CA Magazine Fall 2011

fall 2011

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGA ZINE

Modern Middle East Advancing Understanding

CO NCORD ACADEM Y MISSION Concord Academy engages its students in a community animated by a love of learning, enriched by a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives, and guided by a covenant of common trust.

Students and teachers work together as a community of learners dedicated to intellectual rigor and creative endeavor. In a caring and challenging atmosphere, students discover and develop talents as scholars, artists, and athletes and are encouraged to find their voices.

The school is committed to embracing and broadening the diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, and talents of its people. This diversity fosters respect for others and genuine exchange of ideas.

Common trust challenges students to balance individual freedom with responsibility and service to a larger community. Such learning prepares students for lives as committed citizens.

Becca Miller ’14 Fiber Arts: Tie-Dye, Fall 2010

David R. Gammons

fall 2011

Editor

Shirley Moore Huettig Design

Irene Chu ’76 Photo Editor

Carly Nartowicz

F E A T U R E S

Editorial Board

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Karen Culbert Assistant Director, Alumnae/i Programs

Deborah Gray

Service Learning Trips: Taking the Mission to the Streets

by Marco Odiago

Mathematics Teacher

Shirley Moore Huettig former History Teacher

Kathleen Kelly

10 The Development of Concord Academy’s Athletic Campus: A Gateway to CA’s Future

by Kathleen Kelly, Pam Safford, and Lucille Stott

Director of Advancement

Pam Safford Associate Head for Communications, Enrollment, and Planning

page

20 Peace and Justice—A Region Poised

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by Her Majesty Queen Noor

Carol Mann Sacknoff Major Gifts Officer

Elizabeth “Billie” Julier Wyeth ’76

28 Alice in Maryland

by Cole Frank ’11

Director of Alumnae/i Programs

D E P A R T M E N T S

30 Gates Inspires Class of 2011 2

Message from the Head of School

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Campus News

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Faculty Profile

by Karen Culbert

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CA Bookshelf

concordacademy.org

Joan Shaw Herman Award: Nancy Jaicks Alexander ’51

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© 2011 Concord Academy

by Stephen Teichgraeber

Alumnae/i Profiles Jesse Gray ’98 and Matt Berlin ’98 Kathy Perkins ’67 Sarah Koenig ’86 Marcia Synnott ’57

Concord Academy magazine is printed on recycled paper with soy-based ink.

Concord Academy Magazine 166 Main Street Concord, Massachusetts 01742 (978) 402-2200 magazine@concordacademy.org

Committed to being a school enriched by a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives, Concord Academy does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, creed, sexual orientation, or national or ethnic origin in its hiring, admissions, educational and financial policies, or other school-administered programs. The school’s facilities are wheelchair-accessible.

Cover photo: The desert wonders of Wadi Rum, courtesy of Jordan Tourist Board

by Morgan Mead

34 Reunion: Back to Class and Basking in Memories

39 Leadership Report of Giving 2010–11

by Nancy Shohet West ’84 19

Alumnae/i Association Update

Become a CA Facebook fan facebook.com/concordacademy

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Athletics 2011 Spring Highlights Profile: Nancy Parssinen Vespoli ’73

Follow us on Twitter @concord_academy

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Arts Q&A: Justin Samaha ’94

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In Memoriam

C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G F A L L 2 0 1 1

Write us

Tim Morse

message from the head of s chool

July 2011

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get up early on these warm summer days. I like to do my running outside before the heat sets in. I enjoy those quiet hours, when I can hear myself think in a way that can be elusive during the school year.

We tend to think of talking as the essence of the teacher’s art—lecturing, guiding, explaining. This summer, though, I have been thinking about how, in a world noisy with too much audio, too many ear buds and sounds that surround, listening attentively may be the greatest gift we educators can give our students.

A few readers may recall the old New Yorker magazine ads that announced, “In Philadelphia everyone reads the Inquirer.” Each featured a drawing of dozens of urbanites with their heads stuck in open newspapers. When I walk into the Stu-Fac for lunch I sometimes hear in my head the tagline: “At Concord Academy, everyone has lunch with an advisor,” since that is the scene that inevitably greets me: adult-student pairs, who, through meeting every week, often year after year, come to know each other well.

Think of it: You are a new student just starting off at Concord Academy, and you are assigned your own faculty member. (Admittedly, not necessarily a reassuring thought at first for an uncertain ninth grader.) You get an adult, perhaps even an admired or intriguing adult, who invites you to meet together on a weekly basis for the foreseeable future.

And this adult’s agenda, it turns out, is to get to know you.

This person actually wants to hear what’s on your mind.

Though in the beginning a student may be intimidated by the whole idea of these weekly chats, soon enough the initial hesitation or awkwardness abates, and a connection begins to develop. As any experienced advisor will tell you, just showing up week after week begins to yield a relationship. If a connection develops when life is relatively peaceful and uncomplicated, it is there later when you may really need it. And it is safe to say that at some point every adolescent needs a trusting connection with a mentor.

There is almost no such thing as an exclusively adult table at a Stu-Fac lunch, so frequently I will get my food and sit down amidst one or more of these conversations.

I have no choice but to hear a bit as I try to focus on my chicken salad. What I notice over and over is not so much the wisdom being uttered by the adults—though certainly I hear plenty of that—but rather what I am struck by is the quality of their listening. They may throw out a question or

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two, but they are also adept at waiting. They are willing to let silence happen.

Engaging with an adolescent can be as challenging as getting a wild bird to eat seed from your palm. You can’t talk the sparrow into trusting you, and you can’t harangue a sophomore into telling you what’s on her or his mind. With both the bird and the young person, you have to prove yourself. You have to show up often enough that they get used to you. And you have to be prepared sometimes to keep very still.

Having watched CA in action these past two years, I have come to see the quality of adult listening here as key to the school’s particular strength. In morning chapel, we adults listen to student speakers, not the other way around. And again, the quality of attending that goes on in that space is extraordinary. Most mornings you could hear a pin drop during the time that day’s senior is speaking.

Discussion rather than lecture is the preferred teaching style in most CA classrooms. If you want to see teachers light up, watch what happens when a student comment reveals to them a point they had never before noticed. A teacher will frequently begin class by having students write for a few minutes as a way of exploring and organizing their own thoughts about the material before the discussion begins. I would offer that technique as an example of the teacher’s inviting students actually to listen for a moment to themselves.

I think of the delicate process of artistic creation, so central to life at CA, and of the balance required as a teacher of painting, or drama, or dance, strives to offer support and guidance without overpowering the student’s fledgling vision with his or her own. Once again, this requires knowing when to step forward and when to hold back, when to speak and when to listen.

As Henry Thoreau wrote, “The greatest compliment that was ever paid to me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.”

Rick Hardy Head of School Dresden Endowed Chair

Photos by Carly Nartowicz

know the CA students, as well as their admiration of the students’ respect and maturity.”

The CA-Sages collaboration culminated in mid-May, when students presented their oral histories to the group.

CA

because it is all so interesting to me. The things she thinks are unimportant actually fascinate me.”

The seniors, aged seventy to ninety-seven, joined the sophomore history classes for eight sessions. Katz was excited about “the phone calls I received during the eight weeks, describing the participants’ delight in getting to

Benefit for Financial Aid

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ver 225 parents, faculty, staff, and friends of Concord Academy attended last spring’s Benefit for Financial Aid, “Transforming Lives,” which raised more than $95,000.

Sponsored by CA Parents and chaired by Lucinda Wright P’11, Susan Miller P’08, ’12 and Karen Manor Metzold P’11 (pictured with President of CA Parents Althea Kaemmer P’09, ’12), the event was a wonderful celebration supporting our financial aid program, which enriches the CA experience for all our students and faculty.

Correction: The message from the head of school (Spring 2011) refers to a service trip to North Dakota.

Students and faculty traveled to South Dakota.

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hy not learn history from those who have lived through it?

That’s the thinking behind a new initiative in two of CA’s U.S. history courses, where students are working alongside senior citizens.

History Teacher (and Department Head) Kim Frederick collaborated with a program called Sages & Seekers, which brought elders into area classrooms. The “sages” shared their stories and invigorated an oral history project that has long been part of the CA U.S. History curriculum. Sages & Seekers founder Elly Katz writes, “I have worked with many different schools in several different areas of their curriculum. When Kim asked about using the program in her history classes I was delighted because it is a perfect fit for seniors to share their rich and varied history with 16-yearolds. Concord Academy is the first school to use Sages & Seekers in the history curriculum.”

Steph Wong ’13 learned meaningful history lessons from her sage, Janet, including how World War II affected her family and how the 1929

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stock market crash affected her father’s employment at the stock exchange. Particularly interesting to Steph was the realization that Janet wore only dresses, never pants, until the 1970s. “I have come to realize that we have a lot more in common than I would have expected,” Steph said. “She mentions stories in passing and I have to ask her to stop

Gail Friedman

Sages & Seekers

arly in the fall, seniors have the opportunity to apply for Senior Projects for the final spring term of their Concord Academy careers. These fullcredit major courses, designed and proposed by the students themselves and approved by a faculty committee, allow seniors to pursue independent courses of study with an interdisciplinary or experiential component. All projects include a member of the faculty as advisor, and may include an advisor off campus as well.

On May 17, seven students presented their semester-long senior projects, sharing research on topics ranging from Hispanic art to a chemical process known as pyrolysis.

Matt Labaudiniere and Jack Moldave’s project, modestly titled “A Study in Automotive Engineering,” outlined how they turned a gasoline guzzler into a functional electric car, which Matt used this summer!

Artists Jaspar Abu-Jaber,

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C O L L A B O R A T I O N S: Concord Academy and Newbury Court

by Catherine Hunter Assistant director for programs, Newbury Court

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ith one introduction, collaboration begins; with shared purpose and satisfaction, a relationship grows.

Over the course of the 2010 –11 school year many mutually rewarding programs developed in collaboration between Concord Academy and Newbury Court, a Deaconess Abundant Life Community near Emerson Hospital in Concord.

The collaborations began in 2010 when Emily Howe ’07 volunteered in the Newbury Court Program Department, where I am the assistant director, and introduced me to her

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father, Parkman Howe, English faculty at CA. Parkman kindly accepted an invitation to lecture at our facility in October.

The program examined Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Starting with recitations by residents and a recording of Frost, the multimedia program was enthusiastically received.

The full audience included many parents and grandparents of CA alumnae/i, as well as CA alumnae Louisa “Babs” Browne and Patty Berger ’47.

Throughout the year Park-

Tony Chao ’11 and English Teacher Parkman Howe

Mandy Boucher, and Tony Chao all created murals. Elizabeth Mauer presented research on repatriation of cultural property, focusing specifically on whether Germany should return the bust of Nefertiti to Egypt. Ebay Vaniyapun studied pyrolysis and its potential as a waste management solution for industry.

Photos by Ashima Scripp

Photos by Carly Nartowicz

CAMPUS NEWS

Senior Projects: Nefertiti to Electric Vehicles

man presented additional programs including short stories and a Bible series. At the end of the year Parkman wrote to me, “I have grown to love my ‘class,’ and I think the world of them. They are delightful, appreciative, feisty, wise, cour-

teous, and charming. I shall miss them this summer, and I hope for a return in the fall.”

Happily, Parkman will return this fall to lecture on Hadrian’s Wall and Ode to Autumn by John Keats. In October he will judge the residents’ Haiku

A Bright Future

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The new students are:

Stephanie Manzella and Kim Frederick

Class: The Hub of the Universe — and Drew’s course — Applied Environmental Science: The Boston Class are to be taught in spring 2012 and enroll the same students in each course.

The philosophy behind the Innovation in Civics program, according to the foundation, is that “innovation is best produced by identifying teachers who are innovators, giving them resources, and trusting them to use these funds well.” The foundation sought applicants through the Association of Independent Schools

CA’s Chamber Music Group after performing at Newbury Court in Concord.

Poetry Competition.

This spring, fourteen residents of Newbury Court participated in the Sages & Seekers program with Kim Frederick’s US History class. At a final celebratory gathering the Seekers (students) read essays sum-

oncord Academy was thrilled to welcome 100 new students to our campus this fall.

After reading more than 700 applications, the Admissions Committee selected a dynamic group of students that includes: seventy-five freshmen, twenty-one new sophomores, three new juniors, and one new senior, a Thai Scholar.

marizing and reflecting on their conversations with the Sages.

The essays were serious, thoughtful, and humorous, evidence that stimulating friendships had developed.

Reunions are now being planned at Newbury Court to

of New England, explaining that independent schools are “effective partners in this effort because they are flexible and able to innovate without undue regulation.”

Both Manzella and Frederick were honored at a dinner and roundtable discussion in May and had fun exchanging ideas with other grant recipients.

See more about Stephanie Manzella in the Faculty Profile on page 7 and Kim Frederick’s piece on teaching about the Middle East on page 26 in this issue.

include an exhibit of photographs taken by Elly Katz, founder of Sages & Seekers.

A majority of the Sages from Newbury Court have applied to participate again next year!

A third collaboration began when Ellie Perrone, piano faculty at CA and the Longy School of Music, introduced me to Ashima Scripp, CA chamber music coordinator and cellist with the Walden Chamber Players. In May we hosted a concert by four groups from the CA Chamber Music Workshop, an intensive course designed for intermediate and advanced instrumentalists interested in classical and contemporary repertoire. In the course, students work side by side with members of the Walden Chamber Players, a world-renowned chamber ensemble comprising current

47 boys and 53 girls 48 boarding and 52 day Our new students are residents of: 12 states (California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont) 7 countries (Canada, China, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States) More new-student facts: 25 percent receive financial aid 21 percent have a parent, grandparent, or sibling who attended CA 22 percent are U.S. students of color 10 percent are international students

and former members of such prestigious organizations as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. After a program of music by Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, and Ravel, Newbury Court residents commented “Outstanding! Bring them back!” The students reviewed video of their performances at Newbury Court to help with final preparations for their concert at CA. An invitation has been extended and accepted to return next year.

Newbury Court residents look forward to future collaborations with CA faculty, students, and alumnae/i. If you have questions or wish to volunteer, please call Catherine Hunter at (978) 369-5151 x319.

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oncord Academy History Teachers Stephanie Manzella and Kim Frederick have been awarded grants through the Stanton Foundation’s Innovations in Civics program. The foundation likens the grants to “mini MacArthur fellowships” because they are unrestricted; recipients may use them for any endeavor.

Both teachers plan to put the $5,000 grants toward curriculum development.

Manzella said she will use the funds to help develop a new history course around issues of poverty and development. She is also interested in exploring the legacies of slavery, as we approach the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. Frederick expects to apply her grant award to an interdisciplinary two-part course, developed with Academic Dean and Science Teacher John Drew, that combines history and environmental science. Frederick’s course — The Boston

Gail Friedman

Innovative Teachers

CAMPUS NEWS

Presidential Scholar

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oncord Academy congratulates senior Kate Nussenbaum, who has been named a U.S. Presidential Scholar. One young woman and one young man in each state received the distinction, along with an influential teacher designated by each student.

“I feel really lucky because I’ve loved my high school

Deanna Douglas (center) with two former advisees, Lisa Siegel ’80 (left) and Kate Nussenbaum ’11 (right)

experience and I’ve been excited and inspired by almost every one of my classes,” Kate said. “Receiving the honor is obviously incredibly flattering, and I’m excited for the trip to DC, but honestly, my academic experience here has been a reward in and of itself.”

Traveling with Kate to Washington, D.C. in June to receive the award was her advisor, History Teacher Deanna Douglas. Kate said, “One of the best parts of being selected is getting the chance to honor an influential teacher, my advisor Deanna Douglas. It feels awesome to be able to recognize her in this way, but I hope all of my teachers feel as though part of this honor is theirs — I certainly feel like it is.”

