Senior Musa Hakim asked Ma to expand upon a comment about minority hatred for other minorities.

Ma is hopeful; she believes that if mainstream society and adults do not condone racial slurs, the hearts and minds of the young can be changed.

Freshman Mark Huerta asked to what Ma attributed the “bad” school of her

youth. Ma clearly called out lack of personal responsibility both of the students who would not study and of the teachers who would not teach.

The response from some Cate students indicated that they listened to Ma’s views but also wanted more detail.

Avalon Swanson ’19 would have liked to hear about how Ma made the adjustment between her public school in Oakland and Cornell, while another student wondered about the inner workings of the Carson campaign. Joel Revo, ’17 noted that his fellow students’ questions sometimes were more oriented to poking holes in Ma’s comments than in actually starting a dialog.

By presenting speakers with a variety of opinions, both liberal and conservative, the School invites Cate students to think critically. Headmaster Ben Williams noted that Cate is not here to make students comfortable. Instead, the School is here to help students learn how to look at the world outside of themselves and try to make sense of it. Surely the spectrum of ideas and opinions laid out in the Convocation series is a compelling way to encourage intellectual growth. -Katheryn Park W W W. CATE . O R G

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THROUGH THE LENS There are places on the Mesa where we gather most - in the theater, the chapel, a classroom, a school bus.

Photographers Ashleigh Mower and Serena Soh ‘17 captured images of these spaces empty so viewers can complete the picture with their own personal experiences and memories.

RE-IMAGINING CATE'S WEB PRESENCE It's almost hard to imagine life before the world wide web – our students certainly can't. Today it's one of the best ways we have to connect to prospective families, current families, and (when they're not reading this magazine) our alumni.

Our old website was starting to feel a little dated and wasn't mobile friendly, so we brought in some help. Distinc_, a design firm from Pasadena, spent some time on the Mesa, meeting with students, faculty, families, and alumni. They took a look at how we were communicating on the web, and came up with some new ideas based on their conversations and insights. After a good deal of back and forth, some writing, editing, and posting, we launched the new site. We hope you stay properly connected, and please send us your thoughts on how it all turned out.

OPINIONS FROM THE CATE COMMUNITY The aesthetics are different across portals.

Too much information on the website. It needs a hierarchy.

Mobile site needs a lot of work.

I love all the photos of the kids.

Cate builds character.

The beauty speaks for itself.

There is no need to tell people it's beautiful.

The kids have a work ethic that really pushes each other.

In contrast to the East Coast schools we visited, Cate was extraordinarily friendly.

Highlighting the location is something we can't do enough of.

There is just so much more than academic rigor.

I was surprised at how well prepared I was for college.

There is an energy of working hard but it's not a pressure cooker.

Assembly is a real display of school spirit.

I've visited colleges that are not as diverse as Cate.

It's stunning. Everywhere you go you see a mountain or the ocean. It contributes to well-being.

Advanced courses are fundamentally different. It's not just another name for AP.

DISTINC_'S FINDINGS The website could do a better job of communicating the spirit of Cate and underscoring the experience throughout all sections. The weekly photo galleries seem to be the most successful depictions of what it's like to be at Cate. What makes Cate unique isn't one thing but many, yet much its essence is currently fragmented in sections and across myriad external social channels. There is an opportunity to unify Cate's digital presence with a concise, clear, and compelling message for current and prospective families.

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CLEAR AND CONCISE MAIN NAVIGATION PAGE

BIG BOLD IMAGES TAKE THE VIEWER THROUGH THE DAY

TIME STAMP CREATES A "SIGNATURE" THAT CAN BE CARRIED THROUGH ALL PLATFORMS

THE NEW WEBSITE DESIGN

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY A MOBILE FRIENDLY DESIGN! APPEALING TAGLINES, SIMPLER LANGUAGE, READABLE TYPEFACE

Check out our new site at www.cate.org W W W. CATE . O R G

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DISPATCHES Connective tissue is at the center of Cate, so it's no surprise that alums, even recent ones, depend on each other as they move forward in their lives and careers or use their abilities to connect as an asset in their working lives.

