CA Magazine Summer 2022 by Concord Academy

SUMMER 2022

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE

CA Turns 100 CE N TE N N IA L CE L E BR ATION S B EG I N

CENTENNIAL WISHES

Concord Academy has received an outpouring of wishes in honor of the school’s Centennial. Many were written on weather-resistant tags and tied to a grove of “wish trees” on campus; others were shared online or in class notes. For CA’s Centennial, I wish ... That while going through changes, it will retain its simplicity and purpose, as it has so far. W EN DY A P P EL B R OW N ’ 47

SEND A WISH Add your own hopes for the school’s next century at concordacademy.org/centennial.

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A G A Z I

FEATURE

Editor

Heidi Koelz Senior Associate Director of Communications

Celebrating 100 Years CA launches Centennial celebrations, focusing on service and sustainability

Design

Aldeia www.aldeia.design Photography

Nicholas Pfosi Assistant Director of Communications and Operations

Special events took place in April on campus and with alumnae/i across the United States to honor CA’s 100th birthday.

Editorial Board

Message from the head of school

Adnan Zubcevic ’75, Nicole Rawling ’97, reunion, and more

Opening Remarks

Melody Komyerov ’89, P’25 Director of Marketing and Communications

Rob Munro Assistant Head forAcademic Program and Equity

Campus

News about students, faculty, campus events, arts, and athletics

Alice Roebuck P’25 Assistant Head for Advancement and Engagement

Sarah Yeh P’24 Associate Head for Teaching, Learning, and Faculty

The Concord Academy Centennial Campaign

Concord Academy Magazine 166 Main Street Concord, MA 01742 (978) 402-2249 magazine@concordacademy.org

DEPARTMENTS

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was one of several public figures to receive a tribute in a new book by Lee Fearnside ’92 (page 41).

Campaign co-chairs and generous donors are helping CA deliver on its mission

Alumnae/i

Creative Types

Class Notes

Then & Now

End Space

Kim Frederick, history teacher

O N T H E C OV E R CA’s 98th graduating class at Commencement. IFC PHOTO: COLE AND KIERA PHOTOGRAPHY

STAY IN TOUCH Update your contact information with CA at www.concordacademy.org/stay-connected.

M I SS I O N We are a community animated by love of learning, diverse and striving for equity, with common trust as our foundation. Honoring each individual, we challenge and expand our understanding of ourselves and the world through purposeful collaboration and creative engagement. We cultivate empathy, integrity, and responsibility to build a more just and sustainable future.

O P E N I N G R E M A R KS

A L E T T E R F RO M H E A D O F SC H O O L H E N RY FA I R FA X

T E A M GR E E N , I don’t know that I can express in words the humility, enthusiasm, and anticipation I feel as I begin my tenure as Concord Academy’s 11th head of school and Dresden Endowed Chair. The warm CA welcome that we have experienced since the official appointment last October made our family feel a sense of home even before we moved to Main Street in June. There’s also nerves, as you might imagine, when you pick up your family and move a few hundred miles north, but those nerves reflect my appreciation for both the gravity of the moment and the opportunity to guide and steer decisions on behalf of the CA community. Over the past several months I engaged in a listening and learning tour and I calculated around a thousand hours to date with various CA constituents and stakeholders. Each conversation confirms what I suspected and learned throughout the search process—CA is a special community of dedicated individuals in support of a compelling mission and remarkable students. The listening tour will continue. I’ve got so much more to learn. To do that well, we are relocating the Head’s Office to the Main School Building. I want to be as close to teaching and learning and our students as possible, and I believe that this proximity will go a long way in deepening my understanding of what makes CA special. If you find yourself in the Main School hallway, please stop in for a visit. It is thrilling for me to join CA this year and observe the values of service and sustainability that are at the heart of Concord Academy. In this issue, we celebrate CA’s 100th birthday (page 18) and honor 2022 Joan Shaw Herman Award recipient Adnan Zubcevic ’75 (page 34). We are also sharing plans to build a new arts center (page 25) and grow the school’s endowment, both excellent ways to honor CA’s legacy and ensure a thriving and vibrant future. I am deeply grateful to Centennial Campaign Co-Chairs Jane Du P’15 ’16 ’23, Fay Lampert Shutzer ’65, Carol Moriarty P’02 ’05 ’07, and Andy Ory P’16 ’21 for their vision and dedication to leading this historic effort. While we cannot predict what the future holds, we find strength in the core values that catalyzed our first 100 years and ground ourselves with common trust to pilot our next 100! Go, Green! Henry

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P H OTO: E D C U N I C E L L I

campus Red and Blue Day took place on a beautiful spring day this year. The Reds prevailed at this afternoon of community-building and field day competition.

P H OTO: C O L E A N D K I E R A P H OTO G R A P H Y

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C O N G R AT U L AT I O N S

Class of 2022! Celebrating CA’s newest graduates At a Commencement ceremony on June 3, Concord Academy honored the class of 2022 in the Academy Garden. A damp morning didn’t subdue the spirits of the 102 members of the graduating class. Fay Lampert Shutzer ’65, president of CA’s Board of Trustees, praised their “flexibility, adaptability, and resilience,” and Interim Head of School Sarah Yeh P’24 called them “leaders in every way imaginable.” Student Head of School Hannah Wixom ’22 urged her classmates to keep learning and to “continue our commitment to each other and this community by making a difference in the world.”

G R AT I T U D E , G R AC E , A N D G R E AT N E S S Introducing the 2022 Commencement speaker, Trelane Clark ’92, P’22, senior class president Emmy McCormack ’22 said she shares the values her class holds dear: “resilience, leadership, and genuine kindness.” In her address, Clark, a longtime educator and now principal at Edgar A. Hooks Elementary School in Chelsea, Mass., encouraged the class of 2022 to embrace all of life’s opportunities. Clark gave three pieces of advice to help them thrive: “Practice gratitude,” “give grace,” and “walk in your own greatness.” She described gratitude as “an action that, done regularly, can transform your outlook on life and direct your path toward your greatest potential.” Grace is “reciprocal,” she said. “When you receive it, it is best to give it back in order to keep the cycle flowing.” And she encouraged the graduates to consider greatness in the context of community, saying, “The power in your greatness is inextricably tied to how you elevate the humanity of other people.”

A D D I T I O N A L P H OTOS : C O L E A N D K I E R A P H OTO G R A P H Y

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LEARN MORE Watch the 2022 Commencement ceremony at concordacademy.org/ commencement-2022.

“Pay attention to every moment and seek to uncover what each has to teach you about yourself and the people around you.” T R E L A N E C L A R K ’9 2, P ’2 2

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COMMENCEMENT 2022

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MODERN HISTORY CA students visit Gropius House In February, students in the class Topics in Engineering: Architectural Design Concepts, Processes, and Technologies visited an icon of modern design: Gropius House in nearby Lincoln, Mass. The residence was completed in 1938, the same year Walter Gropius P’44, founder of the Bauhaus school of architecture, gave an address at Concord Academy. Father of Ati Gropius ’44, he was the first parent speaker in a new series introduced by headmistress Valeria Knapp to bring parents in closer contact with the school.