Douglas has been “an incredibly influential part of my time at CA. Her forcing me to ask myself hard questions and solve most of my problems on my own has played a valuable role in my development as a

Quotation from Rabbie Hanina expresses History Teacher Deanna Douglas’ passion for teaching.

student,” added Kate.

In Washington, Kate and other honorees participated in seminars and lectures with government officials, educators, authors, musicians, and scientists. They also performed community service and attended cultural events, as well as events held in their honor.

According to the Presidential Scholars Foundation, students who have scored “exceptionally well on either

the SAT or the ACT college admission test” are invited to apply. Applicants also submit essays, transcripts, activities, and other materials.

Concord Academy’s last Presidential Scholar was Nat Erb-Satullo ’03.

See also: Kate’s profile of History Teacher Stephanie Manzella on page 7.

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he new school year ushers in a wonderful variety of new faces to our faculty and staff. The English Department welcomes Meg Wickwire, who has tutored many CA students in recent years, as well as former Wilcox Fellow Paige Gould. Ed Rafferty joins the History Department after having lived on campus for five years with his wife, Marie Myers, CA’s Director of Admissions and their four children.

Two new Wilcox Fellows can also been seen in academic departments: Sumana Setty in Science and Kristian Shaw ’07 in German. And all teachers benefit from the guidance of Instructional Solutions Architect Iván Nieves.

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The Admissions Department is enriched by former intern now Assistant Director of Admissions Warren Samuels, who is just as likely to be seen on the ski slopes or lacrosse field coaching CA teams, and Wilcox Fellow Dora Hui ’07. Two former members of the CA community returning with new roles are Major Gifts Officer Hilary Wirtz, wife of former Science Department Chair Mike Wirtz, and Assistant Director of Young Alumnae/i Programming and Gifts Ben Wilson ’07. Rounding out our new additions are Assistant Director of Advancement Services Karen Kerns.

Carly Nartowicz

New Arrivals

From left, back row: Ben Wilson ’07, Paige Gould, Iván Nieves, Meg Wickwire, Warren Samuels, Ed Rafferty. Front row: Karen Kerns, Sumana Setty, Kristian Shaw ’07, Dora Hui ’07

by Kate Nussenbaum ’11

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diverse topics ranging from the African slave trade to violence and identity in the Balkans.

Manzella said that when she arrived, “CA needed an African history teacher, and I wanted to be that person.” Her interest in the region was sparked in graduate school, when she focused on slavery and worked on the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project, an initiative that is publishing all of King’s speeches and writings. Manzella said African history is perhaps her favorite subject to teach. “The cultures are so rich and yet the history is so fraught with injustice.”

This year, her efforts to engage students in thinking about civics and international policy were recognized when both she and History Department Head Kim Frederick won Stanton Foundation grants for Innovation in Civics. Manzella will use her two-year grant to develop new courses.

“The grant has asked us to develop something innovative in the teaching of civics,” she explained. “I interpret that as

giving students the tools to learn about a topic well enough so that they can become informed citizens and turn around and take some type of action.”

Manzella said that current events continue to drive what she wants to teach.

She plans to use the grant money to develop a course on the strengths and weaknesses of nation building in Haiti and South Sudan, an idea she said was inspired in part by her students’ activism in these regions. “I feel like I am just keeping up with my students’ interests,” she said.

She also hopes that in her future course offerings she will be able to connect her classes to local nonprofit organizations so that students will gain another vantage point into understanding the world’s injustices. And she hopes that forming direct connections with active organizations will inspire students to take a stand and fight those injustices.

“Maybe my romantic idea of what a lawyer was is being channeled through teaching history,” Manzella said.

I want to give “students the tools to learn about a topic well enough so that they can become informed citizens and turn around and take some type of action.”

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Tom Kates

he news was rife with stories of injustice when Stephanie Manzella started teaching history in 1992. That year, the Bosnian war had begun, and the next year, Manzella and her students watched news of the Rwandan Genocide unfold.

Manzella said the news made it sound like these events were spontaneous, but she knew that they each had long histories behind them and wanted to allow her students to better understand that. “Teaching about injustice is a way to transcend it,” she said.

Manzella’s interest in justice originally drove her to consider becoming a lawyer, but after working in a law firm for two years, she realized she wanted a job with better hours and more room for creativity.

The daughter of two history majors, Manzella said history had always been in her blood. When she was a child, her parents took her to places like Colonial Williamsburg, which, she said, “kindled my historical imagination.” She remembered that one of her English professors at Hamilton had told her that if she wanted to change the world, she should teach high school. So after receiving her master’s degree in history from Stanford, Manzella landed at San Francisco University High School, teaching electives like Crime and Punishment in U.S. History that focused on justice and human rights.

After five years in San Francisco, Manzella moved to London with her husband. While abroad, she took time off from teaching to raise her three children and study European history at the University College of London.

Seven years later, after struggling to find a teaching job in England because she had not taken the A-level exams, Manzella and her family returned to the States where she had received job offers from both Brookline High School and Concord Academy. She chose CA. Since 2004 she has taught courses focused on the United States, Europe, and Africa, and exploring

FAC ULTY PR OFILE

Teaching about Injustice to Transcend It

SERVICE LEARNING TRIPS:

Taking the Mission to the Streets

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t all started with a single trip in the summer of 2007, to the actual Ground Zero of Hurricane Katrina’s wrath, Kiln, Mississippi.

In the years since, CA students, faculty, and adult chaperones have traveled to and served in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans, in Washington, D.C., in Nicaragua, in Appalachian West Virginia, and at the Eagle Butte Native American reservation in South Dakota. While Dean of Students David Rost has organized and led the D.C., Appalachia, and Eagle Butte trips as part of a yearly effort to offer new destination options, I’ve had the pleasure of accompanying all five Katrina relief expeditions, and the Nicaragua trip has always been Mathematics Department Head George Larivee’s personal project.

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A kind and humble man with a lengthy and cherished commitment to activism and relief work, Larivee describes how the work in Nicaragua grew out of his own past: The idea that brought me to Nicaragua was to set up libraries in the rural regions of the country where the children and adults have little access to information beyond their immediate village.

The library in my hometown served me in a big way when I was growing up, and I wanted to do something similar on a smaller scale for others. The project has set up seven libraries thus far, and I hope to continue doing this for years to come.

As one may imagine, the efforts of Larivee and his fellow participants have had a lasting and tangible impact, both on the Nicaraguan villagers and on the service trip participants, as Jay Radochia ’11 so vividly describes in his college application essay: I lived as a symbol of wealth in the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. I knew that I had more money in my suitcase than these people see in a year. In spite of this, in spite of the terror my country inflicted on them

in its perpetration of the Contra-Sandinista war, in spite of my clumsy Spanish, and in spite of all that I represented, they lovingly accepted me for who I was. They took me into their homes, made sacrifices for me despite their already extremely difficult lives, and taught me every day what it meant to live . . . When we brought books into the schools and set up the libraries in villages, and when we revisited the libraries we set up the year before, true love of learning was impressed upon me by these children. They would sit in the library gleaning every amount of information they could from any book they could get their hands on. They would sit there until the teachers were forced to close the library, and they would return the next day eager to fill their minds. Learning for them is a way of escaping, a means of bettering themselves and their lives. They cling to every opportunity to learn that they can get.

This year Kate Nussenbaum ’11 became part of the second-ever group of CA seniors to have gone on four Katrina relief trips. (After our first year in Kiln, the trip has focused exclusively on New Orleans, thereby acquir-

[All New Orleans trip photos by Carla Odiaga]

ing the moniker CANOLA.) Like me, having gone to New Orleans once, Nussenbaum could not help but to go over and over again, despite having other service trip options.

Like Radochia, Nussenbaum acquired a genuine familiarity with the place and its people that only spurred on her determination to keep going back: Ever since I heard about Katrina, I had wanted to go down and volunteer. My freshman year at CA, the disaster still felt very fresh and emotionally engrossing, so I was glad to have the opportunity both to see the destruction with my own eyes and to help. After I went once, it felt impossible to stop going back. New Orleans is an incredible city, and the people there do not deserve the country’s neglect . . . Though I have talked to a number of understandably cynical people down there, a surprising number of residents are incredibly forgiving and unimaginably hopeful. Their roots in the city were planted generations ago. This is unfortunate in the sense that it has been particularly hard and painful for many displaced residents to relocate.

But this connection to their neighborhood also gives them an unrelenting determination to see

it thrive again, a determination that makes me believe it just might be possible. New Orleans should serve as an example to the world not just of how governments should not respond to disasters, but of how people should.

Lisa Samoylenko P’13, commenting on daughter Seija’s second trip to New Orleans this year, confirms the transformative nature of these trips, and proclaims their benefits from a parent’s perspective: There was no question that [Seija] would go back to New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA) again this year. Traveling to NOLA with friends was the initial draw, but she came away from both years with confidence from the work that was done and excited about the experience and the people she met. Without a doubt [these trips] deepen her connection to CA, her friends, and her teachers. They also serve as an extension of the whole learning experience CA offers and fosters. It means a lot to us parents that the teachers have the opportunity to travel and spend extended time with the students — getting to know them on a very different level.

Aside from fostering a broad and empathetic appreciation for the lives, cultures, struggles, and courage of the people we serve, these service trips also offer intense moments of personal connection with local residents, people who can’t help but reveal almost in the moment how much our assistance means to them.

After taking part in the Eagle Butte, South Dakota service trip to a Native American reservation in June 2011, Science Teacher John Pickle reflected: As past chaperones have told me, the [service trip] experience with the students is so different from working with students in the classroom.

It was—and it was great. I was blown away by the focus of my team not just to learn how to do the job well, but to complete all tasks regardless of the weather. We filled our non-working time learning about Native American history and culture, as well as cooking, sharing meals, and playing many different card games. Bottom line, we have fantastic young adults at CA. — Marco Odiaga, CA History Teacher

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[All South Dakota trip photos by David Rost]

The Development of Concord Academy’s Athletic Campus: A Gateway to CA’s Future

by Kathleen Kelly, Pam Safford, and Lucille Stott

Left: CA trustees gather with Director of Operations Don Kingman and Head of School Rick Hardy at the Athletic Campus.

Photos by Tim Morse

Below: Don Kingman and CA Trustee Neil E. Rasmussen P’10, ’15 discuss the Athletic Campus facilities during a spring 2011 visit.

“A

once in a lifetime opportunity” is the

team operations and provide shelter from the

history. Prior to the purchase of Arena Farms,

way Concord Academy trustees initially

elements for players and fans.

the CA campus was feeling increasingly tight.

described the school’s purchase of the 13.5-acre

Generous donors have provided over six

“Figuring out how best to use our existing

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Arena Farms property. Now, four years later,

million dollars of the seven million required to

campus and old structures has been a checkers

a collaborative process of study and planning

break ground. These funds will be used for

game with no empty squares,” says Don

has produced a design for the new Athletic

construction, landscaping, and purchase of

Kingman, director of operations. “The land

Campus just a mile from our Main Street base.

fixtures for the fields, tennis courts, and support

purchase finally gives us a way to start moving the pieces around.”

This coming spring, the school will commence

building. They will also provide an endowment

construction on this satellite campus of two

to ensure the support of the costs to maintain

new athletic fields, a baseball diamond, tennis

the new athletic campus.

courts, and a simple building that will support

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This is an exciting moment in the school’s

Flooding of the Sudbury River in recent years has become a particular challenge. Playing fields have been underwater every spring and

sometimes in the fall as well. Apartments and

courts to the new property will open for

to provide first-rate athletic facilities for our

classrooms in the basement levels of several

development a large, central and well-drained

teams and their supporters. And these

buildings have often been damp or even

portion of the existing campus. With this comes

developments will in turn give CA the space to

inundated. Furthermore, this encroaching

the possibility of replacing our aging

make our beautiful and historic campus even

flood plain has severely limited the school’s

performing arts space and music practice

more responsive to the school’s programming

capacity to build new structures on the land

rooms, and eventually of creating a real student

and its people.

we have.

center as well.

With the addition of the Athletic Campus,

The successful completion of the Athletic

however, CA can begin to implement a master

Campus project will represent an enormous

plan to relieve a variety of infrastructure

accomplishment for CA. Thanks to the

challenges. Simply relocating the school’s tennis

generosity of many, the school will soon be able

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Above and left: Working configurations of fields and facilities at the Athletic Campus by Lilley Dadagian Architects.

She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems Caroline Kennedy ’75 Hyperion, 2011

Just Enough: Collected Writings of an Old Gangster Nancy Jaicks Alexander ’51 Growth House, Inc., 2010

Shared gifts of poetry between friends provided the first strands of this rich tapestry of words representative of the universal spirit of womanhood. She Walks in Beauty distills centuries of poems — from the timeless voices of Sappho and Shakespeare to the Romanticism of Byron and Shelley and the musings of contemporary wordsmiths.

Kennedy’s thoughtful selections are accompanied by insightful introductions for each life passage.

Through varied works of creative nonfiction and poetry, Alexander explores the range of emotions garnered from her lifelong experiences.

Childhood beginnings in an upscale Chicago suburb followed by the refined all-girls environment of the early-1950s Concord Academy are balanced with an abbreviated stint at Northwestern and a flawed and trying first marriage. Ever resilient, she settles in the Bay Area to raise her children and begins training as a grief and trauma counselor. Work with the world-renowned Elisabeth Kübler-Ross provides Alexander with the necessary tools to venture behind the walls of the California State Penitentiary at Vacaville to work with inmates and assist in the establishment of the first prison hospice in the world, a vocation to which she devoted twenty-five years. See also: Joan Shaw Herman Award on page 36 about Alexander’s magnificent work.

First stanza of Lord Byron’s title poem:

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellow’d to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

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Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution Christine M. Philliou ’90 University of California Press, 2011 This careful examination of governance in the early nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire reveals the vital commercial and diplomatic roles played by the phanariots between the sultan and neighboring European states. Specifically, Philliou traces the journey of Stephanos Vogorides, a young Bulgarian, who through Hellenic training becomes an influential leader of the Orthodox Church in Istanbul. As a phanariot and later the prince of Samos, Vogorides exerted considerable sway in the governance of the Empire. Despite being an Orthodox Christian in a predominantly Muslim sultanate, Vogorides maintained a fierce loyalty to the Ottomans throughout his long political career.

Decades later, the fine balance Vogorides skillfully maintained among the differing factions falls apart as the empire contracts and loses ground to its expanding European neighbors.

I N A B U C K ET

Knock myself stupid.

Fish-mouthed. Can’t get out.

Gills sweat red. Hook lodged in slippery self, flopping at a good fast pace.

Can’t keep this tempo up. Can’t warn others. Anyway, who’d listen.

Like them, I drank silver and that was life.

Earthquake Season: Poems Jessica Goodheart ’85 Word Press, 2011 Los Angeles-based Goodheart presents the poetics of daily life in this, her first collection. Ranging from the ordinary to the highly personal, her unique spin on everyday observations is revealed in refreshing poems filled with deep insights and captivating imagery.

Sharing Hidden Know-How: How Managers Solve Thorny Problems with the Knowledge Jam Kate Pugh ’83 Jossey-Bass, 2011 As a seasoned planner and management specialist, Pugh draws upon three established business strategies — Intelligence Acquisition, Organizational Learning, and Collaboration Technology — and extracts a key discipline from each: facilitation, conversation, and translation. These three disciplines lay the groundwork of the Knowledge Jam Method, a process that holds using what you already know as its basic tenet.