RYAN CAIN '16 People often talk about high school as being one of the most challenging periods of one’s life – a time of growing pains and coming of age far less glamorous than those iconic John Hughes movies would have us believe.

For one of Cate’s newest graduates, however, it’s been a life-changing gap year that has played out like an on-screen adventure. The opening scene? Our protagonist, Ryan Cain '16, reflecting on the moment when the ceramic bug “bit” him, and the nudge from a beloved faculty member (John Swain) to run with it. Swain encouraged Ryan to see what he could produce outside of class, which led to a discovery – one that’s “quite difficult to let go of” – as organic as the clay between his hands. Being able to create and share with someone a physical piece of art, and to watch the expression grow on that person’s face while holding it, felt to Ryan as though he’d learned a “precious” new way to communicate with others.

Fast forward to present day, where Ryan finds himself halfway across the globe in Japan, both honing and teaching his craft. This apprenticeship, which many told Ryan couldn’t ever be realized, is nothing short of a dream come true for him. And its realization is thanks in large part to “the extraordinarily kind and mysterious” Yui Haraguchi '96 – a fellow graduate of Cate who, despite never having met 36

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Ryan Cain '16 assisting the annual Noborigama firing at the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art.

Ryan (though they share a long chain of emails), helped him secure the position with his current teacher. When asked why he thought a near-stranger would go out of his way to make this happen, Ryan’s answer was simple: Cate. “Cate seems to have moved us each in such a way that he would happily … help realize my dreams.” Now, that dream involves embracing the Japanese work ethic and balancing duty (to his teacher) with dedication (to his own growth as an artist).

Just like many of us with full-time jobs, Ryan is expected to be in or around the studio every day from 9am to 5pm – recycling clay, trimming pieces, cleaning the work space, or giving a class (often in Japanese!). While Ryan will be the first to admit that the storied cliché of the apprentice becoming the master is not yet the case for him, this gap year is

proving to mold him much the way he molds his clay. Though what he misses most about America is, of course, the people, Ryan has found comfort in the hospitality of Japan – “something you cannot believe until you come here,” he affirms. “Where I live now I have been treated like nothing short of a son or brother – they accept me as a genuine member of their family, sharing in my successes and failures.” One such success has been learning to better navigate the language, including the culture of formality ingrained in all of its nuances.

The language of food, however, remains a universal one; and Ryan speaks highly of Japanese food establishments (including convenience stores, which are apparently in a “league of their own”), though he still occasionally misses a good California burger.

Above all, what is not lost in

DI S PAT C H E S

translation is Ryan’s gratitude for this opportunity, or his conviction in the benefits to be reaped from straying – just a tad – from the beaten path. To anyone considering a gap year, Ryan insists, that, “You will absolutely never have another time like this in your life.” He also recommends, however, curbing any natural tendency to rebel with a dose of reality from those who have been there, done that: the adult community, rich with wisdom, and readily available at Cate. Our leading man therefore recognizes the characters who shaped his own character, and that “the immense trust the School places in its students…is believing in each of their capacities to walk the roads laid bare before them.”

And as with any good story, we have come full circle, just like the wheel on which Ryan works – he guides the clay, as Cate guided him, and even from the other side of the world, the language of art connects us all. -Selena Mone SANDRA VEGA ‘06 While most people prefer to slip into something more comfortable after work, Sandra Vega ’06 used to come home and get dressed to the nines instead. While the Smith College grad was still living and working in Boston, she modeled and wrote for her own fashion blog. Vega studied the style and marketing other popular bloggers used, eventually developing her own unique

Sandra Vega '06 (@sandravee), a marketing manager at Twitter, is always on the move and feeling connected to her world of technology and communications.

voice with growing an audience in mind.

She describes that blog experience as a “side project” and “creative outlet” that balanced her nonprofit work at the Boston Bar Association. Little did she know that blog would be the catalyst to her career at Twitter.

Vega’s experience with social media proved valuable when she moved west.