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Department X Kick-starting a new student-run writing center at CA This year, CA students have a new resource to help them improve their essays, lab reports, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Concord Academy’s new Writing Center is the brainchild of English teacher Nancy Boutilier and history teacher Stephanie Manzella P’14 ’17 ’18, who received Department X funding last spring to develop a student-run model they hope to sustain at CA for years to come. They took inspiration from student-led college writing centers, where peer feedback benefits both the writer and the peer reader. Boutilier says, “It’s absolutely working at the high school level too.” “We have a lot of repeat customers,” Manzella says. “Once they come and see the moral support they get and how

much the attention of their peers can take the stress out of the writing process, they keep coming back. And the writing associates say it helps them as writers too.” “I’ve learned that writing isn’t a solo endeavor,” says Isabella Ginsburg ’23, one of 16 juniors volunteering as writing associates. “It is an amazing feeling to see a student return to the Writing Center with a newfound sense of confidence and a new tool in their kit.” Created six years ago and supported by the Faculty Leadership Endowed Fund, part of the Concord Academy Centennial Campaign, Department X provides CA teachers and staff with resources to develop new curricula, exchange ideas across disciplines, and create and seize opportunities for

experiential learning. The funding allows Department X recipients release time from their regular schedules to pursue research projects and interdisciplinary endeavors. The 2021–22 recipients of Department X funding, history teacher Topi Dasgupta P’22 ’25 and English teacher Laurence Vanleynseele P’22, are partnering to develop a course that will engage students in thinking about the category of “truth” as mediated through history, fiction, ethics, and imagination. Next year, theater teacher Shelley Bolman and music teacher Meghan Miller will use Department X funds as they seek to broaden the range of voices and experiences represented within their programs at Concord Academy.

Read more about the Writing Center at concordacademy.org/writing-center.

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20 2 2 C E N T E N N I A L H A L L F E L LOW

Exposing the Mechanics of Creation Rashaun Mitchell ’96 shares his artistry at CA

“There’s no wrong way to move,” Rashaun Mitchell ’96 told CA students while leading an improvisatory dance workshop at Concord Academy in May. He invited them to respond to visual cues in the dance studio. “What draws your attention?” he asked. “Let the quality of the thing you’re looking at inform your movement.” The students began tracing shapes in the air with their fingers, then their chins, elbows, knees, and toes. “What happens when I’m watching you,” Mitchell said, “is that I see your attention and how it’s working.” This approach to improvisation is part of an ongoing practice for Mitchell, who is a dancer and choreographer as well as an educator and mentor. With creative collaborators, including his longtime partner Silas Riener, he develops new vocabularies for performance in response to environments—with dancers negotiating the space according to a series of rules, but also with the ability to break those rules. “To have dancers authoring their own experience is very important to me,” Mitchell said while visiting CA as the 2022 Centennial Hall Fellow. “I really hate telling people what to do.” Instead, he creates proposals for what could happen, always with avenues for refusal. “There’s a beautiful tension in that, a surprising element,” he said. Mitchell and Reiner first met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Since 2010, they have created more than 25 multidisciplinary dance works together.

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Over the past five years, they have developed a set of improvisatory practices called “Desire Lines,” a term taken from landscape architecture, which refers to alternate routes that deviate from a prescribed path. The first iteration took place in 2017 with 13 dancers over a two-week residency in Madison Square Park in New York, which culminated in a daylong improvised performance. “Desire Lines” is performed in silence, with only the dancers’ vocalizations and ambient sounds. “I’m not working with narrative; I’m not working with music,” Mitchell said. “We’re really trying to understand what is happening in the body when we’re dancing and how we can expose the mechanics of the creation.” In his Hall Fellow lecture, Mitchell described arriving at Concord Academy as a “gawky and overzealous 13-year-old” who wanted to do everything: photography, acting, soccer, lacrosse, and student government. He didn’t begin dance training until he was 15. “I was late to the party,” he said, “but I was welcomed with open arms.” The co-directors of CA’s dance program at the time, Amy Spencer and Richard Colton P’13, encouraged him to learn many styles of movement and to create his own. With them, Mitchell said, “experimentation was the goal rather than a point along the way to a more ideal destination.” Spencer said at one Hall Fellow event that “from the moment he stepped into the studio, it was very clear that

Rashaun had a level of body intelligence that was undeniable and truly unique, and alongside it, a curious mind.” Mitchell approached the discipline with a tolerance for discomfort and an openness to new ideas. He went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied with the legendary choreographer Viola Farber, whose direction he initially struggled to follow but whose “demanding presence,” he said, stirred him into “making decisions about movement that were no longer based on forms of imitation.” “Learning in a place of instability can trigger profound insight,” Mitchell said. By the time he graduated, he was certain his career would be in dance. Mitchell danced for Merce Cunningham for 10 years. He earned some of the highest accolades awarded to dance artists, including a 2014 Guggenheim Fellowship and two “Bessies” (New York Dance and Performance Awards), the first in 2011 for sustained achievement in Cunningham’s work, and the second in 2012 for outstanding emerging choreographer. Mitchell also joined the faculty at Sarah Lawrence and, later, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where he taught until 2021. He encouraged his students not to fear failure but to use it as a catalyst for growth, sharing how his formative experiences emerged from “places of uncertainty and newness.” When the pandemic shut down the performing arts in 2020, Mitchell said, “my entire world collapsed.” But after

“Learning in a place of instability can trigger profound insight.” R AS H AU N M I TC H E L L ’9 6

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a time, he found creative energy emerging in other actions: gardening, relationships, and writing. In addition to a selection from Tesseract, a 3D dance film he cocreated, he shared as part of his lecture at CA an essay he’d been writing to wrestle with external expectations and inner desire. Ultimately, he said, “time apart, time alone, time away from ‘work’ has focused the artistic experiment.” Mitchell advised CA students to try everything: “Use whatever is available to you—you might find the particular thing that you want to express is better suited to one form or another.” “For me, making art is a place to get lost, to search,” he said, “and so every time I go into a new project, I try to start from scratch and see where it might lead me.” For nearly 60 years, the Hall Fellow Endowed Lectureship has brought distinguished individuals to Concord Academy to share their work and wisdom with the CA community. The Concord Academy Board of Trustees established the lectureship in 1963 to honor the extraordinary legacy of Elizabeth B. Hall, CA’s headmistress from 1949 through 1963.

Silas Riener, Mina Nishimura, and Jennifer Gonzalez, collaborators of Rashaun Mitchell ’96, demonstrate a practice from the show Retrofit.

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LEARN MORE Read more and see additional photos at concordacademy.org/ mitchell.

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S P O K E N WO R D Inspiration from campus speakers

A Life-Changing Gift Personalizing organ donation

“Representation matters. That’s why I teach now.” A N D R E A LO N G - N A I D U

Ballet dancer and teacher, visiting artist Read more at concordacademy.org/long-naidu.

“Environmental histories have abounded with the problems of when humility is not the followed policy and is replaced by hubris.” E D R A F F E RT Y

CA history teacher

Read his remarks at concordacademy.org/ rafferty-assembly.

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In February, Ben Fleishman ’23 hosted an all-school assembly with Alexandra Glazier ’89, P’20 ’22, president and CEO of New England Donor Services. “I am standing here today because of three reasons,” said Ben. “The first being the miracles of modern medicine, the second is because of a tragedy, and the third is because of the incredible thoughtfulness and generosity from an individual I never knew and will never meet.” Ben received a liver transplant in 2017. He said his gratitude for this anonymous donor’s generosity led him to raise awareness of organ donation and its life-changing effects for recipients and their loved ones. In a remarkable CA connection, his surgeon was Heung Bae Kim P’18, director of the Pediatric Transplant Center at Boston Children’s Hospital and a member of New England Donor Services’ board of trustees. Ben Fleishman ’23 with Alexandra Glazier ’89, P’20 ’22 at CA. At the assembly, Glazier discussed the sizable gap between the need for transplants and the availability of organs: Every day, she said, 18 people, on average, die in the U.S. waiting for a transplant. Encouraging registration for organ donation, Ben offered his own story as an example that, as he said, “something as simple as this can have a dramatic and far-reaching impact.”

SENIOR PROJECTS For their senior projects this year, members of the class of 2022 took on a wide array of independent projects with faculty advisors, including examining health care inequities within prison settings, building an electric go-kart, mapping the physics of a pirouette, and creating a cookbook with sustainable recipes. Narn Rojvachiranonda ’22 demonstrates a redesign of Boston’s transit maps at the senior projects showcase.

LEARN MORE See more photos of this year’s senior projects at concordacademy.org/ senior-projects-2022.