How exactly one conveys that learned knowledge successfully and effectively is laid out in detailed how-to chapters. Business-savvy readers will find the templates and case studies ready for application, and laypersons will garner useful strategies on how to purposefully transfer knowledge.

Eddie Shore and That Old Time Hockey Michael Hiam ’80 McClelland & Stewart, 2010 A determined kid from the prairies of Saskatchewan sets his sights on becoming the toughest hockey player in a nation of standouts.

Within five years, Eddie Shore reaches his goal, and in 1929, is the key to bringing Lord Stanley’s Cup to Beantown for the very first time.

Hiam recounts the career of the Bruins’ first storied player, a man who won the hearts of fans and earned the hatred of opposing teams. Playing in the era of little protection and iron wills, Shore skated in twenty NHL seasons and was a true pioneer of the sport.

A must-read for all hockey fans and for those intrigued with Boston’s illustrious sports legends, especially so in this Stanley Cup year for the Bruins!

CA Bookshelf

by Martha Kennedy, Library Director

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Thwack. Thwack.

ALUM NAE I PRO FILES

Jesse Gray and Matt Berlin Class of 1998

CA Roots Give Classmates Wings

BYNANCYSHOHETWEST’84 nancyshohetwest.com

T H I S

I S S U E

• Jesse Gray and Matt Berlin Class of 1998

• Kathy Perkins Class of 1967

• Sarah Koenig Class of 1986

• Marcia Synnott Class of 1957

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ttending the premiere of an opera in Monaco probably wasn’t the first perk that Jesse Gray and Matt Berlin, both from the CA Class of 1998, imagined when they decided to go into business together. Experts in the fast-evolving field of robotics engineering, in which they both earned PhDs at MIT, they expected their careers to go in a variety of directions — but possibly not straight to the Royal Court of Monaco to see a commissioned work in which they played a critical role.

Nonetheless, that’s where the two young men found themselves last summer, just weeks after officially going into business as IF Robots, a robotics software consultancy where the two build interactive systems involving robotics, computer vision, sensor fusion, and related technologies.

The event was the opening of the opera Death and the Powers, composed by MIT faculty member Tod Machover. When Machover needed to bring in robotics engineers who could make gigantic pieces of the set move around on stage, he knew just whom to call.

“Staging the opera involved a ton of technical and robotic elements,” said Berlin. “Jesse and I were brought in fairly late in the production stage to work on the automation for this giant robot set.

We created an automatic driving system for these fifteen-foot-tall triangular columns and worked with the choreographer on how they were to glide around the stage in a particular sort of way.”

“This project incorporates some technology that is quite new to the theater world,” Gray added. “These robots have a lot of autonomous control. They have sensors that allow them to know where they are on stage in relation to other objects and make them able to respond to complex choreography requirements.”

Photos by Seth Block ’00, blockphotography.com

“In our CA days we had an inkling we’d someday start a company together.”

Together, the two traveled to Monaco for the opera’s opening and fine-tuned the technology that allowed their creations to come to life on stage.

Berlin and Gray met as classmates the first week of sophomore year, when English teacher Julia Russell instructed them to interview each other as part of an in-class assignment. The two teens were surprised to discover how much they had in common. Berlin was from Concord and Gray from neighboring Lincoln, Massachusetts; both were interested in sailing, video games, and computer technology. Their first jobs as teenagers were auditing CA’s computer inventory together the summer after sophomore year, and they’ve remained close ever since.

“I think even back in our CA days, we had an inkling we’d someday start a company together,” Gray said.

After earning their bachelor’s degrees at Tufts (Gray) and Harvard (Berlin), and then meeting up again as colleagues at the MIT Media Lab, they both entered the Ph.D. program there. The long-imagined company was officially born soon thereafter. And so far, their Cambridge-based consultancy is off to a roaring start. Along with the opera, they have produced a range of projects for clients in academic research labs and in technology start-ups, and recently created a prototype sponsored by Intel in which they were instructed to imagine a futuristic consumer

experience for buying merchandise from a big-box retailer. “Working with collaborators at MIT, Intel, and Best Buy, we designed a counter that functions as an interactive space,” Berlin explained. “For example, if you were at Best Buy shopping for a camera, you’d place a camera on the counter and a lamp would project useful information about the product and even let you ask questions about it via video conferencing.”

The two traveled to a trade show in New York to demo their prototype.

There, they found what Gray said was “a very different crowd from the opera singers in Monaco.”

“Ours is still a very young company, so the most important thing for us is to stay flexible and see where our services fit in,” Berlin said.

“For the time being, we are continuing to focus specifically on robotics and software work, and on building up our in-house capabilities.

Eventually we hope to scale up our consulting business and roll out software and robotics products of our own that we can sell or license.”

The two still look back to the roots of their friendship at CA as a founding component of their success. “We’re building on all sorts of things we learned at MIT, but we also believe our foundation comes from CA in terms of our own creative relationship as well as our relationship to technology and the arts. We really do consider ourselves a CA-grounded company,” Berlin said.

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Berlin and Gray in their Cambridge workshop.

Kathy Perkins Class of 1967

Adopting a Cause

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o hear Kathy Perkins ’67 talk about her work is to understand the difference between a career and a calling. Perkins has dedicated most of the past four decades to improving therapeutic care for some of the neediest cases imaginable: children neglected, abused, or abandoned by their own parents.

After early attempts at a career in museum work, which she almost immediately found unfulfilling, Perkins earned a master’s degree in psychology and began a job at a hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts. Often she was the only psychology professional attending to patients who had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness or survived a suicide attempt. She found herself frequently trying to convince the medical staff that these patients had mental as well as physical needs.

The work intrigued her—but also left her feeling somewhat unqualified for what she was trying to do, so she matriculated at Smith College to earn a master’s in social work. That degree, Perkins said, “jelled my experience with my prior education.”

Armed with her new degree, she took on a job with a public social services agency working as a therapist for traumatized children. “We were seeing the city’s poorest people with the largest number of stressors,” she said. “Factors contributing to their problems included economy, race, family history . . . this setting was about as low as you can go in terms of family stress other than a homeless shelter.”

But Perkins proved herself to be very good at the work, which involved counseling troubled children and their parents, usually in situations where the parents’ ability to continue caring for their children was in question. Soon after that, she accepted a position consulting with the Massachusetts Department of Social Services (now called the Department of Children and Families) assessing family situations and making recom16

mendations as to whether children should be taken out of their parents’ care.

That responsibility would in time lead to a startling revelation, and another twist in her career path. Seeing troubled children whose parents mistreated them had led Perkins to the assumption that freeing children for adoption was a beneficial practice, until one day a speaker came to her agency to describe the rate of failures among such adoptions. Suddenly, Perkins doubted the wisdom she had believed all along, that she was releasing children into better adoptive situations. The answer, she realized, was to work with adoptive families to help parents and children alike learn to thrive together rather than to fail as a family unit.

Since 1997, the focus of her work has been almost exclusively adoption support. With guid-

ance from various experts in the field, Perkins developed an approach for helping these families.

In part, she says, the solution is in helping both parents and children to better understand each other’s contexts. Adoptive parents have often been preparing to receive a child for years, dreaming of the day that they would complete their family. Meanwhile, the children they are given may be coming from a background of trauma, which may include multiple foster placements; the last thing they plan to do is form an attachment to a new set of parents.

“I work with families, not parents and children individually, because what I’m trying to do is strengthen family attachments. Attachment is what is missing from these children’s lives.

The child was not made to feel worthwhile in his or her early years, but it’s not too late. A knowledgeable parent can show the child all kinds of support later on.”

Perkins’ most recent endeavor is a book about child sexual abuse called Katie’s Book.

Intended for children from the ages of 3 to 14, it is different from most books on the topic because it is about children who initiate sexual encounters with other children as a result of sexual abuse in their own past. “I knew about these stories from my patients, and I was looking for a way to make it easier for kids to talk about it,” Perkins said.

Whether the issue is abuse, neglect, or some other problem, Perkins has found time and again that helping parents and children forge a connection through open communication is the most important work she can possibly do. “I help adoptive families get to the point where the child can say ‘Here’s what happened to me and here’s how I feel about it and I hope you want to make me feel better,’ and the adoptive parents say ‘Of course we want to help you.’” And from there, the process of making a family whole and functional begins.

American Life

I

nvestigating the bizarre tyranny with which a New York school custodian ran his department. Detailing a sting operation designed to apprehend a would-be missile trader. Undergoing psychological screening to determine her own inclinations toward psychopathic behavior. It’s all in a day’s work for Sarah Koenig ’86, one of a team of producers for the radio show This American Life (TAL). And while to some people this may sound like a peculiar line of work, to many these stories are already familiar: This American Life has 1.7 million weekly listeners among the five hundred National Public Radio stations on which it is broadcast, and another 500,000 download the podcast every week.

But it’s not quite what Koenig was picturing in her early days as a newspaper reporter, when she dreamed of working in Russia as a foreign correspondent.

This American Life focuses on narrative nonfiction: in-depth accounts by or about people who find themselves in unusual situations.

Each show is centered on a theme, and the segments related to that theme may be as universal as the mortgage crisis or as esoteric as selling dolls at FAO Schwarz.

In the late 1990s, not long after TAL’s 1995 debut, Koenig was just another NPR listener who stumbled across the broadcast one day. “My reaction was like that of a lot of people: I’d never heard anything like that on the radio, and I really liked it. I joked that it was exactly what I wanted to do.” And then she went on with her daily job as a newspaper reporter, covering politics, crime, and breaking news.

The turning point came one day when she was talking with a friend of her editor, and the discussion turned to someone Koenig didn’t know named Alex Blumberg. “I asked what he did, and this woman said he was a producer for This American Life. I said, ‘But that’s supposed to be my job!’” Koenig recalled.

Connections were forged, and Koenig, then employed by New Hampshire’s Concord Monitor and later by the Baltimore Sun, contributed a few stories as a freelancer for TAL. She impressed host and founding producer Ira Glass sufficiently that when a position for a producer on his staff opened up, he offered it to her. “I freaked out and said, ‘I can’t do this, I’m a news reporter! I’m supposed to go to Moscow to report on international events!’”

Turning down the job was a decision she’d regret for months to come — but it was also a learning experience. When another position

opened up a couple of years later and she was again invited to come aboard, she accepted it immediately.

That was in 2004. Since then, Koenig’s matter-of-fact articulation and poignant narratives have become familiar to legions of TAL listeners.

She covered the stories of a woman committed to donating a kidney to a stranger, her own father’s complicated history as a pioneer in the field of advertising, and the hard-partying habits of the students at Penn State, with whom she shares a zip code (Koenig’s husband is a professor there). But some of the work of which she is proudest comes in the form of stories she produces for other writers, such as a report about prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and an hour-long account of two families whose babies were accidentally switched at birth.

Radio narrative is significantly different from the print journalism in which she was trained. “In a print story, someone can say to you ‘It was the biggest surprise of my life.’ If their tone of voice is flat, it doesn’t matter, because you as a reader inject tone,” Koenig explained. “But if the meaning has to come across on tape and they say it flatly, it’s bad tape. It doesn’t matter if the content is good; the way they say it is what’s most important.”

But the converse happens also, Koenig said. For a story that aired over the summer, she interviewed a professor about methane leaks in gas drilling. “In the middle of our conversation, he starts yelling at me because he’s so passionate about the topic,” she recounted. “I said, ‘I feel like you’re yelling at me,’ and he said, ‘I am yelling at you!’ This moment doesn’t have a natural place in the structure of the narrative, but I still had to work it in because it’s just so much fun to hear someone being that passionate. In print, it wouldn’t have worked at all.”

Even after almost eight years Koenig still thinks it’s a dream job.

She’s able to work from her Pennsylvania home and spend time with her two young children. “Sometimes,” says Koenig, “I fantasize about not working at all: hanging out with my kids, not having a crazy schedule.

Someday I might want to focus on just writing. But right now, this is pretty great.” And it has every indication of getting even more interesting, as Glass has recently invited Koenig and another colleague to take a turn hosting the show.

Sarah Koenig ’86 wit h her c hildren , Ava a nd

Reube n

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Sarah Koenig Class of 1986

Marcia Synnott Class of 1957

Bringing Fort Devens to Light

H i

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istorical homes and their roles in history were an early interest of historian Marcia Synnott ’57. She wrote her master’s thesis at Brown University on a New London, Connecticut, home and its eighteenth-century owner: “The Diary of Joshua Hempstead: A Mirror of the Man and his Times.” And when, after earning her PhD at UMass Amherst, she was appointed professor of history at the University of South Carolina, where she eventually spent more than thirty years, she expanded that interest to encompass the antebellum mansions and other historical homes in the city of Columbia. She taught a graduate-level class in historic site interpretation, and she also served as a volunteer leading tours.

In time, two other elements in Synnott’s life dovetailed with that early interest in historically significant homes. Her academic research turned to military history and women’s roles, such as in the Women’s Army Corps. At the same time, she inherited her mother’s home in Groton, Massachusetts, close to the former site of Camp Devens, later called Fort Devens. Although she and her geologist husband kept their residence as well as their teaching positions in South Carolina, in 2000 she became a board member of the Fort Devens Museum.

In 1996, Fort Devens closed, and much of the base’s holdings were dispersed. But just four years later, a group of local residents engaged in figuring out how to re-create a museum on the grounds, and Synnott found herself pulled into the effort. “One of our first tasks as a group was to investigate possible sites on the base,” Synnott said. “We had several possibilities that didn’t quite work. The first were the three buildings of the former Citizens’ Military Training Camp; the second was the Red Cross building from the early 1940s; and the third was a small brick building on Antietam Street. However, it was just at a time when the national economy began to falter, and there was concern about funding.”

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Meanwhile, since MassDevelopment, the state’s finance and development authority, had leased a room to the museum at nominal fee, the board members decided to stay in this office building on the former Devens base, and that became their museum. More recently, two more rooms have been made available, so the museum now uses one for offices, one for lectures, and one for exhibits at 94 Jackson Road.

Synnott’s early interest in the history of American women attracted her to Edith Nourse Rogers, a seminal figure in the evolution of Fort Devens, which was founded as a World War I training camp and operated for more than eighty years. Rogers, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1925 to 1960, is to this day the longest-serving woman in the House. “One of her primary causes was Fort Devens,” Synnott

said. “[Rogers] lobbied Congress for the funding to update the camp into a fort, and during the Depression, she worked hard to ensure that federal monies were applied to construction at Fort Devens. In conjunction with Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Oveta Culp Hobby, she pushed for the creation of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, which was established in 1942 and became the Women’s Army Corps a year later. Were it not for her commitment, Devens might have become a part-time camp at the end of World War I and then forgotten about; she made sure it was reinvigorated and put to purpose from the 1930s to 1996.”

At this point, Synnott said, the biggest challenge is raising the visibility of the museum, which is not a familiar destination in the region.

Funding remains a challenge as well—especially because Devens was carved geographically out of several towns and does not belong to any one community, whose residents might take a special interest in its support. “What exactly is Devens?”

Synnott asked rhetorically. “Ayer, Shirley, and Harvard each have a piece of it, but the communities can’t agree on what should be done with it.

That’s a difficult challenge to overcome.”

Now a history professor emerita at the University of South Carolina, Synnott continues lecturing and publishing. Meanwhile, she hopes to encourage New England visitors to visit the website at fortdevensmuseum.org and make their way in larger numbers to the Fort Devens Museum, whose buildings and monuments serve as a compelling reminder of a military legacy spanning over 100 years.

I

have truly enjoyed my first year as president of the Concord Academy Alumnae/i Association.