She took a job at a women’s clothing store in Summerland, (just a short drive from Cate). When the owner learned about Sandra’s blog, she offered her the role of Social Media Manager. “I launched a blog for the boutique, wrote the articles, posted on social media every day, and managed the community of followers.”

Successful in her role, Vega knew there were bigger fish to fry -- and knew she was up to the task. That’s when a job as a marketing coordinator at Twitter presented itself. “They had trouble finding someone with marketing experience who was also proficient in Spanish. As a first generation MexicanAmerican, I was so grateful for my parents to have insisted that my brothers and I learn and keep our native tongue.”

The position was only a threemonth contractor gig. But despite her misgivings, Vega took the job, and within three days relocated to the Bay Area. Three months turned into six months, and then into eight months, and then finally, into a full-time position as a marketing manager on the Twitter Business Team.

“As with most marketers, most of my day involves meetings within my team and with other stakeholders. These meetings are great status checks where we troubleshoot any questions that may come up when working with a project.

Since I’m part of the content team in our department, our meetings are usually for creative brainstorming. Most days you’ll catch me running around with my laptop and phone in hand searching for my next meeting room.”

Vega also works on social campaigns, where she finds content to promote and “repackage.” “I constantly keep an eye on our campaigns to see what’s performing and find areas on how to improve,” she says. While her role W W W. CATE . O R G

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involves “sharing the value that Twitter brings to businesses,” she also praises the platform as a way to stay informed about everything from “natural disasters to pop culture to the US elections. That dialogue happens on Twitter first.”

Once a month Vega organizes and hosts a Twitter chat on the @ TwitterBusiness account. “We choose a topic and a partner to have a Q&A-style back-and-forth conversation on Twitter.

It’s one of my favorite projects because we see influencers, CEOs, companies, and other brands joining in and having conversations with each other.” She says of her work, “It’s fun being able to be part of the vehicle that brings people together.” -Joe Gottwald '10 A self-described people person, Candace Griffith '05 links her love of sports to her working life.

CANDACE GRIFFITH ‘05 GOAL! This cheer is one that Candace Griffith '05 undoubtedly hears a lot these days. While apropos (the girl’s certainly got goals of her own), it’s a different affirmation that keeps Candace fired up: Carpe diem! Her favorite motto, “Seize the day” sits at the core of her personal values – learned and internalized while at Cate – and it recently propelled her to take a huge leap of faith. Candace’s previous job had taught her important lessons about office politics, fighting for what she deserves, and reaching her full potential.

But that potential began to feel a bit elusive, as the hustle and drive on which she prides herself had slowly started to fade over the years, leaving her yearning for something different. Not one to rest on her laurels (referring to herself in the third person, she emphatically declares, “Candace does not lack passion”), she remembered what Cate had instilled 38

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in her, and embraced an opportunity to get off the sidelines and jump into a challenging new role.

She now finds herself in the nation’s

her peers “are more confident than ever that we can stand out in the crowd and be the best at what we do while being compensated accordingly.” Focusing

capital working for Major League Soccer

attention on a staff of over 320 no doubt

team D.C. United. While the team

demands a certain poise – and Candace

plays hard on the field, Candace works

has it.

Very much a people person, she credits Cate with honing her interest in leadership. “I developed my social identity at Cate,” she says, and Candace is most grateful for the way the School both taught and allowed her to step into that potential. From prefect and team captain to youth mentor during college, Candace discovered that her innate ability to connect with others is something she “really got in touch with while at Cate.” The subsequent progression into human resources was therefore a natural one; and as her enthusiasm for the work has grown, so has her confidence. Good thing,

hard managing their human resources department…in its entirety. Such responsibility, she admits, is overwhelming at times; but ever the optimist, Candace has “never been more sure of how bright the future will be” – and how sure of herself she feels. Not necessarily an easy feat when the level playing field that the athletes enjoy often doesn’t exist for women in the workplace. One might even assume that this proves especially true in the world of sports; but Candace wisely points out that, regardless of the industry, it comes as no surprise that women still have to “fight to command respect.” She also, on the other hand, feels that she and

DI S PAT C H E S

genocide and the Syrian refugee crisis, Chrissy and her group of wildly diverse classmates found a common interest that tethered them together: the belief in universal human rights.