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20 1 8–20 21 K AT H E R I N E CA RTO N H A M M E R ’68 C H A I R

LEARNING IN COMMUNITY Nick Hiebert takes Hammer Chair charge to heart “The thing I love most about CA is that people here are more comfortable loving things in public than in any other school community I have been part of,” said English teacher Nick Hiebert, discussing how he had benefited from holding the Katherine Carton Hammer ’68 Endowed Faculty Chair over the past three years. That honor, he said, had helped him realize “how much I am made, sustained, and inspired by other people.” On May 5, CA community members gathered to celebrate the transformational role teachers play in students’ lives and to honor two individuals: Hiebert and Katie Hammer ’68, for whom this chair was named. Hammer served as president of the Board of Trustees from 1995 to 1998. After she passed away in 1998, more than 70 of her family, friends, and colleagues made a collective gift to reward and support inspired educational vision. Hiebert reflected on the chair’s charge to “continually develop as a teacher,” focusing on three areas: teaching the essay, learning more about his white racial identity, and “centering belonging” in his classroom to make it more equitable and inclusive. He also reflected on what it means to belong in a community. “It was a great mercy to realize that I learn best in partnership with other people,” he said, “and especially so in partnerships that are authentic, that ask me to be accountable for my learning, and for the way I act upon that learning, and that help me resist my tendencies toward individualism.” With support from the Hammer Chair, Hiebert took a number of trips related to his learning pursuits—to Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis, and the Hudson River Valley. He also traveled to Alabama, where he visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Once the pandemic began, he continued his encounters over

STAYING

GREEN

Students contribute to campus sustainability efforts

English teacher Nick Hiebert speaks at CA about the perspectives the Hammer Chair enabled him to explore.

Zoom. “I feel like I have learned so much about myself,” he said, “about how to learn better, about how to teach better.” Hiebert’s presentation invited individual reflection and small-group discussion, giving attendees a glimpse of how he encourages his students to bring their whole selves into his classroom. LEARN MORE Read more about Hiebert’s talk and this endowed faculty chair at concordacademy.org/ hammer-chair-hiebert. WENJUN KUAI, who teaches Mandarin in the Modern and Classical Languages Department, is the holder of the 2021–2024 Katherine Carton Hammer ’68 Endowed Faculty Chair.

Not long after Concord Academy released its sustainability plan in 2019, COVID-19 upended life around the globe. Nevertheless, CA has continued to make progress toward its goals, including reducing food waste and greenhouse gas emissions. “The next big frontier is how we operationalize sustainability here at CA,” says Rob Munro, assistant head of academic program and equity. He co-chairs a committee that is recalibrating the plan in light of the pandemic and working to establish a Green Revolving Fund to support future campus improvements. Students haven’t had to wait to help CA reduce its environmental impact. Several have served on student food committees. Others completed proposals for sustainability improvements at CA during an environmental science course on energy and climate in the fall. In February, a few of them gave presentations to Concord Academy’s Board of Trustees: Lucy Whitelam ’22 and Tyler McGarry ’22 shared a plan for introducing solar panels, and Ishan Narra ’22 proposed installing fans in the gym to reduce heating demand. The Big Data Club has also been helping CA set a baseline for utility usage on campus to inform future plans for energy-saving measures. Faculty advisor George Larivee says the club welcomed the challenge. “Realworld data gets messy,” he says. “It’s good for students to get that experience.” The first student house they began monitoring is Wheeler House. “We were excited by the chance to really help,” says Big Data Club co-head and Wheeler resident Nathan Dang ’23, “not just our club but the school as well.” LEARN MORE Read more about student sustainability efforts at concordacademy.org/students-sustainability.

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Faculty Retirements This spring, CA bid farewell to departing faculty and staff, including these two dedicated longtime teachers, who will leave legacies of living and learning.

Cynthia Katz V I SUA L A RTS D E PA RT M E N T

For 35 years, if you entered CA’s photography studio, you may have found Cynthia Katz standing on the old wooden table discussing vantage points, drinking tea with her students, or encouraging them to show her something new about a familiar location. She has spent countless hours with her students, reviewing their contact sheets, assessing their visual investigation, and celebrating their remarkable individual growth. “That back-and-forth collaboration is the best part of teaching,” she says. Katz came to Concord Academy after earning her MFA in photography at Bennington College. In addition to giving students extensive foundational experience in the darkroom, she expanded CA’s program to incorporate digital color photography. Her teaching has focused on visual literacy; bringing diverse perspectives into the classroom; introducing students to historical processes such as cyanotypes, which she continues to use in her own work; and collaborative evaluation and discussion. “For me, teaching photography is about getting kids to explore their world—to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary and learn what makes pictures strong,” she says. “And to do it in an environment that’s supportive, and with high standards.” Katz not only taught impeccable precision and focus in making photos but also cultivated intellectual thinkers and storytellers. In February 2020, she drew upon her countless connections and creative partnerships to collect and curate the CA alumnae/i art show “Origin Stories,” a collection of her former students’ works, then and now. It showcased Katz’s unwavering support and devotion to teaching and learning over the decades, and reminded us how to find awe and inspiration in creativity in all phases of life.

Cynthia Katz

“I would not be who I am without Cynthia. She teaches me to be vulnerable and brave. She embraced and pushed our adolescent and adult selves to reach farther into our hearts and minds to question and be unafraid to share our ideas and perspectives, openly and passionately. By challenging us and believing in us, she teaches us to live genuine, purposeful lives filled with meaning and love. These values remain forever embedded in my soul. Thank you, Cynthia, for being my teacher, sister, colleague, and dearest friend. You are a vital part of my upbringing and life.” M E LO DY ( KO ) KO M Y E ROV ’89, P ’2 5

“I am eternally grateful for crossing paths with Cynthia! Her Photo 1 class is where it all started for me. Decades later, I still remember and put to good use her thoughtful, candid critiques.” Z A N DY M A N G O L D ’9 2

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“What she taught me was magic—the magic of the darkroom, the magic of at times raw and honest conversation, and the magic of laughter. Perhaps most importantly, as we talked about relationships, art, life events, and milestones over the years, Cynthia always reminded me about the power and importance of an authentic life.” L E E F E A R N S I D E ’9 2

“Becoming a photographer was my first dream as a kid, and years later, learning the craft and skill and passion from Cynthia was really a dream come true. I remember her passion and sense of humor, her attentiveness and encouragement, and her kindness.” PAT R I C I A K I M ’98

“Thank you for being a wonderful influence and for never letting me settle for aesthetics over meaning in my work. Even though I did not end up in a fine arts field, I still carry that lesson with me into my professional life today.” L AU R A L I V E LY ’0 2

“Thank you for cultivating a safe space that so warmly welcomed self-expression and vulnerability, in which I could discover the love for arts that has stayed with me to this day. My gratitude goes beyond words.” M O N I CA K I M ’1 2

“Your guidance throughout these four years has helped me in ways that I cannot express, and the impact that you have made on me both inside and outside of the classroom will always stick. Even after graduating from CA, I will always be your student.” U D O C H I O N U EG B U ’2 2

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Linda Hossfeld P E R FO R M I N G A RTS D E PA RT M E N T

Linda Hossfeld began giving voice lessons at Concord Academy when she was 25. For 47 years, she has walked from her home in town to teach between 10 and 20 CA students each year. “It’s lovely to teach teenagers,” Hossfeld says. “They look at the world in a different way. I’ve learned so much from them about who they need to be and how they need to express themselves. And they’ve introduced me to all kinds of music.” A classically trained musician from a musical family, Hossfeld loves songs that teach about love in all its forms. She appreciates that CA has provided an environment for students of all backgrounds and identities to be who they are and explore who they might want to become. “Teaching in a place that encourages that sort of questioning really changed me,” Hossfeld says. “One of the hardest things I’m giving up is learning from my students.” “Linda is a passionate, adaptive, and dedicated teacher who cares deeply about her students,” says Michael Bennett, head of the Performing Arts Department and choral director. “She’s also always talking about pedagogy and the latest breakthrough discovery she has had.” Over the years, having extensively studied Estill Voice Training and the Feldenkrais Method, Hossfeld has come to Linda Hossfeld root her teaching in body awareness. “I realized I wanted to teach my students not to apply techniques to themselves but to experience what feels right and free,” she says. Instead of offering corrective instruction, she invites students to be in their bodies. “Linda taught me to properly use my body as a vessel for my voice,” says one of Hossfeld’s students for the past four years, Eli Morton ’22. “Her holistic approach has helped me become not only a much better singer, but also more aware as an artist.” Morton is also grateful for Hossfeld’s compassion. “Singing can be an incredibly vulnerable art, and it can be hard to create an environment where it’s comfortable to mess up,” Morton says, “but Linda has made that space effortlessly.”