Several particular highlights of the year stand out in my mind. In the Chapel last September, I listened to the stories of Ron Richardson at his memorial service. At dinner in the Student Faculty Dining Hall I ran into my teachers Deborah Gray, Parkman Howe, and Sandy Stott; I saw my advisor Susan Adams in the hall in Middle School and gave her an update on my life. At the second Community and Equity Alumnae/i Event, I was fortunate to see alumnae/i of color mentor current CA students about life at and after CA. During the year I walked around (not across) the quad, saw soccer practice on the upper field, and heard the Chapel bell ring at the beginning of study hall. I spoke about what it means to be a CA alumna/us at a Junior Class meeting, and explained what reunions are and why it is important to give back to CA. At the Senior Class BBQ dinner I heard alumnae/i talk about why they love CA and why they have stayed actively involved in our school. During board meetings, I participated in the conversation about transforming the acquired Arena Farms property into new athletic fields and tennis courts.

Being an active alumna makes me appreciate CA even more than ever. I would love to share with you what is going on with the school. Please join Rick Hardy, other alumnae/i, and me on Saturday, October 22, 2011, for the fall meeting of the Alumnae/i Association. If you can’t come that day, check out the back cover of this magazine and watch your email over the coming year to hear about events near you.

One exciting development for our group is the addition to the Alumnae/i Programs Office staff of Ben Wilson ’07, who will be dedicated to programming and outreach to alumnae/i who graduated in the past fifteen years. CA has changed in other ways, too, but I assure you that at its core the school remains the same.

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ALUMNAE I ASSOCIATION UPDATE

Kelsey Stratton ’99 Alumnae/i Association President

Peace and Justice— A Region Poised

by Her Majesty Queen Noor Class of 1969

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oday in the Middle East and North Africa we are witnessing the most remarkable example of large-scale sociopolitical change since at least the fall of the Soviet Union. Although many inside and outside the region were caught off guard by the sudden unrest, no one should have been surprised, except perhaps by the flashpoint—the tragic, dramatic suicide of a young vegetable seller in Tunisia—and by how quickly the protests spread.

What circumstances and tipping points led to these changes?

The protesters’ concerns are not new. Anyone listening to ordinary people and political observers over the past few decades would have known of the deep discontent not only with the obvious economic hardship and lack of opportunity for many, but also with the more fundamental problem—the police-state culture of fear, intimidation, and corruption resulting in region-wide deficits in just and representative governance, rule of law, and human rights.

Until now, in the name of security and stability, ruling elites stifled protest of any kind, opposed freedom of the press, of assembly, and the growth of civil society institutions, effectively preventing the emergence of open, participatory, and dynamic societies. In many countries, religious parties filled this vacuum assuming a preeminent social and also political role through their extremely effective networks of philanthropy and provision of social services.

In this way, activist Muslim groups constructed a broad and deep base of support, seemingly providing the only alternative to autocratic government.

So what has changed? Paradoxically, while some might cite lack of developmental progress

thirty and facing the highest unemployment rate in the world—a reason the uprisings are so often viewed as a “Youth Revolution.” Many of these young protesters are students, educated (and exposed) enough to know what their inalienable rights are, what jobs they desire and deserve, and how to use new technologies to demand them.

Perhaps a key tipping point has been that new, technological network and social media developments have provided the means, model, and catalyst to bring all the other elements together. In virtually all of the uprisings, satellite television, cell phones with cameras (which increased 10 percent last year, alone), YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook have served to organize,

publicize, vitalize, and galvanize support for the protesters. This would have been impossible just a few years ago when access to news and information was controlled by a narrow elite.

Internet usage in the Middle East has risen more than 1800 percent in the past decade and, in fact, now very slightly exceeds the average in the rest of the world. This is even more remarkable than it sounds at first, given that the second Arab Human Development Report in 2003 expressed concern that Internet usage in the region was at only 1.6 percent and that the gap presented a severe challenge to political, social, and intellectual development in the region.

The Arab Human Development Reports (ADHRs) themselves, with their readily avail-

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Courtesy of Jordan Tourism Bureau

overall in our region, the democratization movement could be said to be, in significant part, the byproduct of the development process, rather than of its failure. When measured purely by per-capita income, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region seems to have stalled. However, when health and education advances and technology penetration are taken into account, it becomes clear that much of the Arab world has reached a level of development that is out of sync with its archaic political systems—an imbalance that the 2010 Human Development Report has referred to as the “democratic deficit” in the Arab world.

A sizable majority (60 percent) of the population in the Arab world is under the age of

Much of the Arab world has reached a level of development that is out of sync with its archaic political systems . . .

Photos by Thea Lewis

referred to as the “democratic deficit.”

able and candid analysis of problems facing the region, can also be seen as catalysts for the current changes. In this ground-breaking fivereport series launched in 2002 with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), a distinguished group of Arab statesmen, scholars, and social scientists examined the central obstacles to human development across our region—such as deficits in knowledge, innovation, freedom, and women’s inclusion.

These pioneering authors faced down regional and international pressures to excise unfavorable information, and their courage and honesty profoundly affected public discourse in the region and planted the seeds of the current Arab Spring. In recognition, we at the King Hussein Foundation awarded them the 2005 King Hussein Leadership Prize.

The large-scale mobilization for change we are now witnessing stems in part from the expansion of some of the goals the ADHRs were calling for—education, interconnectivity,

Lebanon Up Close

by David Lewis ’76

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missed my thirty-fifth reunion in May, but I had a great excuse: “Sorry, I’ll be in Beirut.” It’s an excuse I use as often as possible in all aspects of my life because—other than Martha’s Vineyard—Beirut is my favorite place to be.

While my classmates were busy reminiscing about the 1970s, I was shepherding a small group of Americans around Lebanon. It’s the country I find to be the most complicated and fascinating on the planet. It’s a land with more extreme contrasts than anywhere I’ve been: On one hand there are the things we in the West hear about, like Palestinian refugee camps, terrorist organizations, hashish fields, and the like.

But there are also some of the most

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and women’s participation—and these changes are hopefully enabling others—freedom, good governance, and human rights.

Such technological and social innovations and the awakening they have sparked are, in a sense, the antithesis of the modus operandi of most of the Arab world for the past half century—transparent vs. opaque, peaceful vs. violent, young vs. old, pluralistic vs. authoritarian.

hospitable people on the planet, spectacular food, Mediterranean beaches, and nightclubs the likes of which you’ve never seen. Roughly a third of the population is Christian, which makes the dynamic there unlike anywhere else in the Middle East. This isn’t just a land where you can get a nice poster of Ayatollah Khomeini or a Hezbollah key chain, it’s also a place where alcohol is not restricted and fashion is a contact sport. It’s a nation where you’re as likely to find porn on TV as the latest speech from Iran’s Supreme Leader. It’s so much fun and so fascinating that reporters never leave and spies retire there. It’s Lebanon’s

clash of contrasts that I find endlessly fascinating.

I first traveled to Lebanon shortly after 9/11 to do a documentary about Hezbollah for the PBS series, Frontline. At that time, the Bush administration said “Hezbollah [is] on the list and their time will come.” Through connections I’d made in my days as a CNN reporter, I had a narrow opportunity to get direct access to the organization. Naturally, it got very complicated—that’s another story— but I did make the film, and my forays to Lebanon had begun. I’ve now been there nine times and made deep friendships across the eighteen religious sects (called “confessions”) that make up the country’s population: Sunni, Shiite, Druze, Alawite, Maronite Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Catholics, and so on, even Jewish.

While I usually travel there as a reporter or on a consulting assignment, in 2009 friends asked me to show them the country. Thus began a biannual quest where I take a

Courtesy of Jordan Tourism Bureau

In a sense, they not only employ the tools of social entrepreneurship but also can be seen as almost an embodiment of social entrepreneurship itself—as evidenced by their collaborative, creative, and collective ways of bypassing traditional structures that have silenced people for so long.

It is no accident that one target of protests in Egypt was the Intelligence Directorate headquarters; the revolution represents a new kind of intelligence—not secret intelligence for the security and benefit of the few, but wide-scale intelligence by and for the masses.

In Egypt, social networking and commercial interests have come together to maintain the momentum and spirit of the awakening. In one initiative, El Balad Baladna (“This Place Is Our Country”), an advertising agency and its client, a manufacturer of cleaning supplies, launched a nationwide cleanup campaign for the streets and neighborhoods where the uprisings and subsequent celebrations took place.

The organizers publicized weekly cleanup days on Facebook, and many of the young people who protested and partied returned to show their civic commitment to improving the country. Similar civic-minded behavior is taking place in Syria in the wake of government military withdrawals from key cities.1 It is of the utmost importance to safeguard these movements from being politically and physically hijacked. Current uncertainty in Egypt, violence in Libya, and continued tension even amid glimmers of progress in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere warn that positive change is by no means guaranteed. Even where rulers have been deposed, reform must be real.

New governments must genuinely embrace change, rather than preserve old power structures under new figureheads while making limited, cosmetic concessions to placate protesters.

The collective, pluralistic nature of the protests is heartening but the lack of clear leadership may pose serious challenges moving forThe Treasury at Petra

group of Americans and introduce them to Lebanon’s crazy quilt of a society. We meet the major political leaders, go into the refugee camps, eat at fabulous restaurants and friends’ homes, see the extraordinary Roman and Phoenician ruins, and meet people on the U.S. terrorism list. What more could you

want? I call it “Journo-Travel-ism.”

Since Lebanon is always a place where violence, caused by either internal or external reasons, can break out with short notice, adventurous travelers are a must. With the Arab Spring roiling the region in 2011—particularly in Syria next door—this year’s trip required a

nytimes.com/2011/06/30/world/middleeast/30syria.html?ref=middleeast\

particularly plucky group. I had folks from Cambridge, New York, and Atlanta, including my wife and eighteen-year-old daughter. Syria is one of many countries and groups that have, in turn, dominated Lebanon (others include Romans, Crusaders, Ottomans, French, and Israelis), and Lebanon is always nervously looking over its shoulder to see what its powerful neighbor is up to. So with massive protests, people being gunned down, refugees fleeing into Lebanon, and Syria edging ever closer to entropy, this was a particularly edgy time to traipse around with a bunch of Americans. But the Lebanese have a thick skin when it comes to chaos— they’re used to it—and almost nothing in our itinerary changed. The exception was the day we tried to get to the restricted area just north of Israel, which requires permits from Lebanese Military Intelligence (LMI). Unfortunately three Lebanese Army soldiers were killed the night before, and apparently LMI was a bit nervous about nine

Americans wandering around the part of country Hezbollah completely controls despite the presence of UN forces. Oh well. I guess if military intelligence doesn’t want you there, one should listen. Other than that hiccup it was another great trip and I’m already planning the next one. Who’s in?

Lewis lives in Atlanta. He’s worked for CNN, ABC News, CNBC, FOX News, 60 Minutes and others. Read about his work at davidlewistv.com.

You can read the blog from his trip at beirutorbust.com.

Photos in this this article are credited to Lewis’ daughter, Thea.

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Courtesy of Jordan Tourism Bureau

Thea Lewis

ward. (One young woman who helped in the Cairo cleanup said she came even though she didn’t “know who the leaders are.”) People must maintain pressure on their nascent or incumbent governments until real progress is achieved, without succumbing to either frustrated anger or renewed cynical inertia if the pace of change slows. And women’s gains and participation must not be sacrificed on the altar of expediency. Unfortunately, as revolution gives way to realpolitik, women’s rights are all too often the first to be compromised and bartered away. In Egypt, while women and men protested side by side, all too soon sexual discrimination and harassment reappeared. When women returned on International Women’s Day to protest the absence of women on the constitutional amendment committee they were attacked by male counterprotesters.

Although the mixed demographic makeup of the protests so far, cutting across class, gender, and religious differences, undermined the old paradigm that the only choice is between authoritarian rule and strict Islamist orthodoxy, new governments and their constituents must still work to avoid exchanging one extreme for another. In Egypt, the referendum on constitu-

Amman Citadel

tional amendments was held very quickly, before any parties other than the remnants of the former ruling National Democratic Party and the Islamic Brotherhood had time to organize. Many voters were confused by false rumors that a vote against the amendments was a vote against Islamic law. We must all be mindful that, from the beginning, the mainstream goal has been the pursuit of a pluralist democracy which embraces religion without imposing it.

Half a year in, as the first fervor of protest and revolution gives way to the far more complicated business of incremental progress and

Personalizing the Middle East

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s regimes toppled throughout the Middle East early this year, a young American woman was invited to a party at the presidential palace in Yemen. She found herself playing pool with the president himself. He flirted with her — and he cheated at pool.

An associate editor at Foreign Policy magazine, David Kenner ’02 is always on the lookout for stories like the one that became “Pool Party at Saleh’s” by writer Lauren Goulding. “When we got this, we thought, wow, it’s a great way to tell about this duplicitous, sleazy guy, in a very amusing way,” says Kenner, who focuses on Middle East coverage. “It wasn’t talking

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about how this guy said he’d leave power three times and backed out.

It was his sleazily hitting on this younger American woman.”

Putting a human face on big issues is the work of every features editor and writer, and it’s work that poses a particular challenge in reporting on the Middle East. Locating reporters who are willing to file stories under their own names can be difficult, given the potential for violent reprisals, Kenner says. The journalists he finds — often through their blogs — face government restrictions and interference. So when he happens on a story like Goulding’s, or another recent firsthand account by an American beaten up during the Egyptian upris-

ing, Kenner thinks the benefit to readers is considerable.

“I imagine these countries blend together for people, so it’s about personalizing it, and making it so it’s not just another place ten thousand miles away,” says Kenner.

Kenner dates his own interest in the region back to his senior year at CA, which opened with the tragic events of September 11, 2001. As an undergraduate at Georgetown University, he followed news of the Afghan and Iraq wars closely, and studied abroad in southern Turkey.

After college, he enrolled in a master’s program at the University of Beirut and began writing for a publication called Now Lebanon.

Now based in Washington, DC,

Kenner tries to travel regularly to the Middle East, including a recent trip to Libya to do some firsthand reporting. But primarily he edits other writers based throughout the region. “I lucked out to be in this position at this time,” says Kenner.

“The real blessing about it is I get to see the full picture in a really interesting way.”

— Alison Lobron, former CA English Teacher

Leah Knopf

reform, what should the Arab awakening strive for now? What specific goals would most effectively further the quest for justice and peace in the region? First and foremost, we need good governance. Any reforms must ensure a democratic process that expresses the will of the majority while protecting the rights of individuals (and minorities), a system of checks and balances to limit state power, a commitment to transparency and accountability and against corruption, and an impartial justice system to uphold the rule of law for all citizens—male and female, young and old, of every creed and tribe.

We need further educational reform, emphasizing not just accessibility and employability, but citizenship, independent, critical thinking, conflict resolution, negotiation skills, and peacebuilding. Countries of the region have long preserved archaic education systems that perpetuate unquestioning and unchallenging societies. This lack of critical thinkers, diverse opinions, and healthy, informed debate has stunted efforts to bring about real change. In the immediate future, we need to improve people’s access to the basic necessities of life—not only employment and fair wages, food, and

health care, but also environmental stewardship and sustainable, equitable access to water and other resources.

These are increasingly the hallmarks of many societies throughout the world today, countries that are more prosperous, more tolerant, richer in opportunity, and ultimately less unstable. These countries can support progress in our region by elevating the priority of political reform without imposing it. As history shows, foreign involvement inevitably fails when forcefully attempting to impose reform or regime change; but neither should these foreign

From top: Arab and Jewish Counselors giving a presentation at the Middle East Peace Camp Benefit in 2007; Campers singing “Building Bridges between our Divisions” in front of a Mural representing Peace and the Environment; Kay getting Henna art; MEPC Peace Tree Mosaic installed in Kay’s yard.

s an undergraduate at Radcliffe during World War II, Kay Bullitt ’42 had an experience that would shape her life’s work: She took part in a program at the Hampton Institute in Virginia, in which black and white youths worked together on a farm.