Despite coming from every corner of the world, the 24 SEGL students came together and quickly discovered their common passion. Different methods of communicating beliefs posed a struggle, but the strength of the bond formed by the students’ shared interests allowed them to work together effectively on a culminating project: a policy document addressing and striving for basic human rights.

Reflecting on how her semester at Sophomore Chrissy Robinson (second from right) attends a lecture at the School for Ethics and Global Leadership during her fall semester away from Cate.

SEGL has affected her, Chrissy says,

too, as D.C. United is in the process of constructing a new world-class stadium, as well as recruiting folks to fill the positions the facility will create. Much of the responsibility for making sure that all of this runs smoothly will fall to Candace, as she works to provide support wherever necessary.

Hers may not be a flashy role, full of wheeling-and-dealing, but it’s where Candace shines. Often needing to serve as more of a "counselor" or "intermediary" she is now able to flex her muscles as both leader and team player. It’s a balancing act whose roots can be traced back to the way Cate urged her to approach the world – to be “strong and sure of yourself” while also remaining “open-minded and objective” to all that lies ahead. The conviction with which Candace speaks about her work, her memories of the School, and her sense of self-worth is infectious,

from me while still sharing a common

like the spreading of a cheer across the stadium. With her quiet confidence, she implores, “Cate taught us to seize the day…will you?” -Selena Mone CHRISSY ROBINSON '18 Resting comfortably in Dupont Circle, near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., The School for Ethics and Global Leadership (SEGL) provides its students with an invigorating environment, where they’re able to thrive in the program’s unique hands-on education. Chrissy Robinson ’18, along with 23 other intellectually motivated high school juniors from all over the world, spent her fall semester at SEGL; she and her fellow students there shared the goal of shaping themselves into ethical leaders who can help to inspire positive change in the world. Through detailed studentled discussions about both past and present-day issues, such as the Rwandan

“Being around people so different goal and passion to fight for human rights taught me always to value the people around me and to look for the connections I have with them, no matter how different from me they may seem.

I realized just how much collaboration can positively impact others, and finding so many people at SEGL who shared the same passion for human rights showed me that selflessness, compassion, a willingness to serve, and a common goal are all strong forces that connect us as individuals and give us the power to fight for what we believe in.” The power of connection is just one of many lessons that Chrissy learned from her semester at SEGL, and she hopes to continue using her voice to inspire passion and form connections among her peers everywhere she goes, starting at Cate.

-Annie Lu '17 W W W. CATE . O R G

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E N DPAG E

Doubly Dangerous Really good assembly skits are hard to come by. What’s even more rare is a multi-episode series of them.

But this year Maisie Oswald ’18 and Apple Lieser ’18 defied the odds with the creation of DangerTwins. Each episode stars the two girls as a crimesolving masked duo in a town called Metro City, where they battle villains like Evil Nemesis and The Man. As Oswald explains (Lieser is spending her spring term at the High Mountain Institute in Colorado), “It’s mostly satire and commentary on what’s happening at Cate" – with some environmental messages mixed in. “In Episode One, Evil Temperature Guy kept raising the heat in Metro City, which was causing everybody’s leftover Halloween candy to spoil before its expiration date. So students were getting sick and making bad decisions, like jumping off the roof of the ATC into the pool.” (A real Cate student had actually done that.)

The first-rate cast also includes Will Anderson ’20, Daphne McKeefry ’19, Kyril Van Schendel ’18, Diarra Pouye ’18, Tessa Denison ’19 as Prop Girl, and Young Su Ko ’18 as the narrator. Since there’s plenty of improvisation, the dialogue tends to 56

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sound surprisingly natural. And when things don’t go as planned, the actors just forge ahead undaunted. It all makes for a wonderfully weird and confusing audience experience.