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V I SUA L A RTS 1

SPRING ART SHOW

The spring-semester art show closed the 2021–22 school year with a celebration of artwork by many CA students. 1. Ceramic sculpture by Ella Stiles-Hall ’24. 2. Painting by Shriya Reddy ’25. 3. Photograph by Esmée Decola ’23. 4. Charcoal drawing by Joshua Lamothe ’22. 5. Ceramic pot by Isabel Wood ’25.

6. Watercolor portrait by Lucy Wang ’23. 7. Photograph by Kevin Arenas ’22 8. Accordion book by Gio Clark ’22 4

9. Fashion design by Allie Ehlinger ’23.

5 9

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P E R FO R M I N G A RTS

LIVE @ CA

The spring semester was full of performances, including Music Café (pictured here). Mainstage productions included Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and The Cradle Will Rock (page 87). Kyra Lauren ’22 and Eli Morton ’22 directed one-act plays for Directors Workshop, CA Dance Project performed A Room With Us In It, and music filled the Chapel during a chamber music concert in February. In May, the Spring Music Concert, [She] said, featured performances of music by, for, and about women by more than 70 students in CA’s instrumental and choral ensembles.

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→ The boys varsity tennis team won the EIL championship and went on to take home the NEPSAC championship runner-up trophy.

AT H L E T I C S

Go, Green! In the winter and spring seasons, Concord Academy athletic teams returned to competition in fine form. Several performed at the top of the Eastern Independent League (EIL) and represented CA with distinction in New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) championships. Many younger teams also improved steadily over the season, and all of CA’s student-athletes demonstrated their character in their pursuit of excellence in their sports.

→

CA Claims the Cup

On April 29, CA inaugurated a rivalry event with EIL opponent Bancroft School, which included games across six sports. CA emerged victorious after winning four of the contests, and the team captains hoisted the cup in celebration.

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↑ The all-gender varsity wrestling squad secured the EIL championship, and 10 wrestlers qualified for the competitive NEPSAC tournament.

↑→ CA’s track and field teams excelled in the EIL championship meet, with the girls taking home the second-place plaque and the boys placing third; four CA athletes and the girls 4-by-400 team won EIL titles. Both reached program high marks at the NEPSAC Division III championships, the girls placing second and the boys finishing fifth. Anna Brown ’22, Ravyn Hamer ’22, and Nicolas Chu DeChristofaro ’22 earned All-New England titles.

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↓ The varsity Alpine ski teams finished strong in the Central Massachusetts Ski League (CMSL), the girls placing second and the boys finishing third. The girls team also came in fourth at the NEPSAC championship, and Tory Adams ’23 earned a NEPSAC title in giant slalom as well as the overall individual girls championship in the CMSL.

Celebrating 100 Years CA launches Centennial celebrations, focusing on service and sustainability

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This spring the CA community united in honor of Concord Academy’s 100th birthday. During the Centennial Days of Service and Sustainability, individuals on campus and around the nation connected, learned, and worked together toward a more just and sustainable future.

Clockwise from top left: CA students participate by taking a spin in a restored 1969 electric car, listening to Adnan Zubcevic ’75 (page 32), preparing meals for human service organizations, connecting with local farms, learning about invasive species, singing at the ceremony, and painting a mural.

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CO NC OR D ACADEMY

Campus Celebration of CA’s 100th Birthday ON APRIL 22, CA’s campus community and guests engaged in reflection and action. Physician Adnan Zubcevic ’75 was presented with the 2022 Centennial Joan Shaw Herman Distinguished Service Award in a livestreamed program (page 32). Workshops led by students and faculty ranged from preparing food for local service organizations to painting a sustainability mural in Makers Alley. Groups also helped at Gaining Ground, which grows organic produce for meal programs, and a nearby food pantry, Open Table. Lara Wilson P’15 led a morning meditation and a nature walk; Jeff Feingold P’24 and Kai Feingold ’24 of Hope and Comfort discussed hygiene insecurity with students; and Nicole Rawling ’97, CEO of the Material Innovation Initiative (page 34), presented on sustainable fashion. Incoming Head of School Henry Fairfax wrapped up the festivities by cutting CA’s 100th birthday cake.

LEARN MORE See more photos and read about the campus celebration at concordacademy.org/ service-days.

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A D D I T I O N A L P H OTOS : C O L E A N D K I E R A P H OTO G R A P H Y

C E N TE N N I A L C E LE BE RAT ION

CA students engage in service and sustainability activities on campus and around Concord, Mass.

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CO NCOR D ACADEMY

CA Community Centennial Day of Service and Sustainability ON APRIL 23, individuals in the Concord Academy community around the nation had an opportunity to honor CA’s 100th birthday with service and sustainable action in their local areas. In the U.S., regional groups volunteered with organizations serving individuals and the environment. Many CA alumnae/i and parents from different eras met for the first time and forged new connections as they worked side by side.

SAN FRANCISCO

Hosted by Nathalie Kim Lieber ’92, Beth Mitchell ’00, and Kelsey Stratton ’99, CA volunteers assisted with Earth Day activities at the Greenway Gardens with Urban Tilth, an organization that inspires, hires, and trains local residents to cultivate agriculture, feed their community, and restore relationships to land to build a more sustainable food system, within a just and healthier community.

“I always love getting together with my CA peers. Even if I haven’t met them before, I always leave feeling like I have new friends.” B E CCA MIL LER ’14

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LOS ANGELES

Adam Cole ’09 and Matthieu Labaudinière ’11 hosted an event at the

Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which serves more than 900,000 people every month. CA community volunteers sorted, inspected, and packaged foods donated by supermarkets and farms.

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CHICAGO

Alex Ocampo ’10

hosted volunteers who helped at Lincoln Park Conservancy’s Earth Day Event, mulching trees, raking winter debris, cleaning up litter, and planting in the city’s most-used park.

BOSTON

Eliza Epstein ’08 and Theo Nunez ’18 gathered volunteers on CA’s campus to write letters for Boston Cares, prepare meals for families in need for Lasagna Love, and assemble first-aid kits for Concord’s Council on Aging. Some also helped with planting at Codman Community Farms in Lincoln, Mass. “We could see the impact we made, which was awesome,” Epstein says.

NEW YORK

Noah Fisk ’93, Gabe Greenberg ’98, Peter Li ’02, and Becca Miller ’14 hosted a service event at the volunteerrun mutual-aid project Astoria Food Pantry in New York City, assisting with the coordination and delivery of groceries to Astoria residents.

WASHINGTON,D.C.

Serena Frechter ’14, Cornelia Hall ’06, Julia Packman ’14, and Aisha Smith ’06 hosted an event for CA community volunteers to contribute to the Anacostia Watershed Society’s Earth Day cleanup.

“The energy and conversation were so positive and strong. People were passionate about both their experience at CA and learning about others’.” E L I Z A E P ST E I N ’0 8

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CA’S CENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS CONTINUE

Mark your calendars and look for more Centennial experiences throughout the 2022–23 academic year.

Chapel Challenge

October 15, 2022 This special day will celebrate the story of the Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, the heart of the CA community, with a team duathlon from the building’s original site in New Hampshire to campus, among other activities. Join us for this inclusive experience that will help set CA’s second century in motion.