Ever since, Bullitt has been a believer in—and a creator of—conflict-resolution programs that focus on children. In the 1960s, she opened a day camp in her Seattle backyard that she hoped would facilitate friendships among black and white students. Ten years ago, Bullitt decided to try that idea again, only this time the camp was aimed at local children of Jewish and Arabic heritage.

Now housed at the University of Washington, the Middle East Peace Camp is a weeklong program for children ages six through twelve. Approximately fifty children attend each summer. Bullitt says some of the first campers are now returning as counselors, and some parents are bringing children even younger than six. “We had one mother come with her babies,” she remembers with a laugh.

Campers spend the week learning about each other’s cultures, as well as meeting with local Jewish and Arab community volunteers and clergy. But Bullitt stresses that they also do “activities you see in any camp,” like painting and calligraphy. “I’m just hoping that friendships develop, and that the parents become friends, too,” she says.

“Anything you can do to bring people together these days is worth doing,” she says.

For more information about Bullitt’s camp, visit middleeastpeacecamp.org.

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— Alison Lobron, former CA English Teacher

Generations of Peace Makers

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Maha Gebara

Maha Gebara

John Lamb

John Lamb

Understanding the “Other”

states step back entirely and wait for the dust to settle. Rather, our international partners should respect organic democratic developments, and engage fledgling democracies in serious dialogue about sustainable and gradual reform based not on confrontation but negotiation that can lead to new political openness and power sharing. These words can be backed with deeds

Rethinking HIS303: Modern Middle East and the Arab Spring

system, behind the scenes, for change. We can learn much from their courage and dedication.

Today, they are fighting peacefully for justice.

And as justice prevails, so will peace.

This article has been adapted from an address to the Skoll World Forum on April 1, 2011.

Photos by Thea Lewis

in the form of humanitarian, rather than military, support.

Above all, we need to apply these three principles of tolerance, equity, and democracy across borders as well as within them to revive the quest for peace in the region. The international community’s support of stability over democracy, pursuing peace separately if at all, has procured none of the three. International sympathy for Arab people’s fight for freedom must therefore also acknowledge the Palestinians’ right to freedom from occupation and to self-determination and independence.

The Middle East and North Africa is a region poised on the brink of epic change.

The actors, significantly, represent all sectors of society—not just the young people armed only with cell phones and computers whom we have heard so much about, but also the brave thinkers, writers, and activists who have for years spoken out at great personal sacrifice for freedom, democracy, and human rights, and even those who have long worked within the

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n the first day of Modern Middle East (MME), I ask students to write the questions that they have about the Middle East on little note cards.

Over the past eight years (and five iterations of the course), the questions have looked remarkably similar. They boil down to some version of the following: 1. Why do people in the Middle East (in particular, Muslims) seem to hate the U.S. and why are some of them willing to blow themselves up over it?

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2. How did the Middle East get to be such a violent mess in the first place and is there a way forward that might result in peace?

3. Why is the U.S. involved anyway?

After the fall of 2001, these were pressing questions for many Americans. The events of 9/11 and the wars that followed led to increased volume and depth of coverage on Middle East events by U.S. news

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outlets. Average Americans became somewhat more aware of events in the Middle East during this period, but not enough to change the questions that students asked.

Then, in December 2010, the selfimmolation of Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi triggered protests that spread throughout the Arab world. Even to casual American observers, it became abundantly clear that there is profound debate within Middle Eastern countries over the internal workings of these nations. Increasingly, we understand that this internal debate is not an aside to the story of the region as a whole, but rather is part and parcel of it.

For students in previous iterations of MME, the realization that these debates not only exist, but matter profoundly, was an “aha!” moment of the class. This understanding had been the main goal of the signature project of the class: the Middle East Summit Meeting.

The idea of the exercise was that students studied a particular country in the Middle East. Then we had a

atalie Russ ’06 remembers the last online “flame war” vividly. It started around January 2009, when the Israeli army invaded the Gaza Strip. Students at Wellesley College, where Russ was a junior, began an online conversation about the events in the Middle East—the tone of which quickly turned venomous. “People were flinging accusations at each other,” says Russ, 24, who now lives in Cambridge. “There was no way for people with different perspectives to relate to each other,” she said.

It was not the first time that conflict in the Middle East had translated into conflict at Wellesley, Russ says. Often, when a Jewish, Arab, or Muslim student group sponsored a film, speaker, or other program that presented

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two-week-long summit meeting at which they portrayed the person their country would send to such an event. (“Well, hello, Mr. Ahmedinejad! How was your trip from Tehran?

You know President Assad of Syria, I expect.” You get the idea.) Through trying to sort out issues like water rights, the Israeli-Arab conflict, and nuclear policy, students came to see how the internal politics of “their” country drove and were affected by international affairs.

The main difference in the course that I am preparing this fall will be that I do not have to spend an enormous amount of time showing students that internal dynamics matter. Because of the Arab Spring, they will come into the class knowing that we cannot have a conversation about what is happening in the Middle East without taking those dynamics into consideration. I am, therefore, making two changes: I am scrapping the Middle East Summit Meeting and refocusing our readings away from historical surveys and toward specific national cases.

by Ann Givens ’91

a particular perspective about the conflict, ugly online arguments broke out, leaving people on all sides of the debate feeling targeted and hurt.

In January 2009, Victor Kazanjian, Dean of Intercultural Education and Religious and Spiritual Life at Wellesley, decided to do something about this situation. He asked four campus groups: Hillel, the Jewish student organization, Wellesley Friends of Israel, Wellesley Arab Women, and Al Muslimat, the campus Muslim group, to select two students each to represent them on a task force that would explore ways to improve campus communication about controversial issues involving the Middle East.

Russ was one of the students selected by Hillel.

Somewhat surprisingly, Russ reports, the group, called the Communications Task Force, never discussed world events or politics.

Instead, they would share meals and conversation about ways that students could communicate better. When a controversial campus

Instead of the Summit Meeting, we will take on a very different kind of experiential project: we will be engaged in reading and blogging about Middle East news with peer schools in Turkey, as well, hopefully, as Egypt and Jordan.

I’ve always tried to have students read the news. Now, to engender conversation among students and connect with students in the Middle East, I’ve prepared a blog (mmef11.blogspot.com) to which students will be assigned to post article summaries and comments each week. This will, I hope, provide a compelling forum for our students to start following current events and to see how interpretations of history play into the way that events unfold. Additionally, because they will read the opinions of their Middle Eastern peers, they will come to see how events are understood by those who have grown up in the region. Because history and interpretations of history play such an important role in current affairs in the Middle East, I anticipate that the more students

event was scheduled, the task force would attend together, sitting side by side as a powerful symbol of their unity. Afterward, they would discuss the program together, then return to their individual groups and try to share the broader perspective they had gained.

Slowly, the online flame wars died out, Russ says. “People knew that the organizations that were previously in silos were now connected, and that what they said had an impact on people they knew and people they cared about,” she says.

After graduating last year, Russ took a communications and development job with the Public Conversations Project, an organization based in Watertown, Massachusetts, that helps individuals and communities address conflicts constructively.

Russ believes that dialogue can be a powerful tool toward making change. “I can’t claim that dialogue will solve all the world’s problems, but it makes huge shifts in relationships,” she says. “It’s an important aspect of the healing process that needs to take place in the Middle East. Maybe not from the top down, but from the ground up.”

learn about the history of the past century, the more sense the current news will make to them and the more readily they will be able to understand and appreciate the opinions of their Middle Eastern peers.

Dropping the Middle East Summit Meeting opens significant time to make other alterations to the syllabus. I have always debated the merits of having students do a survey-type study where they learn a little bit about a variety of countries or do a case-study approach of a few. As I planned this fall’s class, I moved more toward the casestudy approach. It seems to make more sense to delve deeply into the particulars of just a few countries, when students already expect that there is a relationship between those particulars and the larger regional and international stories.

It will also allow a more nuanced, comparative look at the different national responses to imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism. The plan is to start the course at World War I, doing three main case studies on Palestine/Israel, Egypt, and

Afghanistan. Additionally, we will spend a couple of weeks between the first and second cases to read an historical, transnational survey of the development of Islamic fundamentalism.

I am looking forward to this fall’s iteration of the course with renewed excitement. There is a great deal to learn and discuss, and I invite the CA community to check out the blog and join the conversation!

— Kim Frederick, CA History Teacher and Department Head Course reading list: Laqueur, Walter, and Barry M. Rubin, eds. The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict. 7th ed. New York: Penguin Books, 2008.

Milton-Edwards, Beverley. Islamic Fundamentalism Since 1945. London: Routledge, 2005.

Osman, Tarek. Egypt on the Brink: From the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press, 2011.

Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

Schulze, Kirsten E. The Arab-Israeli Conflict.

London: Longman, 1999.

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Dousing the Flames with Dialogue

ALICE IN MARYLAND

by Cole Frank ’11

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s the sun sets, the students are faced with a dilemma. Despite having shot all day, they are behind schedule and still have a daytime scene to shoot. Equipped with film, lights, and colored gels, they must simulate daytime. As they set upon the task of positioning the necessary lights, the students cannot help but wonder how they ended up here, in a nineteenth-century manor, in southern Maryland, turning night into day.

In the winter of 2009, Justin Bull and Richard Colton, respectively heads of the film and dance programs at CA, organized a project in which members of the Filmmaking 2 class worked with members of Dance Company at nearby Bearspot Farm to create music videos. That pairing of dance and film worked well; and when Bull began talking to Colton last spring about another collaboration, he

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“was hoping for a more involved, semesterlong collaboration this time.”

After much deliberation, Colton was able to sell Bull on a preliminary idea that would explore the world of Alice in Wonderland through dance. As Colton put it, “The question and challenge was whether movement alone could, like Ariadne’s thread, lead us coherently through this word-filled world.”

The next step was to find a location for filming. Around this time, Colton happened to be visiting Delabrooke, the Maryland home of Leander McCormick-Goodhart and Stephanie Starr McCormick-Goodhart ’80, parents of CA alumna Emma McCormickGoodhart ’08 and current CA student Anna McCormick-Goodhart ’12. Colton was struck by the beauty of the place. “It seemed the ideal place to film our project, and I asked

Stephanie and Leander if it might be possible,” he says. “They are incredibly generous people and said yes without hesitation.”

Despite its distance from Concord, Colton and Bull were excited by the possibilities that the McCormick-Goodhart residence provided.

As soon as the second semester started in January, Filmmaking 3 and Dance Company began to prepare for the trip to Maryland.

Colton and the Dance Company worked tirelessly on developing and perfecting the Alice in Wonderland–themed routines they would be performing in Maryland. Meanwhile, Bull had decided to split his twelve-person class into two groups. One group, the dance team, would be working exclusively with the Dance Company in order to create a dance-based adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The other team, the narrative team, would be working

two teams engaged in their own dance of sorts, alternating scenes inside and outside of the house, upstairs and downstairs, in an effort to stay out of each other’s way.

While some of Bull’s fears did indeed become reality, the students faced them with resolve and ingenuity. After one of the dance film team’s memory cards was accidentally reformatted following the first day of shooting, causing the loss of a large chunk of footage, they managed to reshoot what they needed and work around what they were missing. Similarly, since the outside talent for the narrative film team, Mr. Amico, could make only one day of shooting, they needed to shoot all his scenes during that day. As that day came to a close, the team realized that they had forgotten to shoot a daytime scene that Mr. Amico’s character was in. Unable to scrap the scene, or to change it to a nighttime scene, the students gathered all of their highpowered film lights, and shot light in from outside the room, thereby successfully simulating sunlight.

Bull, extremely impressed by each student’s commitment to the project, said later, “The crew and cast were immensely dedicated to our projects. Watching the students take on this endeavor — then truly own this endeavor — has become the highlight of my career at CA. It was extremely gratifying to observe my film students act in such a professional manner.” Such talk may sound overly effusive, but in reality the dance and film students’ hard work matched their passion for what they were doing. By working long days (arriving on set by 8:00 a.m and shooting until around 10:00 p.m.), and staying on task, the twenty-four CA students were able to accomplish what they set out to do.

Upon return from Maryland, the teams were faced with the still daunting prospect of finalizing their projects. For the two film crews this meant whittling down a combined twenty hours of footage into two twenty-minute films. Meanwhile, the Dance Company was tasked with learning entirely new choreography, which they would be performing live for their multimedia Alice Underground performance. Despite some unforeseen last-minute snares, both Alice Underground and the narrative film, Wonderland, were completed and shown to delighted and rapt CA audiences.

Both the dance film and narrative film can be viewed online on Concord Academy’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/concordacademyma.

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Photos by David R. Gammons

on creating an Alice in Wonderland-inspired short film. The narrative film required two actors: one a CA student, Keely Hurd ’11, and the other a local Maryland actor named Phil Amico. Both teams would be doing all their shooting during their three days in Maryland.

At first glance, Bull saw the trip to Maryland as “a film instructor’s dream come true,” complete with “a fabulous secured location, a captive cast of dancers, and the intensity of a real production, given our schedule.” As preproduction progressed and the departure date drew closer, however, Bull began to have his doubts: “Those seemingly wonderful attributes became potential nightmares. As we were, in fact, producing two short films in three short days, I came to realize all the potential pitfalls we had created. What of weather? What if our outside talent failed to show? What if we didn’t keep to our schedule?

Reshoots were an impossibility!” Of course, plans had already been made and plane tickets purchased; there was no turning back.

On March 31, Colton and his twelve dance students, Bull and his twelve film students, and costume designer Emily Hough all boarded a bus for Boston’s Logan Airport. From Logan the group flew to Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. Restless from the flight, the Dance Company held an impromptu rehearsal while waiting at the baggage claim. Fellow passengers looked on curiously as the twelve CA dancers nimbly practiced their choreography. The rehearsal was short-lived when, to the onlookers’ dismay, airport security soon arrived to put an end to the performance.

From Dulles, the students took a two-hour bus ride to their Sleep Inn, in California, Maryland. After a short night in the Sleep Inn, the students and their instructors drove the fifteen miles through the aptly named Hollywood, Maryland, to the home of the McCormick-Goodharts. With hot coffee and breakfast, the McCormick-Goodharts welcomed everyone into their gorgeous home on the banks of the Patuxent River.

Once breakfast ended, the students unpacked their gear and started to convert the house’s basement into a makeshift dressing room for the dancers and an equipment staging area for the two film crews. Students streamed in and out of the house at a near-frantic pace that would set the tone for the next three days. The students worked feverishly, stopping only to devour Stephanie McCormick-Goodhart’s delightful home-cooked meals. Though the weather was not entirely cooperative, both teams took full advantage of the house and its surroundings.

Having done their best to coordinate their shooting schedules before arriving in Maryland, the

Class of 2011 graduates (from left): Alex Goldberg, Ethan Magno and Jordan Brooks; Olivia Linville; Alex Walters; Sarah Wilker, Kate Nussenbaum, Alexandra Zeltouni, Oliver Bruce. Below left: Commencement speaker Henry Louis Gates Jr.

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r. Henry Louis Gates Jr. told guests at CA’s eighty-eighth annual commencement in May that he tried out boarding school for a few weeks before homesickness convinced him dorm life wasn’t for him. A few years later he enrolled in law school, but then realized his passions lay else-

where. He moved on from his first job as an English professor when he and his university came to a parting of the ways over interpreting the concept of free speech.