There’s been nothing remotely like it at Cate since 1994, when current science teacher and rock band advisor Nathan Clay ’94 achieved cult status by dazzling assemblies as DangerMan. Clay remembers how it all started. He was sitting in the Keck Lab when his friend Rob Soulé ’95 came up and said, “I have an idea.” His idea was to do an assembly skit featuring a superhero and some kind of cliffhanger ending, and then just see where it went. Clay thought it sounded interesting, so the two of them began to talk it through. They decided to add an absurdist touch by calling DangerMan’s sidekick Montesquieu, and they chose John Locke as their “handle” – the name they used when they signed up for an “announcement.” Eugene Park ’94 served as Prop Boy, and Jeff Eldridge ’96 was both tech guy and narrator. Clay and Soulé each wore a cape and mask on stage, and outside of assembly they expressly denied any involvement with the skits.

Maisie and Apple first heard about

DangerMan last fall from Lauren Jared, their U.S. History teacher. They were fascinated, so they went to speak to Clay, who had been their chemistry teacher the year before. “He told us about the whole thing and showed us a couple of DangerMan videos on his computer,” says Maisie. “Apple and I decided right then that we wanted to do something similar. We were really excited because we knew that DangerMan had been such a thing; everyone looked forward to it, and all the people involved were Cate School celebrities. Now people come up to us and they’re like, ‘Oh, what’s happening with the DangerTwins?’ Which is cool.”

At first, Clay wasn’t sure he wanted Maisie and Apple to follow through with their spin-off. “I don’t know if I was just feeling protective or what,” he says. “I guess I wanted to make sure that it would be done in the right spirit, at least if I was going to help.”

In the end, of course, he did help, and he’s glad of it. Thanks to this fluky connection, once again everybody sits up at assembly when the prefects in charge say, “John Locke?”

- Jeff Barton

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFFICERS OF THE BOARD Greg H. Kubicek '74 Chairman Vancouver, WA Monique F. Parsons '84 President Glencoe, IL J. Wyatt Gruber '93 Treasurer San Francisco, CA Henry F. Burroughs '68 Vice President Jackson, WY

LIFE TRUSTEES Richard D. Baum '64 Kenwood, CA James F. Crafts, Jr. San Mateo, CA Dan A. Emmett '99 Santa Monica, CA George B. James San Francisco, CA Nelson D. Jones '48 San Marino, CA TRUSTEES

Eric C. Taylor '80 Vice President Los Angeles, CA

Jessica Bowlin CPO President Pacific Palisades, CA

Benjamin D. Williams IV Secretary / Headmaster Carpinteria, CA

Mimi Brown '92 Hong Kong

Kate C. Firestone Solvang, CA

J.C. Massar Pasadena, CA

Jay Dorion Assistant Headmaster

Stephen J. Giusto '80 Laguna Beach, CA

Casey McCann '97 Santa Barbara, CA

Hallie Greene Director of Strategic Initiatives

David Horowitz Irvine, CA

Edward R. Simpson '86 Los Angeles, CA

Frank A. Huerta '85 Santa Barbara, CA

Marianne Sprague Santa Barbara, CA

Jack Jackson '95 Alumni Council President Fresno, CA

Lisa B. Stanson '92 Newport Beach, CA

Palmer Jackson, Jr. '82 Santa Barbara, CA Janet C. Jones Santa Monica, CA Chris Maloney '80 Rancho Santa Fe, CA

Sebastian Man '76 Rosalind Emmett Nieman '89 Hong Kong Pacific Palisades, CA Sheila Marmon '90 Los Angeles, CA

FACULTY ADVISORY TRUSTEES John Swain Faculty/Art Stephanie Yeung Faculty/English EX-OFFICIO STAFF Charlotte Brownlee ‘85 Assistant Head, External Affairs

Lisa Holmes Director of Studies Peter Mack Director of Residential Life Lindsay Newlove Director of Advancement Sandi Pierce Assistant Head, Finance and Operations José Powell Director of Multiculturalism Bryan Rodriguez Dean of Students

CATE SCHOOL 1960 Cate Mesa Road Post Office Box 5005 Carpinteria, CA 93014-5005

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Santa Barbara, CA Permit #1020