CA Authors Night at the Concord Festival of Authors

October 20, 2022 Join us on campus in the Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel for a conversation with publisher Susan Knopf ’74 and CA alumnae/i authors Julia Glass ’74, Susan Minot ’74, and Ruth Ozeki ’74. This event will also be livestreamed.

Alumnae/i of Color Reunion

March 31 – April 2, 2023 Planned by the CA Alumnae/i Community and Equity Committee, CA’s first reunion for alumnae/i of color will be a time for reflection, connection, and community-building; a chance to explore how Concord Academy has grown and changed in striving for diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice; and an opportunity to be part of shaping CA’s future.

CA’s Centennial Celebration

June 9–11, 2023 All members and friends of the CA community are invited to campus for the culminating Centennial festivities. Coinciding with Reunion Weekend 2023, this joyful occasion will gather community members in honor of CA’s first century, to toast to its next.

LEARN MORE. For more information, visit

concordacademy.org/centennial.

Centennial Book: Voices from CA’s First Century

Writer and editor Lucille Stott, a former CA faculty member and dean, has interviewed more than 300 alumnae/i for a book about Concord Academy's first 100 years. We are excited to publish this volume in honor of CA’s Centennial and look forward to sharing details soon.

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Growing CA’s Power of Creative Engagement FO R 100 Y E A RS , Concord Academy has nurtured the purposeful collaboration and creative engagement that allow students to better understand themselves and do good in the world. CA’s continuing evolution would not be possible without the foresight and partnership of volunteer leaders and the support from the CA community. Thoughtful planning and generous, bold commitments have brought Concord Academy to this moment. By investing in the endowment and the Centennial Arts Center, we will realize the decades-long dream of expanding CA’s creative spaces and learning opportunities, and deliver the program that all students and faculty deserve.

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T HE C E NT EN N I A L A RTS CEN TER will be an axis of exploration and inspiration, encouraging innovation and invigorating a program known for ingenuity. The Centennial Campaign co-chairs offered personal reflections on the importance of this project. Here is what they shared:

Fay Lampert Shutzer ’65 Campaign Co-Chair,

Carol Moriarty P’02 ’05 ’07

President of the Board of Trustees

Campaign Co-Chair, Trustee

When I was a student, CA helped me to see myself as an individual who had something unique to offer. My teachers’ belief in me showed me that anything was possible. This is something extraordinary that CA still does today—accepting each student, helping them see themselves as they are as well as imagine who they can become. The Centennial Arts Center advances our mission to support students in their own self-discovery. This isn’t about a building. The building is just the shell for everything that happens inside. It is integral to how we use our campus and make the most of all of our spaces. This center adds dimension and new opportunities for how we use our space. Every student experiences the arts at CA, either as a required class or through personal desire to explore music, performance, theater, dance, or visual art. Every student will use this space, and everyone will benefit. The Centennial Campaign is a phase in a continuum of development and growth. Creating the Moriarty Athletic Campus, building the CA Labs science center, renovating the student houses—these have all been discrete phases, and investing in the arts is the logical, natural thing for the school to do next. The need is pressing. We can’t reach our future without meeting this challenge now.

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Some of our family’s happiest memories were made here. This school celebrates each student for who they are and what makes them unique. My children felt accepted and inspired to challenge themselves without fear of judgment. Each one brought his or her unique interests to CA and developed new creative dimensions of themselves in the arts. That’s what CA does so well. The new Centennial Arts Center is something that I have felt CA has needed for a long time. It will allow the faculty to introduce new classes and programs that they have not had room or facilities for. This also means that the curriculum can be broadened. Our teachers are doing a remarkable job operating within current confines, and our students are flexible and understanding when they have to develop workarounds. But the truth is, they shouldn’t have to. Every time energy is spent to work in a space that is restrictive, we are hindering ourselves from reaching our potential. Making this overdue investment in the performing arts will show the students who are currently here, as well as students we hope to attract, how seriously CA takes creativity. Investing in the Centennial Arts Center will make a decades-long vision a reality and ultimately unlock the creative potential for the widest range of students imaginable.

Andy Ory P’16 ’21 Campaign Co-Chair, Trustee

The technology that connects today’s students is incredibly isolating. The arts teach CA students to be fully aware and present in the moment, to connect intentionally with others in a specific time and space. That’s critically important. These skills are vital for all students to learn, whatever they go on to do. We know the arts play a vital role in shaping each CA student. So if we profess how core the arts are to Concord Academy, we must be committed to supporting this center and making it happen. As a parent, I got more involved with CA to be closer to the community that shaped my kids during highly influential years of growth and identity development. Once I was here, I came to appreciate CA on a whole new level, and I also began to feel responsible for its continued success. So many people before us have given of their time, money, and talent to ensure that Concord Academy delivers a transformative educational experience. Just as my kids benefited from CA Labs, every CA student benefits from the generosity of past investment. I want to encourage others to see their role in the stewardship of this remarkable school. If we believe in CA and what it can do for students, we have an obligation to pay it forward for future generations.

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Jianying “Jane” Du P’15 ’16 ’23 Campaign Co-Chair

From the moment we first visited CA in 2011, we felt at home. CA’s school culture is so caring and warm, and as international parents, we felt confident knowing that children are living and learning in an environment of empathy and common trust. I am deeply grateful to CA for providing a nurturing and healthy community for young international students to develop and grow. The Centennial Arts Center is not just for actors and musicians. It will give every student the chance to be on stage, to showcase their individual talents while they develop their imagination and relationship-building skills. Today’s world needs global leaders who are compassionate, diverse, and innovative, which results in greater understanding. Generating ideas isn’t easy, but the skills the arts teach allow students to bring ingenuity, teamwork, and creativity to anything they pursue in life. When we got involved in supporting the school, CA really paid attention to our opinions and made us feel valued. The caring and support is mutual. We feel closer, we understand each other better, and we are part of positive, meaningful outcomes. As an institution, CA is unique because it always strives to change and improve. It is rewarding to see and be a part of that growth.

CAMPAIGN PRIORITIES Developed by school leadership and CA’s Board of Trustees, the Concord Academy Centennial Campaign has two clear priorities.

$50 MILLION

Campaign Generosity

Centennial Campaign Goal

50+50 $25M

$25M

to build a new Centennial Arts Center: This will realize a decadeslong vision for CA’s campus.

to strengthen CA’s endowment: As the school strives for equity, growing its endowment is essential to making a CA education more accessible.

PROGRESS TO DATE

These valued supporters explain why they chose to donate to CA’s Centennial Campaign.

144

As of June 15, 2022

DONORS

have contributed

$35 MILLION $4.7 MILLION

39+48+13

Unrestricted

$13.7 MILLION Endowment

$16.8 MILLION* Centennial Arts Center

*Construction will not begin until the $25 million campaign goal is met. The project is scheduled to start in the summer of 2023, with completion during the 2025–26 school year.

Contributions from many generous individuals and families are helping Concord Academy grow its endowment, invest in its campus, and expand possibilities for learning for the next generations of CA students.