As Gates recounted, each of these departures offered him a chance for reinvention. In retrospect these moments—

Gates Inspires Class of 2011

by Morgan Mead, CA English Teacher Photographs by Tim Morse

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alarming as they were at the time—strike him as key turning points in his personal development.

“We make ourselves. We invent ourselves,” he told the ninety-seven members of CA’s graduating class. “I urge you not only to reinvent yourselves as you need to, but also to fight as you need

Class of 2011 graduates (from left): Emily Hughes, Amy Huang; English Teacher Parkman Howe and Niki Edmonds; Nora Normile, Daniel Cooppersmith, Jordan Beard, Jasper Abu-Jaber; Tiffany Nova. Below left (foreground): Keeley Hurd, Grace Blewer. Below right: Andrew Lavrennikov.

also hosts a PBS series that focuses on using DNA to find one’s roots.

Professor Gates’ comments on the subject of reinvention included a reminder that America, too, constantly reinvents itself. Gates pointed out that despite our history of racism, for instance, we were able to elect a black

man president.

“In electing a president with DNA from Europe and from Africa, and life experiences from Indonesia, Hawaii, Chicago, New York, and Cambridge, we have shown a new and better definition of what ‘a more perfect union’ can mean,” Gates said.

And to the graduates, he offered assurance that temporary failure is nothing to fear. “Pick yourself up and reinvent yourself,” he advised. “Remember that possibility awaits you for another day. For that, ultimately, is what is so special about the promise of America.”

Professor Gates’ appearance at CA was a

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to—to fight the identity thought-police, the ideological bullies, the people who will tell you that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to be.”

Gates, now Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard,

Class of 2011 graduates (from left): Andrew Dempsey; Student head of School Dani Girdwood; Alexis Cheney, Kyra Morris; Head of School Rick Hardy.

Below: The Concord Academy Class of 2011.

return to familiar territory; his daughter Maggie was a member of the Class of 1999. Recalling the pride he felt watching his daughter give her senior chapel talk, Gates said that he had sent her to CA because he wanted her to follow in the footsteps of great women such as the CA graduates he had met at Yale while he was a student there.

“I admire this school enormously,” he said, speaking also as a former trustee,

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“and I am here to testify and bear witness to its excellence.”

As always, the commencement ceremony was held on the Chapel lawn with guests under a large white tent, while the graduates and speakers sat under what was, this year, a clear blue sky. Grinning almost-graduates processed down the Senior Steps to violin duets played by Matt Bliss ’13 and Yong Murray ’13. Per CA tradition, girls wore white and boys

dressed in suits and ties. After greetings from Rick Hardy and Trustee Vice President Amy McCarthy ’89, the seniors stood to sing their class song, “Home,” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

Senior class president Andrew Zarins introduced Professor Gates, speaking of the personal experiences that influenced his career. Zarins told the audience, “Professor Gates’ brilliant career is one shaped by his enduring devotion to his field and

Class of 2011 graduates (from left): Lena Stein; Rachel Gomes-Casseres, Ethan Magno, Sam Smith, Jordan Beard, Elisabeth Beckwitt, Natalia Winkelman; Alexandra Zeitouni and Dani Girdwood; the winner of the sock, Josh Suneby. Below left: Toby Bercu ’11. Below right: Members of the Class of 2011 sing “Home,” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

random order, with suspense building towards the end. Each year, graduates stuff a sock with one-dollar bills and the last student called for his or her diploma takes the sock home. This year’s recipient of the only “prize” awarded at a CA commencement was Josh Suneby of Wellesley, Massachusetts.

Finally, at the program’s end, graduates and guests rose to sing “Concord, Concord” led by its composer, Music

Teacher and Choral Director Keith Daniel, and accompanied by Angela Qu ’12. As families then drifted off for refreshments under tents on the quad, faculty and staff formed a receiving line for one last handshake, hug, and word of farewell to the departing seniors.

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his extensive knowledge of the African American experience stemming from his own growing up in the segregated South. Raised in southern West Virginia in the 1950s— the son of a mill worker and a housekeeper—Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is, today, one of the most revered and respected scholars in the country.”

After Professor Gates’ speech, diplomas were handed out, as always in

PH OTOS B Y TIM M OR S E

Reunion: Back to Class and Basking in Memories

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oncord Academy’s Reunion Weekend (June 10–12, 2011) was friendly and festive with close to three hundred Concord Academy alumnae/i, guests, faculty, and former faculty gathering on campus to celebrate milestone reunions. Despite cool weather and occasional downpours, the atmosphere on campus was welcoming and warm. Spirited discussions were overheard in workshops and at presentations, while former classmates shared enthusiastic greetings and caught up on what was happening with each other and with CA. English teacher and wine enthusiast Parkman Howe and Concord Cheese Shop owner Peter Lovis began the weekend in the Ransome Room for a wine and cheese tasting, with Howe and Lovis sharing their extensive knowledge of the offerings to a standing-room crowd.

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Following the tasting, alumnae/i gathered in the StudentFaculty Dining Hall for a reception and dinner that highlighted music from faculty member Ross Adams with vocalist Julia Hanlon ’10 and pianist Jonathan Fagan ’11.

Hanlon returned the following morning to lead a morning yoga class, as alumnae/i considered the many options for how to spend the day. The first two choices were the internal versus the external: a workshop titled Living Into Your Values led by Tamasin Foote ’71, and a panel on the environment moderated by CA Science Teacher and Recycling Coordinator Gretchen Roorbach.

Joining Roorbach in the South School Great Room were Ben Carmichael ’01, Betsy Nicholson Thielscher ’91, Lisa Hickey ’91, and Erica Levine Powers ’61, whose diverse expertise on environmental matters led to a serious

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discussion of practices such as hydraulic fracturing and the future of human efforts to mitigate global warming.

Meanwhile, in the Josephine A. Tucker Library, Foote’s workshop focused on the individual, giving attendees a framework for identifying their personal values. The contemplative program was a useful exercise in discovery and introspection, as participants set off in pairs to work through the process of how their values aligned with their choices in work and other activities in their lives.

Among the afternoon program offerings was a presentation from Kate Chenery Tweedy ’71, who shared her personal story—the subject of her award-winning book and a recent Disney movie—about her family’s Virginia farm and its famous resident, triple-crown winning racehorse Secretariat. Her engaging and well-researched lecture captivated the audience in the Performing Arts Center, covering the developments which took place on the family farm, some while she was a student at CA. Tweedy stayed after the lecture to sign copies of Secretariat’s Meadow— The Land, the Family, the Legend.

One of the most popular events during Reunion Weekend was in one of CA’s chemistry labs, where Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli ’01 demonstrated his considerable skills in mixology. The room quickly filled to capacity as alumnae/i were greeted at the door with punch, followed by a lecture punctuated with Schlesinger-Guidelli’s dry humor (the tables now turned from student to teacher with attendee Stephen Teichgraeber) and a serious demonstration of the art and science of mixing drinks. The alternatively rapt and boisterous crowd exited the program armed with a better knowledge of the process (ice is a key ingredient) and recipes for three specific cocktails, including one based on a green chameleon.

The traditional highlight of the weekend for many alumnae/i, Saturday night class dinners, began with a cocktail reception in the open atrium space of the Student Health and Athletic Center. Many former faculty members, including Janet Eisendrath, Sylvia Mendenhall, Bill Eddy, Mel Scult, Bill Bailey, Madge Evans, Barbara Nicolson, Nicole Fandel, Christine Campbell, Russ Mead, John O’Connor, and Jean Morrow, mixed in with the crowd to greet former students and colleagues. The squash courts, which bookend the atrium, were transformed into galleries, featuring art in a variety of media from the fiftieth reunion class, as well as works from current CA students.

After posing for their class pictures, reunion attendees from the classes of 1941 through 1961 sat down for dinner in the elegance of the Dance

Studio, while the four youngest classes headed out to the tent on the Quad for a more casual party. The classes of 1966 through 1986 enjoyed time to eat and reminisce in the Student-Faculty dining room with music from Adams on guitar and Fagan on piano. In every location, alumnae/i shared a palpable joy in reconnecting, as well as thoughtful recollections of their shared experiences at CA. Many continued their conversations long after dinner had ended, as they went back to the houses for the night.

As Reunion Weekend began winding down on Sunday morning, jazz music from a trio featuring John Funkhouser ’84 provided a backdrop to a delicious brunch for alumnae/i gathering to say goodbye. One group retreated to the adjacent Trudy Room for a discussion of social media led by Computer Studies Department Head Ben Stumpf ’88 and Associate Director of Electronic Communications Carly Nartowicz. The audience discussed their own trials and successes with various social media tools. They also learned about how CA is educating current students about

responsible use of social media, and about CA’s strategy (CAndid), and different ways to protect online privacy. “It’s always valuable to hear differing perspectives on this significant aspect of students’ experiences,” Nartowicz said. “We want CA students to recognize the value of these technologies, as well as to make them aware of problems and pitfalls that can accompany social media.”

Over the course of the weekend, and in between planned programs, several classes gathered independently to share with their classmates where their lives have gone: some with simple, heartfelt recollections, others with multimedia presentations of their collective stories. For many attendees, this was the highlight of reunion: a chance to connect with the people who had a common experience at Concord Academy, to learn about their diverse experiences after graduation, as well as to share common interests. As Lee Wilson ’76 commented during a poignant moment in the Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, “One of the joys of coming to CA reunions is rediscov-

JOAN SHAW HERMAN AWARD:

Magnificent

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eaders of Henry James will know that the adjective “magnificent” is one he reserves for the most admirable of his characters, admirable not just in its etymological sense of “doer of great deeds” but carrying through on a task of highest moral purpose with extraordinary inner strength and outward serenity. Those of us attending the Joan Shaw Herman Award for Distinguished Service ceremony during Reunion Weekend this past June were fortunate to listen to its newest recipient, Nancy Jaicks Alexander ’51, recount anecdotes from her twenty-five years of truly magnificent volunteer work on behalf of prisoners living with AIDS in the California Medical Facility at Vacaville.

We were held in rapt attention by her stories of individual cases, both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD pioneered the hospice movement in this country beginning in the late 1960’s.

Alexander was a member of KüblerRoss’ international teaching and “Life, Death and Transition” workshops staff from 1982–93. In 1984

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Dr. Ross asked Alexander to provide counseling support to inmates diagnosed with AIDS at Vacaville Penitentiary. Alexander immediately accepted the challenge, undeterred by the pervasive terror and paranoia surrounding the deadly disease and the lack of knowledge about how it was transmitted. Together with her husband, a retired architect, she made the fifty-mile trip weekly to counsel the inmates who faced virtual isolation and certain death after their diagnoses. said, “The patients were treated like lepers by their fellow prisoners.”

Initially she was received with some uncertainty by some of the patients, who wondered what her “game” was, and who felt she might be another “con” artist! They quickly learned to accept her and she them, speaking with complete candor, focusing on what they might achieve in their inner and outer life now, rather than what could not be undone in their past. As she put it, “My goal [was] to seek out and communicate with . . . the goodness in that person. It’s astonishing to talk to

Nancy Jaicks Alexander ’51 (right) with Kate Rea Schmitt ’62, P’88

the ‘lifers’ who have become hospice volunteers. The appreciation of their fellow inmates completely changes their self-perception. They realize they . . . can do good in the world and not all bad.”

In time, putting into action the belief that “no man should die alone in prison,” Alexander was instrumental in cofounding the first prison hospice in the world in 1991, now with seventeen beds and fully accredited with forty inmate volunteers; it is named for her late husband, Robert Evans Alexander, who died in 1992.

When she retired in 2010, she also left as a legacy a prison hospice garden, planned at no cost to the state of California, and currently awaiting

private funding for full installation.

Alexander’s courage and commitment have helped to create, in her own words, “an island of compassion in a sea of violence, fear, and paranoia.” As we departed the Chapel that rainy afternoon, many with eyes brimming, we gratefully realized we had spent over an hour, not only with a spirited Irish raconteur, but with a woman of true “magnificence.”

— Stephen Teichgraeber, CA English teacher emeritus See also: The review of Alexander’s book Just Enough: Collected Writings of an Old Gangster in CA Bookshelf on p.12.

ering these connections long after the fog of hormones and cliques has faded.”

Every June, Concord Academy alumnae/i return to campus to reconnect and reminisce with classmates, and to participate in panel discussions, miniclasses taught by alumnae/i and faculty, the presentation of the Joan Shaw Herman Award for Distinguished Service, and a wide range of other activities. Many alumnae/i take advantage of living in the student houses on Main Street for the weekend. We welcome alumnae/i from all classes to participate, regardless whether this is a milestone year for your class— our variety of programming and recreation opportunities offers something for everyone. Be sure to watch for upcoming announcements for Reunion 2012!

—Karen Culbert, Assistant Director of Alumnae/i Programs See more Reunion Weekend photos at concordalum.org.

Reunion Class Photos

Please visit bit.ly/careunion2011 for more photos from

Class of 1941

Class of 1951

Class of 1956

Class of 1966

Class of 1971

Class of 1976

Class of 1981

Class of 1986

Class of 1991

961 Class of 1

Class of 1996

Class of 2001

Class of 2006

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Reunion 2011!

New Trustees Join CA Board

by Morgan Mead, CA English Teacher

At their meeting in April 2011, the Concord Academy Board of Trustees named three new members to three-year terms and one ex-officio member to a two-year term:

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Peter H. Mattoon p’13 Weston, Massachusetts

Mervan F. Osborne Cambridge, Massachusetts

Neil E. Rasmussen p’10, ’15 Concord, Massachusetts

Katharine “Kate” Rea Schmitt ’62, p’88 Westport, Massachusetts

AS CHAIRMAN and CEO of SCS Financial Services, LLC in Boston,

AS ASSOCIATE HEAD of school

IN 1981 Neil founded the American

AS ALUMNAE/I ASSOCIATION

at Beacon Academy, Mervan brings to CA his passion for and experience with independent schools. Beacon Academy, where Mervan served as director of admissions before accepting his current position, offers Boston area students a fourteen-month program which prepares them for independent and competitive public exam high schools. Beacon offers the only such program in the nation.

Prior to Beacon, Mervan taught English and coached at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge for eleven years. For three of those years, he also served as resident director of A Better Chance House in Winchester, Massachusetts. In 2009 Mervan was appointed to the Massachusetts Humanities Board of Directors by Governor Deval Patrick. He has been an active member of People of Color in Independent Schools since 1996.

A native of London, Mervan grew up primarily in New York City.

He is a graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In addition to his work in schools, Mervan has a passion for filmmaking. He earned an MFA from Boston University and during recent summers he has taught filmmaking at Shady Hill School, the Steppingstone Foundation, and the Creative Arts at Park program.

Power Conversion Corporation (APC) in Billerica, Massachusetts. He sold the company in 2007 but stayed on as chief innovation officer. A recognized expert in both the power electronics and information technology industries, Neil is often called upon to provide keynote addresses at industry conferences in both fields.

Neil earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from MIT. From 1979 to 1981, he worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratories on flywheel energy storage systems and solar electric power systems.

In addition to his scientific and business leadership backgrounds, Neil has significant experience in volunteer work with nonprofits. He and his wife Anna both serve on the advisory board of the Walden Woods Project.

Active volunteers for Concord Academy, they co-chaired the 2009–2010 Senior Parents Gifts Program. Their daughter Autumn joins the CA Class of 2015 this fall and son Anders graduated in 2010.

vice-president and chair of Alumnae/i Giving, Kate Rea Schmitt brings to the board her years as an educator, her expert volunteer skills, and her deep roots as a CA graduate, parent, and former faculty member. A graduate of Wellesley College, Kate taught science at CA from 1979 to 1997 (also serving for a year as the Board of Trustees’ faculty representative.) In 1997, she and her family moved to California.