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THE CHU DECHRISTOFARO FAMILY “I never really left CA,” says Irene Chu ’76, P’20 ’22, who lives in nearby Lincoln, Mass., and has stayed in touch with teachers and classmates. “I loved CA as a student and have always kept a connection to the school.” Her wife, Cindy DeChristofaro P’20 ’22, developed connections of her own with faculty and staff through many years of workouts in CA’s gym, and when their children, Sofie Chu DeChristofaro ’20 and then Nicolas ’22, decided to attend CA, the family’s relationship with the school deepened. “We don’t think twice about giving to CA,” DeChristofaro says. “This is a special community, and we know that our gift is meaningful and will be spent thoughtfully.” After graduating from CA, Chu attended Wesleyan University, followed by the Yale School of Art, where she earned a master of arts in graphic design. She has her own design business and says, “Almost all of my design clients developed through relationships I built at CA.” Education was important to both Chu’s and DeChristofaro’s families. Chu’s father, Ge Yao Chu P’76, GP’20 ’22, grew up in China and valued education as an

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STUART WARNER ’77

opportunity to advance himself, eventually attending a fouryear college on a full scholarship and coming to the U.S. for graduate studies. “Giving back became a very important part of who he was,” Chu says, “and he was incredibly proud to be able to give to CA.” In 1998, Chu and her father made a joint gift to the 75th Anniversary Campaign for CA, an investment they were excited to make together in support of the transformative power of a CA education. Chu and DeChristofaro are grateful they can continue this philanthropic model. Together with Sofie and Nicolas, they recently made a family gift to support the Concord Academy Centennial Campaign. “We might be stating the obvious,” DeChristofaro says, “but having a good education is an integral part of our kids’ health and happiness.” Both Chu and DeChristofaro greatly appreciate the ways that CA has shaped and cared for their children. “It’s not something that you can see day to day, but you know it’s happening. We see them becoming good citizens, good individuals,” Chu says. “We are happy we can support a place that has given so much to our family and will do the same for many others in the years ahead.”

As a child in Louisville, Ky., Stuart Warner ’77 went to what she describes as “a funky private school with only a few walls.” When she and her family began looking for a high school in the Northeast, Concord Academy stood out from the rest. Warner felt that attending CA, with its small-school community and origins in supporting girls, would be a nurturing experience. She found that and more. At CA, she grew as a writer, made a film, and learned how to study. Later she realized she was better prepared for college than most of her peers. This year, in gratitude, Warner made an endowment gift to the Concord Academy Centennial Campaign, establishing the Stuart Warner ’77 Financial Aid Fund. “I knew that I couldn’t build a building,” she says, “but I could help students through a scholarship, and CA needs it.” After CA, Warner attended Amherst College, then Boston University School of Law. She and her husband, David Paltiel, married in 1989 and settled in Woodbridge, Conn., to raise their family. Warner spent the majority of her career as an attorney working at Yale New Haven Hospital. After retiring in 2017, and while Paltiel took a sabbatical from his work as a professor at the Yale School of Public Health, they spent a year living abroad, first in Paris and then Milan. There, she was reminded of the many ways the educational and cultural foundations she built at CA had shaped her life. “I learned French at CA and took my first art history class from Janet Eisendrath,” she recalls. Their first visitor in Paris was a friend from CA. Today, Warner serves on CA’s Joan Shaw Herman Award selection committee. She describes it as a small role, and one she loves. “It is really nice to see what fellow alumnae/i are up to through my work on this committee,” she says. Warner believes in the importance of equal opportunity and in supporting a diverse student population. As a class fundraiser for Amherst, she recognizes that the college’s endowment has been crucial in supporting those efforts. Seeing CA’s progress toward its own goals, Warner knew that a gift to support scholarships could have a significant impact at CA. “I singled out CA for a larger gift,” she says. “Because it began as a girls’ school, CA doesn’t have an endowment as large as other schools’, and making this gift felt like the right thing to do.”

GET INVOLVED. Learn more about the Centennial Campaign at

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concordacademy.org/campaign.

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alumnae/i 30

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A LU M N A E / I AS S O C I AT I O N

Glancing Back Before We Turn Forward There is such an air of optimism at Concord Academy! In addition to the normal burst of activity that spring brings on campus, we made time to gather with our alumnae/i community and friends as we launched our Centennial celebrations on CA’s 100th birthday in April. And we have only just begun to welcome Henry Fairfax as our new head of school. The coming year promises to bring many moments of joy and opportunities to see how we have grown, evolved, and challenged ourselves to be the best we can be. Throughout 2022–23, we will continue to highlight CA’s history and honor the values and traditions that have shaped our school for a century. At the same time we are mindful that Concord Academy stands upon the threshold of a new era. Henry’s arrival in our Centennial year marks a pivotal moment in our story. Anniversaries give us a chance to take stock of our past while dreaming big for our future. I am glad that CA is marking the Centennial by looking not only at its first 100 years but also ahead to what the next century will bring. I encourage you to share your own birthday wish for CA with us at communications@concordacademy.org. We’d love to hear from you! Concord Academy guides students to understand their talents and empowers them to go out and create positive change in the world. Fellow alumnae/i, you are the evidence of our legacy. I look forward to celebrating our past and our future with you. Despite the challenges of COVID, I have enjoyed engaging alums and building our community in support of CA. I now pass the baton to Trelane Clark ’92, P’22 as we continue to dream and strive to be our best. K A R E N McA L M O N ’ 75 Alumnae/i Association President

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MISSION The Alumnae/i Association fosters lifelong connections between Concord Academy and its alumnae/i community. The association facilitates meaningful opportunities to preserve and promote a love of learning, service to others, and a commitment to diverse perspectives and backgrounds. Through involvement in the life of the school, within the community, and through service to the greater world, the association strives to renew and affirm the core values instilled while at CA.

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Out of Trauma, A New Calling Adnan Zubcevic ’75 receives the 2022 Centennial Joan Shaw Herman Award for his support of immigrants and refugees “The Joan Shaw Herman Award has profound meaning for me because it was established to honor a distinguished alumna who turned her tears into passion and her weakness into power,” says Adnan Zubcevic ’75. “As a physician, I can tell you that very few people achieve this transformation in their lifetimes. And yet for refugees, making this kind of metamorphosis is essential for their survival. My job—and my mission—has always been to accompany refugees through this transition.” Concord Academy honored Zubcevic on April 22 with the 2022 Centennial Joan Shaw Herman Distinguished Service Award for his life’s work on behalf of immigrants and refugees and their mental health. Once a refugee himself from the Bosnian War, he’s now a U.S. citizen. Having flown to Boston from Sarajevo for the third time in his life for the ceremony, he shared the profound impact of the year he spent as a student at Concord Academy. Zubcevic, who grew up in Yugoslavia, began his senior year at CA in the fall of 1974 thanks to a scholarship from the American Field Service. While taking classes and making friends, he soaked up American culture. Zubcevic remembers watching a broadcast on the Concord Common when President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon that September, for the good of the country. “At that moment,

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“The most important thing is to figure out what gives people hope, and that takes a sustained effort.” ADNAN Z UBCE VIC ’7 5

something inside me changed,” he says. “I became fascinated with the American ideals of democracy, inclusion, and open-mindedness—all of which emerged from within this nation of immigrants.” Through his advisor, had his first encounter with a refugee, a Vietnamese boy close to his age. “He was studying English with an intensity that can only be described as feverish,” Zubcevic says. “I still remember seeing the war trauma in that boy’s eyes. I didn’t understand it.” Little did Zubcevic know that 20 years later, responding to such trauma would reshape his career. After returning to Yugoslavia, Zubcevic became a physician, husband, and father. When Serbian nationalists began the violent three-year siege of Sarajevo—the longest in modern history—in April 1992, his daughter, Rubina, was a toddler. Life in the city became a nightmare. That November, Zubcevic managed to secure transport for Rubina and her mother on a UN humanitarian convoy to Croat-controlled territory. He remained behind for nearly two years, losing family members, friends, and colleagues. Each day, he passed through “Sniper Alley” to work at his hospital, which faced unrelenting bombardment. By the summer of 1994, exhausted and angry, Zubcevic made the decision to leave. “One day I just literally walked out” of the siege, he says, crossing an airport runway and then the mountains and forests of Bosnia on foot. He reunited with his wife and Rubina, then 4, in Croatia. Thanks to the efforts of his “Concord sister,” Jennifer McGregor, who wrote to the International Rescue Committee on his behalf, two months later the three of them were granted permission to enter the United States as refugees. “From the moment we arrived in Concord, the whole community opened its heart to us,”