Kate taught chemistry at the Polytechnic School in Pasadena, while her husband Tom joined the administration of Caltech.

When the family returned to New England, Kate became a CA class agent and served on the Alumnae/i Association’s Nominating Committee. In addition, she chaired the committee that considers nominations for the Joan Shaw Herman Award for Distinguished Service. Kate also convenes regularly with other alumnae from the early sixties, who meet to discuss books and a variety of topics.

In addition to herself and her daughter Jenn ’88, Kate shares her CA affiliation with her cousins Joan Weidlein Mudge ’65 and Lucinda Jewell ’76. When Kate isn’t working for CA during her “retirement” she is busy mentoring middle school science teachers in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She and Tom live now in Westport, Massachusetts.

Peter Mattoon brings to the board his twenty-seven years of experience in the investment business. SCS, of which Mattoon was co-founder, is an asset management firm whose fifty professionals supervise in excess of eight billion dollars for families, private clients, endowments, foundations, and pension plans. Prior to SCS, Mattoon worked for nearly fifteen years at Scudder, Stevens & Clark where he served as managing director.

In addition to his work in the investment world, Mattoon has shared his talents with a variety of nonprofits. He served as chair of the Investment Committee for the Joslin Diabetes Center, and he is a current member of the Teach Green Foundation. Since the fall of 2010, he has sat on CA’s Investment Subcommittee.

A graduate of Bucknell University, Peter lives in Weston, Massachusetts, with his wife Mary Ann and their four children. His daughter Izzy is a junior at CA.

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FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD AND THE HEAD OF SCHOOL

Leadership report of giving

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s the past few economically challenging years have focused us on our priorities, we are thankful that so many of you hold Concord Academy as a priority.

Your gifts to CA express your commitment to the students and teachers who bring their ideas, their creativity, and their friendship to the teaching and learning they do together on campus everyday.

Thank you for your extraordinary generosity.

We are happy to report that together you gave over $6 million in new gifts and pledges and nearly $2 million in pledge payments totaling $8,384,166 million in 2010–11. These commitments, from 2,336 members of the Concord Academy community, support Concord’s mission and ongoing projects, including completing the Arena Farms Project and strengthening our financial aid resources. We especially want to recognize the 92 percent of senior parents who contributed over $1 million to the

Senior Parent Giving Program in 2011.

The Annual Fund reached $2.19 million, with gifts from CA parents exceeding $880,000 and setting a new standard for parents in the future.

Your Annual Fund support puts you right at the center of CA’s learning community, the core from which the people and program grow.

Today’s Concord Academy is vibrant and strong, alive with academic rigor, curiosity, and creativity.

For your confidence in our faculty, students, and programs, and your commitment of financial support, we thank you.

Rick Hardy and John Moriarty

Revenue and Expenses for 2010–11* REVENUE

EXPENSES Financial Aid 17.5%

Annual Fund 12.3% Physical Plant and Food Service 18.6%

Endowment 10.9% Auxiliary Programs .9% Miscellaneous 1.3%

General and Administrative 21.8% Debt Service 3.3%

* Source: Unaudited results; net margin from auxiliary programs included in revenue

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Educational Program 38.8%

Tuition 74.6%

HIS REPORT is a partial listing of donors to Concord Academy in 2010-11; the full Report of Giving will be available on our website in November 2011. By recognizing all of our donors online rather than in print, we hope to preserve resources in a responsible way while paying tribute to the many individuals who generously show their support for our school and its mission.

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Leadership Donors With tremendous gratitude, Concord Academy thanks the following donors who have made leadership gifts or pledges to many of CA’s programs and funds during the 2010–11 fiscal year (July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011).

Jane & Neil Pappalardo gp’12 Erin & Brian Pastuszenski p’10 Carmin Reiss & Eric Green p’07, ’11 Etta & Mark Rosen p’97, ’06 Nina Urban Sawczuk ’80 & Adrian Sawczuk p’11 Carolyn & Eric Stein p’11, ’14 Lucinda & Jonathon Wright p’11

Founders’ Circle ($50,000+) Anonymous (6) Elizabeth Smith Bagby ’40 Elizabeth Ballantine ’66, Trustee Bruce Beal ’88 Jean & Henry Becton, Jr. p’96, ’02 Barbara Hughey & Robert Beckwitt p’11 Marcie & Forrest Berkley p’12 Lisa & Thomas Blumenthal p’11 Ann & George Colony p’13 Joanne Casper & Wendell Colson p’11 Keith Gelb ’88 Ann Gund, Trustee & Graham Gund p’08 Robert Harman § Vicky Huber ’75 & Tony Brooke, Trustee p’07, ’09, ’13 Althea Kaemmer, Trustee & J. David Kaemmer p’09, ’12 Nancy Traversy & Martin Lueck p’11, ’13 Richard Lumpkin Amelia Lloyd McCarthy ’89, Trustee Kim Williams, Trustee & Trevor Miller p’08, ’14 Mary-Dixon Sayre Miller ’40, p’67 § Carol & John Moriarty, Trustee p’02, ’05, ’07 Karen & Jeffrey Packman p’14 Leila & Kevin Parke p’12 Anna Winter Rasmussen & Neil Rasmussen p’10 John S. and Cynthia L. Reed Foundation Fay Lampert Shutzer ’65, Trustee Susan & Richard Walters p’11 Jane & James Wilson p’11

Chapel Circle ($25,000–49,999)

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Anonymous (2) The Aloian Family Robert Biggar ’87 Charlene & Jeffrey Briggs ’80, p’12, ’13 Molly Eberle & Jeffrey Eberle, Trustee p’99, ’04 Athena & George Edmonds p’11 Lucinda Jewell ’76 Jennifer Johnson ’59, gp’04, ’08 Rosemarie & Steve Johnson p’13 Wendy & Steven Langman p’08 Sandra & Carl Lehner p’08, ’11 Mary Malhotra ’78 & Vikram Malhotra p’10 Lucy-Ann McFadden ’70 Jill Conway Mehl ’85 & Marc Mehl Betty & Stephen Newton p’11

Faculty Recognition Circle ($10,000–24,999) Anonymous (1) Kathleen Fisk Ames ’65, Life Trustee & Charles Ames p’95 Steven Bercu p’10, ’11 Victoria Blewer & Chris Bohjalian p’11 Victoria Urban Broer ’78 Frances Brown, Trustee p’04, ’14 Elizabeth Mallinckrodt Bryden ’64 Jinah Son & Jae Yong Cho p’12 Amy Cammann Cholnoky ’73, Trustee Juliette Wang Coombs ’82 Alice Smith Cornish ’40 § Joseph S. Deitch p’05 Matthew F. Deitch ’05 Theresa & Charles Delaney p’13 Stephen Erhart ’79 Bertha Rivera & David Fubini p’09 Jen Chi Chang & Ching-Tai Huang p’11 Tracey & Jonathan Hurd p’09, ’11 Ann & John Jacobs p’12 Soon Hee Lee & Sang Bong Kim p’11 Joan & Enis Konuk p’12 Lori & Eric Lander p’06, ’09, ’13 Theresa & John Levinson p’12 Joyce Linde gp’14 Elizabeth Mallon ’87 Mary Ann & Peter Mattoon p’13 Alison & Bob Murchison p’12 Judith Bourne Newbold ’55 Lorri & Gordon Owades p’10 Moon Kyoung Sim & Changseo Park p’14 Amy & Jonathan Poorvu p’14 Chris & Michael Smith p’11 Martha Taft ’65 Kate & Ben Taylor p’09 Rose & David Thorne p’07 Sally Trafton ’70 § Andrea Sussman & Andrew Troop p’09, ’13 Catherine & Chris Welles p’14 Linden Havemeyer Wise ’70, Life Trustee

Main Gate Circle ($5,000-9,999) Anonymous (4) Barbara & Robert Allio p’82 Glendy Chiu & Chi Yan Au p’13 Kathy Knight & Paul Barth, Trustee p’06, ’10 Mary Shaw Beard ’50 Patricia & David Benson p’11

Lisa Black Franks ’81 & Russell Franks p’12 Ellen Bloedel ’71 Linda Mason & Roger Brown p’07, ’14 Janesse & Richard Bruce p’06, ’11 Jennifer Burleigh ’85 Elizabeth Awalt & John Conley p’10 Carolyn Smith Davies ’55 Betsy Doughty Debevoise ’30 § Lori Colella Deninger & Paul Deninger p’13 Gabrielle & David Dockterman p’09 Eliza Howe Earle ’67 Joan Bell & Max Follettie p’11 Patricia & Carl Geyer p’12 Timothy Gollin ’77 Barbara Cockrill & Christopher Gootkind p’13 Ursula & Jason Gregg p’04, ’08 Jean McClung Halloran ’71 Adele Gagne & Richard Hardy Evan Harris ’87 Mary Leigh Morse Houston ’47, p’74 Gale Hurd ’61 Anne & James Hutchinson p’13 Sandra Willett Jackson ’61, Trustee Jonathan Katzman ’91 Sallie Cross Kingham ’61 In Woo Nam & Bong Taek Kong p’10, ’12 Lorna Borenstein & David Lawee p’13 Joan Corbin Lawson ’49, p’80 Lenore & Elliot Lobel p’04, ’07 Babette & Peter Loring p’96, ’98, ’01

Betsy Smith Bagby ’40

“I

entered Concord Academy in 1935 as a freshman and have memories of Mrs. Cole the English teacher taking us to Europe, visiting cities in France, Holland, and Germany. I was lucky that my parents let my sister (Alice Smith Cornish ’40) and me travel with Mrs. Cole and other students to the Summer Olympics in Germany in 1936. We watched the opening ceremonies as other countries marched in and gave the Nazi salute, while the Americans tipped their hats.

“In addition to travel, Concord Academy supported my interest in opera, which was beginning to develop when I was a student.

I spent Saturday afternoons listen-

Stephanie Starr McCormick-Goodhart ’80 & Leander McCormick-Goodhart p’08, ’12 Karen Manor Metzold & Thomas Metzold p’11 Eleanor Bingham Miller ’64 Susan & Thomas Miller p’08, ’12 Dore Hammond Normile & James Normile p’09, ’11 Susan Packard Orr ’64 Jill & Thomas Pappas p’10, ’13 Cynthia Phelps ’64 Edith Cowles Poor ’39, p’67 § Katrina Pugh ’83, Trustee Sarah Wheatland Richards ’43 § Linda & Marc Robidas p’12 Susan & Stephen Ruscak p’11 Denise Rueppel Santomero ’77 Susan & Kurt Schwartz p’12 Philip Schwartz ’80 Jonathan Shapiro ’87 Thomas Shapiro p’04, ’07, ’13 Catherine Smith ’71 Diana Dennison Smith ’64 Jorge Solares-Parkhurst ’94, Trustee Elsie Hull & James Sprague p’14 Anne Adler Tarbell ’77 Rebecca Trafton ’71 Susan Page Trotman ’61 Margaret Peters Urquhart ’41 Janet & John Winkelman p’11, ’13 Linarty Halim & Sigit Wiryadi p’12 Elizabeth Lund Zahniser ’71

ing to wonderful broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera. Carey Tatro — later Mrs. Prouty — was our music teacher and every year we performed a different Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. One year I played the Duchess in The Gondoliers.

“After Concord Academy I studied and worked at Finch College in New York City, where I majored in business training, but continued to develop my interest in music by taking many music classes and performing with the chorus.

“My love has always been music, and when I was choosing where to make a legacy gift I decided to support Concord Academy, one of my favorite places where I had wonderful experiences, and where my love of music was fostered. With help from my son, my lawyer, and Carol Sacknoff at CA, I have set up an endowment fund to support the work of the music department.”

Concord Academy is grateful to Betsy Bagby and others who have chosen to support CA through planned giving. For information about making a planned gift, please contact Brendan Shepard at (978) 402-2258.

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this report. If you find an error, we apologize and ask that you call the Advancement Office with corrections at (978) 402-2240.

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Anonymous (4) Susan & Tariq Abu-Jaber p’11 Augustina Admadjaja ’88 Sunredi Admadjaja ’90 Nancy Jaicks Alexander ’51 Debra Dellanina-Alvarez & Juan Alvarez p’10, ’14 Rosemary Grande & Alphonse Antonitis p’13 Dorothy & David Arnold p’63, ’65 Dorothy Arnold ’63 Arijit Bose & Nazneen Aziz p’06, ’10 HaeYoung Park & SeungHwan Baeck p’13 Dana Zadorozny & James Baldwin p’12 Daphne LeFeaver Ball ’76 Myung Mi Nam & Choon Ho Bang p’11 Holladay Rust Bank ’72 Elizabeth Barringer ’70 Maud Palmer Barton ’52 Susan Bastress ’70 Margaret Sullivan & Preston Bates p’14 Linda J. L. Becker p’89, ’91 Brooks Beisch ’83 Caroline Minot Bell ’73 Kimberly Balfour-Bennett & Hugh Bennett p’11 Patricia Wolcott Berger ’47 Susan & Walter Birge III p’88 Sarah & Edward Black p’14 Peter Blacklow ’87 Elizabeth Boardman ’59 Elizabeth Fenollosa Boege ’61 Charlotte Bordeaux p’80 Susan Paris Borden ’65 & Robert Borden gp’00, ’05 Lucy Boyle ’66 Elizabeth Brown ’70 & Nick Bothfeld p’08 Claudia Burke ’91 Elizabeth Cabot ’79 Margaret & Andrew Cachel p’12 Emma & Gary Campbell p’13 Jennifer Caskey ’67 Elizabeth & A. James Casner p’11 Sarah & Evans Cheeseman, Jr. p’97 Yung-Yul Choi ’01 Irene Chu ’76 Eun Ju & Jae Sub Chung p’12 Natalie Churchill ’60 Elizabeth Cobbs ’71 David Coffin p’69 Charles Collier ’85

Top 3 reunion classes Class of 1961: 86 percent Class of 1941: 83 percent Class of 2001: 55 percent Giving totals from classes celebrating milestone reunions continues to be strong, thanks to class agents and many volunteers who served on their class reunion committees. Congratulations to the classes of 1961 and 2001, which both set participation records for their 50th and 10th reunions.

Ann & Marvin Collier p’77, ’79, ’85 Rebecca Wade Comstock ’82 Rachel & CJ Coppersmith p’08, ’11 Jennifer Krier & Rob Cosinuke p’12 Nancy Colt Couch ’50 & Nathan Couch p’75 Judy Bentinck-Smith Covin ’60 Caroline Lee Crocker ’66 & John Crocker p’03 Katharine Daugherty ’85 Jane DeBevoise ’72 Betsy & Peter Dempsey p’11 William Dewey ’84 Alexander Dichter ’85 Sallie & Nathaniel Dodge p’14 Anne Nordblom Dodge ’68 Hebe Smythe Doneski ’85 Deborah Metcalf Dresser ’61 Amy Dunbar ’74 Laura & Carl Eberth p’13 Lisa Eckstein ’93 Edith Wilkie Edwards ’64 Gay Ellis ’66 & Robert Brown p’87 Elizabeth Mugar Eveillard ’65 Lucy Rand Everts ’41 Phyllis Rothschild Farley ’42 David Feldman ’84 Debra Fine ’77 Michael Firestone ’01 Thomas First ’85 Dean Forbes ’83 Graceann & Fred Foulkes p’13 Patricia & Daniel Frank p’08, ’11 Marion Freeman ’69, Life Trustee & Corson Ellis

Chris Mines P’14 and son

Chris Mines and Lisa Fitzgibbons P’14

“W

e love CA. We are thrilled with the individual attention our son Alex receives from his teachers, advisor, and the school administrators who all know and appreciate him.