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P H OTO: C O L E A N D K I E R A P H OTO G R A P H Y

he says. Though the U.S. didn’t recognize his medical license, he found a job at Boston Medical Center screening refugees for tuberculosis. Grateful for his daughter’s chance to grow up “within the safety of a free, fair, and democratic society,” he says, he found a new mission: to give back to refugees less fortunate than himself. Between 1995 and 2019, Zubcevic launched programs supporting refugees at the International Institute of Boston; created the Refugee and Immigrant Health Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital clinic in Chelsea, Mass.; founded the Bosnian Community Center for Resource Development, in Lynn, Mass., which provided training for psychiatry residents; and, with other community leaders, helped to create the Mutual Assistance Association Coalition, which has become a national model for refugee services. Complex trauma such as refugees experience, Zubcevic says, “becomes part of your life.” It cannot be erased, only made more manageable. He introduced group treatments, “going back to traditional ways of expression and connection” through knitting, embroidery, or community gardening. “The most important thing is to figure out what gives people hope,” he says, “and that takes a sustained effort.” Many refugees are highly skilled but have few pathways for continuing their careers. Not knowing the law, they are often exploited and underpaid, Zubcevic explains. Typically, refugees in the United States are eligible for only two years of English language education and employment assistance programs that seek to place them immediately in unskilled jobs. “After that, everything stops,” he says. “You’re on your own.” In contrast, the programs he developed provide counseling, employment services, health

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Sustainable and Available Nicole Rawling ’97 is revolutionizing the materials we all use

assessment, and immigration legal assistance, all in displaced people’s native languages. They empower refugee groups to identify their own needs and gain easier access to services. Worldwide, more than 82 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency; 42% of them are children. Despite the “toxic set of challenges” young refugees face, Zubcevic says, a disproportionate percentage of the young people he has counseled have excelled and built careers in pursuit of a more equitable world. Even prior to the war in Ukraine, the number of refugees today was the largest in modern history. Zubcevic says, “It’s up to every country that has enough power or moral will to extend themselves to offer assistance to people who don’t have anywhere to go.” The Joan Shaw Herman Award for Distinguished Service was established in 1976 to honor Joan Shaw Herman ’46, who was paralyzed after contracting polio the summer after her graduation. Although confined to an iron lung, she worked constantly to improve the lives of people with disabilities. Each year, Concord Academy recognizes a member of the alumnae/i community with this award for service to others. LEARN MORE Read more about Herman and this award at concordacademy.org/jsh-history.

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A vegetarian since age 7, Nicole Rawling ’97 graduated from law school knowing she wanted to use her professional expertise to help animals. But she soon realized that, as a lawyer, her approach would by definition be adversarial. “Working at a large San Francisco law firm for eight years, I sued factory farms for environmental violations,” Rawling says. “From there, I entered the nonprofit management sector and worked in a similar capacity for the Humane Society of the United States and the Animal Legal Defense Fund.” Although both roles aligned with her commitment to animal rights, she says, “It’s a lot of fighting. Litigation is about fighting, judgment, telling people they are wrong, forcing them to change their behavior.” So she found her way into a rapidly emerging arena that helps animals and the environment in a different way. As director of international engagement at the Good Food Institute, Rawling promoted the development of plant-based protein alternatives to animal products, such as the Beyond and Impossible brands of vegetarian burgers. And now, as CEO of the Material Innovation Initiative, which she co-founded in 2019, Rawling is making new inroads into the world of next-generation sustainable materials for the fashion, automotive, and home goods industries. “Most people aren’t even aware that leather is bad for the environment,” Rawling says. “They think since it comes from an animal, it must be a natural product. Well, if you simply skinned the hide of any animal and left it untreated, it would decompose.” The process of making that same animal hide into a coveted purse, jacket, or pair of boots requires over 250 chemicals, including chromium, a known respiratory irritant and potential carcinogen, Rawling explains. Alternatives such as pleather typically require petrochemical processes, which also harm the environment. The Material Innovation Initiative helps scientists, investors, and companies identify and create new materials that are plant-based. “These materials might

be made of components as diverse as mushrooms, agricultural waste, or pineapple waste,” she says. The organization then matches the engineers and producers of sustainable materials with the companies that supply the end product, such as clothing designers and car manufacturers. The goal is to create materials with a smaller carbon footprint and a lesser impact on the natural environment, says Rawling, but the approach is to make this enticing and easy, rather than punitive. “It’s easy in the world of environmental nonprofits to fall into the trap of ‘Don’ts’ and ‘Have to’s.’” she says. “You have to recycle. You have to turn off your lights. Don’t brush your teeth with the water running. Don’t drive or fly so

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much. We need to make it easier. I’ve never met anyone who wanted to hurt the environment. We just need to provide alternatives that are of reasonable cost and readily available to supply the market.” For example, she said, even well-intentioned consumers who wish to buy clothes made of environmentally friendly materials may soon lose their determination if the process involves a lot of research into hard-to-find specialty shops whose products cost three times what they might otherwise spend. “We use the power of the markets to make these environmentally friendly products mainstream, convenient, and affordable,” she says. “For us, it’s about creating win-wins while helping to make a positive impact,” Rawling says. “Investors win because products are in high demand. Fashion brands win because they can supply markets and consumers with products that are better for the environment. Meanwhile, we are helping them meet their corporate social responsibility goals. It’s a benefit for both the environment and for the company.” Rawling understands that it will take a certain degree of educating consumers to convince them that an Hermès bag made from mushrooms is just as desirable as one crafted from Italian leather—and that no process is perfect. “We talk about progress instead of perfection,” she says. “Agricultural waste can be mixed with petrochemicals to make material. If it’s 70% agricultural waste and 30% petrochemicals, that’s still better than what you might have bought previously.” Much of her ideology can be traced to her Concord Academy education, Rawling believes: “CA encourages us to think about how we can use our resources— money, expertise, connections, resources of all kinds— to better the world.” As it happens, CA has provided Rawling’s company with even more than ideology. During an informal discussion that preceded a meeting of her board of directors, Rawling was delighted to learn that board member Amy Rosenfeld ’84 was a fellow alumna. “I loved the mission and thought it was a really cool initiative,” says Rosenfeld, a senior sports television producer. “I’ve always wanted to be involved in helping animals and helping the environment, and at this point I want to do more than write a check.” Rosenfeld was intrigued that Rawling is working in a space that’s “a new frontier with the ability to change an industry for the greater good,” she says. “And once I learned she was a CA alum, I was convinced. For me, nothing is better confirmation of knowing that someone is on the right side of an issue than the fact that they are a graduate of CA.”— Nancy Shohet West ’84

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Reuniting at Reunion Around 250 alumnae/i gathered at Concord Academy for Reunion Weekend from June 10 through June 12. CA recognized the reunions of the classes ending in 2 and 7, as well as the classes of 1970 and 1971, whose in-person 50th reunion celebrationshad been delayed by the pandemic. At this first on-campus alumnae/i celebration since 2019, the joy of meeting again in person was pervasive. Over three beautiful late spring days under fair skies, alumnae/i made the most of their time together. Throughout the weekend, programs and panel discussions, meals, class gatherings, and all-community celebrations presented many opportunities for sharing and reconnection. At the Alumnae/i Association Assembly, CA recognized the service of outgoing president Karen McAlmon ’75, welcomed new Head of School Henry Fairfax, who joined by video conference; and presented the work of the Gender Equity Task Force, which is working to change systems at CA in support of students of all identities.

The Art of Story

Learn More: Read about CA’s Reunion Weekend and see more photos at concordacademy.org/ reunion-2022.

During a panel discussion, Janelle Gilchrist ’97 spoke about her evolution from dancer to choreographer and educator, and her commitment to communicating ideas through movement. Professional storyteller Doria Phelps-Braun Hughes ’92, P’18 celebrated creative cross-fertilization and discussed her approach to telling stories as a vehicle for engaging in the moment. And cartoonist Hilary Price ’87 shared that she has recently embraced collaborative creative work and stand-up comedy, and talked about how humor can be derived from pain or vulnerability and its role in disrupting established cultural narratives.

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REUNION 2022

COMPILED BY LIBRARY DIRECTOR MARTHA KENNEDY

Creative Types B O O KS

Vigil Harbor Julia Glass ’74

Pantheon, 2022 Vigil Harbor, once a coastal paradise, turns nightmarish in this novel set in the near post-pandemic future. Challenged by climate change, anti-immigrant sentiment, and mansionization, the locals are jolted into a present filled with upheaval and uncertainty. Marriages unhinge, offspring flail, and long-standing properties face destruction by rising tides and overzealous developers. While devastating storms batter the land, a band of eco-vigilantes wreak their own havoc and take hostages to secure a tidy escape into the Atlantic.

South Side of the Sea Adam B. Ford ’83

H Bar Press, 2022

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CALLING ALL CREATIVE TYPES Have you published a book or released a film or album within the past year? Please email communiations@ concordacademy.org, and consider donating a copy to the J. Josephine Tucker Library’s alumnae/i collection.

Time travel brings two teens across the centuries together in this gripping YA tale. On Chicago’s South Side, present-day Kalea begins to hear sounds of the distant Caribbean. The sounds come from a conduit in time and lead her to Analicia, who inhabits a 17th-century world filled with ships, sailors, and pirates. Despite their chronological distance, Kalea and Analicia develop a friendship and support each

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other in facing the violent events that challenge their young lives.

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Imani Perry ’90

Ecco, 2022 Sixty years ago, James Baldwin wrote in a New York Times essay, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Perry recognizes that Americans must face race honestly, and that the South is the place to start. She talks with a Confederate reenactor at Harper’s Ferry, addresses HBCU students, and spends time with her family in Birmingham, Ala. Through encounters with a vast array of Southerners, she illuminates the importance of Southern identity to national identity.

Tasting History 2021–2022: Family Stories & Recipes from 18 Countries by the Immigrant Students of Lowell High School’s U.S. History 2 Seminar Jessica Lander ’06

Editor Lowell High School, 2021 This third volume in the Tasting History series

includes recipes from juniors in Lander’s class and represents the cuisines of Brazil, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, India, Sudan, and Vietnam. The cookbook project ties into the immigration history Lander’s students learn in the classroom, connecting their families in a meaningful and relevant way.

T H E AT E R

Too Fat for China Phoebe Potts ’88

Potts will perform her onewoman show in August during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The play chronicles Potts’ struggle and eventual success adopting a baby, offering a tragicomic look at her journey seeking more: more love, more life, and more family.

ALBUMS

Perpetual Pendulum: Goldings, Bernstein, Stewart Larry Goldings ’86

Smoke Sessions Records, 2022 Over 30 years and 18 albums, the trio of Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein, and Bill Stewart have continued to hone a

C R E AT I V E T Y P E S

B O O K AWA R DS Congratulations to these CA authors whose books won prestigious awards this year. 2022 Benjamin Franklin Silver Award, art and photography

Alice: Alice Ravenel Huger Smith, Charleston Renaissance Artist Anne Gaud Tinker ’63

with Dwight McInvaill and Caroline T. Palmer Evening Post Books, 2021 unique style of jazz featuring Goldings’ signature Hammond B-3 organ, Bernstein’s animated guitar, and Stewart’s syncopated and driving percussion.

Lena Stone

Lena Stone ’11

2022

2021 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award, best historical

A RT B O O K

Death Never Dies: Mourning 2020 Through the Lives and Deaths of Public Figures Lee Fearnside ’92, editor and illustrator

Chimera Projects, 2021 The singer-songwriter’s self-titled debut includes 12 tracks from some 600 she’s written over the past decade. Stone notes, “Every line of every song rings so true to the past few years of my life, and I love that I’ll always have this time capsule of my 20s to look back on. These stories are mine, and now they’re yours!”

SU M M E R 20 2 2

Death Never Dies is a companion volume to Fearnside’s 2017 collection, O! Unrelenting Death!: Celebrity, Loss & Mourning. During the tumultuous year of 2020, we said goodbye to a number of public figures, including many notable for the manner in which they died. This collection of Fearnside’s bold woodblock prints and tributes from many contributors mourns and celebrates more than two dozen individuals, including John Lewis and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, Ellis Marsalis Jr. and Eddie Van Halen, Katherine Johnson and Chadwick Boseman.

The Lost Wisdom of the Magi: The Memoirs of Sophia Zealotes Susie Helme ’73

The Conrad Press, 2020 2022 International Booker Prize, translated fiction

Tomb of Sand

Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell ’87

Tilted Axis Press, 2021

Then

THE CRADLE WILL ROCK T H E N:CA students perform composer Marc Blitzstein’s 1937 “play in music” The Cradle Will Rock at the Concord Free Public Library in the spring of 2000. Written as part of the Federal Theatre Project during the Great Depression, the show follows efforts to unionize workers in “Steeltown, USA,” and fight the corruption surrounding the town magnate, Mr. Mister.

C O N C O R D ACA D E M Y M AGA Z I N E

Now

NOW: In April, the Performing Arts Department staged the play in the P.A.C. Directed by Brooklyn-based theater artist Sarah Shin, and with music direction by Michael Bennett and choreography by Alex Brady, the 2022 production approached its subject with satirical precision and heart. “What I wanted to hit home with the students, and with this production,” Shin said, “is that change starts with empathy.”

Read about the performance and see photos at concordacademy.org/cradle.

E N D S PAC E

K I M F R E D E R I C K , H I STO RY T E AC H E R

01. Frisbees: I played college and club (adult) Ultimate. I’ve coached at CA since the spring of 2004. 02. Banner: My son Isaac made this. The back says, “My mom is a person of inspiration because she teaches people.” That’s me teaching.

proud to train CA students to be living history interpreters with the National Park Service. 05. Postcards: I have a whole pile at home. I don’t mail them—they amuse me too much.

03. Boston Public Library ID: From my BPL summer teacher fellowship—a check off my career bucket list!

06. Photos: My cat (he’s just as ornery as he looks) and my family. Every year I make a new composite picture of my kids for the front of my school binder.

04. Keepsake from the Wayside: They didn’t let me call myself a park ranger, but I was

07. American Freedom Train Patch: I wore this genuine U.S. Bicentennial exhibit

C O N C O R D ACA D E M Y M AGA Z I N E

patch on my jacket sleeve when I was five—I was already interested in history. 08. Quotes: From Jill Lepore and Robert George, reminders that moral condemnation is a problem and that people on the other side of an issue aren’t our enemies. 09. Ad showing a skier at a cliff’s edge: “Surveying the expanse below, it struck her, ‘Yes, this is how Lewis must have felt.’ And for one brief moment, Abby completely forgot that Clark ever existed.” I love this as both a skier and an historian.

10. 1989 Derryfield girls varsity basketball photo: That’s me scowling, next to Sarah Silverman (yes, we were classmates) as we watched the state champion trophy go to the other team. In the semifinals, when our coach had a family emergency, we coached ourselves and beat a tough opponent. This reminds me of the importance of discipline and persistence. And that family is the most important thing. 11. “It’s Your Future. BE THERE” ad: When I’m old, I want that to be me.

CONCORD ACADEMY ANNUAL FUND As we celebrate CA’s Centennial, your gift—of any amount—is a powerful and immediate way to affirm your confidence in the school’s mission and be part of CA’s strength and success for the next century. Through the Concord Academy Annual Fund, each one of us can invest in today’s students and help ensure that the CA experience continues to be transformative. YOUR ANNUAL SUPPORT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE HERE.

WWW.CONCORDACADEMY.ORG/GIVE

Non-Profit Org U.S. Postage PAID N. Reading, MA Permit #121

166 Main Street Concord, MA 01742 Address Service Requested

Students add their hopes for CA’s second century to the Centennial wish tree grove. See the inside front cover for more.