He has thrived over the past year in the stimulating and closeknit CA community, which has enriched Alex’s life in many ways.

Excellent teaching has honed his academic skills and sharpened his critical inquiry, and his challenging coursework has deepened his knowledge of biology, history, math, and literature. Alex has delighted in modeling clay in

Pam Nelson & Peter Fritschel p’14 Lisa Frusztajer ’80, Trustee & Larry Tye p’10 Nina Frusztajer ’82 Lisa & Gary Garmon p’95, ’00 Kathryn Devereaux Geitz & Robert Geitz p’07 Abigail Gillespie ’71 Nancy Gillespie ’75 Alison Gilligan ’79 Susan MacDonald & Doug Girdwood p’11 Julie Faber & John Goldberg p’11, ’14 David Goldberg ’88 Stephanie Solakian Goldstein ’91 Elizabeth Alley Graham ’80

Senior Parent Gift

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ochairs of the 2011 Senior Parent Giving Program were Carolyn and Eric Stein, parents of Lena Stein ’11 and Audrey Stein ’14, and Susan and Rick Walters, parents of Alex Walters ’11. Here, they present the 2011 Senior Parent Gift to Head of School Rick Hardy (middle).The $1 million gift represents 92 percent participation of senior parents, as well as many grandparents, a testament to the inclusiveness and stellar follow-through of the Senior Parent Giving Program Committee.

The Senior Parent Gift tradition provides a legacy gift, usually dedicated to a special project, from parents of graduating seniors. This year’s Senior Parent

Gift supports the development of CA’s new Athletic Campus at the former Arena Farms property—phase one of the school’s overall master plan.

ceramics, and exploring character and emotional expression in theater. He has relished the camaraderie of competing for his school in team sports. In the course of navigating a school environment that is larger and more complex than his previous school, he has made many new friends and developed strong ties to his advisor and teachers.

“We believe in supporting CA in multiple ways, including volunteering with CA Parents on events like the Benefit for Financial Aid. The community of CA is strengthened when students, teachers, parents, and alumnae/i are productively involved in the school.

“We support CA’s Annual Fund because an excellent education is one of the greatest gifts that we can give to our children. Tuition covers only 75 percent of a Concord Academy education, with the remainder coming from philanthropic giving. We are grateful to all the other donors who participate in the Annual Fund, and encourage others who appreciate everything that CA has to offer to join us in our support.”

Kathleen & John Green, Jr. p’91 Elizabeth Green ’91 Paula Greenman Denise & Eric Haartz p’14 Laila Haddad ’81 & John McGee p’12 Catherine & Mark Haigney p’13 Susan Hall Mygatt, Trustee, p’99, ’01 Meredith Rollins Hamer ’52 & Myron Hamer p’85 Clare Warburton & Michael Hamer p’12 Wendy Hamilton p’00 Ellen Smith Harde ’62 & Dudley Harde p’86 Julie & Jeffrey Harrison p’10, ’12 Alexandra Harvey ’76 Margaret Lewis Herbert ’56 Joy Peterson Heyrman ’77 Christine Griffith Heyworth ’61 Katherine Motley Hinckley ’61 Helen Hobbs ’70 Kerry & Paul Hoffman p’14 Lexi & Benjamin Hoffman p’14 Andrew Hoppin ’89 Lee Ann Barto & William Hubbard p’12 Sarah Faulkner Hugenberger ’94 Nancy Papoulias Hughes & Thomas Hughes p’11, ’13 Pon & Daniel Hunter p’14 Debra Gardner-Hussey & Philip Hussey p’13 Tilia Klebenov Jacobs ’83 Brooke & David James p’03, ’06, ’12 J. Brown Johnson ’70 Kathleen & Vidar Jorgensen p’97, ’99, ’02 Qunying Gu & Wei Ju p’14

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1922 Circle ($1,000-4,999)

Jennifer Keller ’86 Rebecca Kellogg ’71 & Kevin Dennis p’03, ’08 Kathleen Kelly Dona & Michael Kemp p’94, ’97 Eun-Won Cho & Doo-Hyun Kim p’11 Sora Noh & Sanghun Kim p’10 William Klebenov ’87 Jamie Klickstein ’86 Jean Dunbar Knapp ’77 Stephen Kramarsky ’85 Sarah-Ann & Werner Kramarsky p’79, ’85 Charlotte Quesada Krugh ’95 Lydie & Richard Labaudiniere p’11 Supawan Lamsam ’73 Ellen Condliffe Lagemann ’63 Deirdre Lavieri ’76 Anne Lawson ’80 Ilana Manolson & David Lax p’11 Yunhee Lee & Byeong Cheol p’12 Olivia Swaim LeFeaver ’41, p’76 Barbara & Thomas Leggat p’84, ’85, ’91 Ann & George Levinger gp’11 Jonathan Lewin ’93 Xian Wen & Youhua Li p’13 James Lichoulas ’91 Myung Su Yoo & Heung Sig Lim p’13 Han-Ting Lin & Ju-Wen p’12 Marian Lindberg ’72, p’14 Lucia Woods Lindley ’55 Helen Whiting Livingston ’41, p’78 Janet Lovejoy ’50 Muriel & Nils Luderowski p’06, ’09 Kim & Stephen Maire p’06 Anne Mancini ’01 Noel Farnsworth Mann ’56 Margaret Sullivan & Muzammil Mansuri p’11 Karen McAlmon ’75 Elspeth & Fergus McCann p’14 Alida Rockefeller Messinger ’67 Cheryl & Stuart Meyerson p’12 David Michaelis ’75 Lisa Fitzgibbons & Christopher Mines p’14 Margaret McKenna & Steven Mirin p’06, ’11 Tiffany Mok ’04 Deborah Greenman & Humphrey Morris p’06, ’11 Caren Ponty & Ira Moskowitz p’11, ’14 Melissa Moye ’76 Wanfang & Russ Murray p’06, ’13 Pamela & Paul Ness Deborah Golodetz New ’84 & Jonathan New p’11, ’14 Jennifer Newbold ’78 Mary & David Newbury p’98

Current Parent Giving With the leadership of Parent Annual Fund Chair, Kevin Parke P’12 and twelve current parent annual fund volunteers, CA parents raised an impressive $882,073 with an all-time high of 90 percent participation. The participation record is an impressive reflection of the dedication and support of parents to CA’s mission.

Samuel Newbury Priscilla & William Newbury Nancy Newbury-Andresen ’57 Edward Nicolson ’83 Elizabeth Haight O’Connell ’72 Marion Odence-Ford ’82 & Ray Ford Jennifer Pline & Hans Oettgen p’13 Julie Packard ’70 Derrick Pang ’93 Sally Dabney Parker ’55 Evgenia Peretz ’87 Gretchen Pfuetze p’91, ’94 Richard Phelps gp’12 Eileen Mullen & Douglas Phillips p’11 Pamela Valentine & William Philps p’11 Camilla Campbell & Oliver Platt p’12 Lisa Botticelli & Raymond Pohl p’08, ’14 Mary Poole ’59 Lia & William Poorvu gp’14 Ann Wilson Porteus ’59 Henriette Lazaridis Power ’78 Erica Levine Powers ’61 Wendy Powers ’74 Laura Powers-Swiggett ’75 Sally du Pont Quinn ’71 Kimberly & Peter Radochia p’11 Margaret Ramsey & John McCluskey p’09 Rosamond Smith Rea ’71 Virginia Redpath ’65 Robin & Howard Reisman p’05 Robert Rifkin ’86 Jie & Emmanuel Roche p’14 Mollie Miller & Robert Rodat p’10 Anne Higinbotham Rosenberg ’61 Margaret & David Rost p’13 Deborah & Channing Russell p’90, ’94, ’04 Kristin Russell ’90 Charlotte & Karim Sahyoun p’12 Susan Cunio Salem & James Salem p’14 Penelope Saltzman ’76

Senior Steps Circle C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y M A G A Z I N E F A L L 2 0 11

For young alumnae/i (1996 – 2010), the Senior Steps Circle was established to distinguish emerging leadership donors to the school.

Anonymous (2) Alexander Berlin ’01 Yung-Yul Choi ’01 Abigail Cohen ’01 Alexis Deane ’03 Nicholas Deane ’01 Matthew Deitch ’05 Elizabeth Down ’01 Michael Firestone ’01

42

Matthew Goldenberg ’08 Corey Hoffstein ’05 Rebecca Imrich ’10 Sarah Bertozzi Kessler ’02 Yeu Jung Kong ’10 Stephen Lloyd ’01 Anne Mancini ’01 Laura McConaghy ’01 Benjamin Miller ’08

Tiffany Mok ’04 Jeremy Owades ’10 Mary Soule Ricci ’05 Matthew Ricci ’02 Charles Smith ’03 Joia Spooner-Wyman ’96 Kelsey Stratton ’99, Trustee Laura Twichell ’01

Derrick Yat Bond Pang ’93

“A

s a foreign student, I was given a second home at CA. Initially, I was a student who spoke broken English and who did not fit into the American culture and system. Arriving from Hong Kong, where students are spoon-fed with knowledge but aren’t required to process and think critically, I was a timid and respectful boy who was afraid to ask questions in class.

“I still remember the encouragement and soft tone of Miss Mendenhall, who gave me multiple opportunities to rewrite my English papers and, after each hardworked rewrite, I was able to earn a better grade. No one questioned whether this was fair or not, since the

Susan Pickman Sargent ’64 Barbara & Stephen Sarno p’11 Katharine Rea Schmitt ’62 & Thomas Schmitt p’88 Jeffrey Schneider ’91 Judith & John Sexton p’99 Lee Shane ’85 Nancy Megowen Shane ’51, p’85 Lindsay Davidson Shea ’67 Anne Sherman ’39 Haeyoung Kim & Dong-Joon Shin p’14 Theresa Huang & Jacky Shum p’14 Lauren Bruck Simon ’85 Rebecca Buxbaum Simons ’87 Ying-Yee Chan Sin & Chung-Kai p’09, ’13 Benjamin Sloss ’87 Sally Sanford & Lowell Smith, Trustee, p’05, ’08 Karen Sollins p’93 Linda & Sarkis Soukiasian p’13 Nancy Soulette ’63 Inge & John Stafford gp’11, ’14 J. Cullen Stanley ’80 Enid Starr p’78, ’81, gp’08, ’12 Sherman Starr p’78, ’81, gp’08, ’12 Monica Wulff Steinert ’57 & Alan Steinert gp’10, ’13 Sarah Cosgrove Stoker ’89 Christy & Charlie Stolper p’07 Marie & Dan Strelow p’13 Nancy & Charles Styron p’13 Mary Rowland Swedlund ’63 Robert Sweeny p’12 Sharon Swindell ’78 Ann Syring ’64

objective of the teachers was to help students to improve. And qualities of CA faculty members go beyond what was being done, but how they truly care about the wellbeing of the students. I regard CA as the place where I grew up.

“My four years at CA not only prepared me for my subsequent study at UC Berkeley and MIT, but also gave me the fundamental building blocks to manage one of the largest construction companies in Hong Kong. I think critically and challenge conventional thinking.

At the same time, I dedicate a lot of my time to help young individuals understand themselves and give them opportunities to make mistakes and learn.

“I had always wanted to give to CA, and am sure many alumnae/i do as well. Seeing Head of School Rick Hardy in Hong Kong last fall reminded me of the spirit of those who taught me at CA. I believe many current and future CA students and faculty members will benefit from his leadership and his passion for CA. I will not forget when it comes to giving back to the school that helped to transform me.”

Marta & Geoffrey Taylor p’13 Cammy Thomas & Tony Siesfeld p’08 Elizabeth Thomas ’60 Evelyn McKinstry Thorne ’44 Sally Crimmins Thorne ’66 Ethan Thurow ’94 Joanne Dodd Tolley ’41 Carol Kazmer & Barry Trimmer p’13 Sharon & Carl Turissini p’12 Laura Turner p’07, ’10 Andrea& Glen Urban p’86, ’89 Melissa Vail ’70 Edith Van Slyck ’57 Girija & Sanjeev Verma p’13 Mary Wadleigh ’64, p’97 Jane Waldfogel ’72 Sidney Walker p’63, ’65, gp’97 Kathleen J. O’Hara & Malcolm M. Walsh p’10 Stuart Warner ’77 Priscilla Cohen & Anthony Weiner p’11, ’13 Anne & Douglas Weiskopf p’14 Debra Shapiro & Lisa Weissmann p’10 Victoria Wesson ’61 E. Whitney Ransome & Thomas Wilcox p’01 Vicki Rosen & James Wilker p’11 Susan Lapides & Peter Wilson p’12 Lucy Winton ’74 Susan & William Wood p’08, ’11 Lucia Norton Woodruff ’61 Lih-Ling Lin & Zong-Yeng Wu p’11 Ruth Einstein & Rick Yeiser p’06 He Ying & Zheng Chang Yong p’14 Jody & Royce Yudkoff p’14 Sandra Yusen ’86

ATH LETIC S The girls lacrosse team welcomed a new coach, Nikki Yesalavage, this season. Showing great competitive spirit throughout the season, the team earned victories over Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall School and Bancroft School, while steadily improving their level of play. Senior Natalia Winkelman was named to the EIL All-League team.

The baseball team finished strong winning three out of their

four final games this very rainy spring season, including great victories over Bancroft School and Lexington Christian Academy.

Losing just one player, albeit a great one in Alex Fernandez ’11, the baseball team will be one to watch in the spring of 2012.

Ultimate Frisbee continued to be one of the most spirited spring teams. They bounded to South Meadow each day for practice and brought home solid wins in all but one match-up this season.

Both the A and the B teams had great tournament experiences.

The sailing team continued to travel into Boston each day for practice on the Charles River, despite the many rainy days this spring! They ended their season with an exciting victory over EIL foe Pingree School.

In its fourth year, the CA club track team brought a small, but hardy, group of representatives to each meet. Four students — Katie Krupp ’12, Arthur Whitehead ’13, Adam Pfander ’12, and Charlie Colony ’13 — represented CA for

the first time at the New England Prep School Track Meet (NEPSTA), and each performed well.

Arthur earned a fourth-place finish in the 800-meter event. He set a school record and ran his personal-best time in this event.

Katie had an outstanding performance in the triple jump, finishing first in New England, which earned her All-New England honors, another first for CA in track and field!

After a year of club level-play, the boys lacrosse team returned 43

C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G F A L L 2 0 1 1

Photos by Jon Chase

SPRING HIGHLIGHTS

AT H L E T I C S C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y M A G A Z I N E F A L L 2 0 11

to varsity competition this spring, inspired by the dedication and commitment of eleven seniors.

The team fought hard in each game they played, ending with their best record in five years.

Individually and as a group, the team showed perseverance, passion, and commitment this season, and in so doing, lifted their program to new heights. Senior Bobby Philps was named Senior New England Prep School All-Star for his efforts this season.

Both the boys and girls tennis programs had outstanding 44

records this season despite many rained-out practices. The girls team finished an outstanding 7–2 in the league, including a win against Dana Hall School for the first time in Coach Eric Meyer’s tenure! The girls played as a team, each player moving up and down the ladder as needed. Junior Carly Meyerson earned the tremendous distinction of being named the EIL MVP this season.

Sophomore Charlotte Weiner also earned All-League honors. The boys tennis team had an impressive record of 7–1 for the season.

They finished second in the EIL. The team earned an incredible 30–10 record in individual matchups this season. Younger teammates will miss the hard work and leadership of their senior members, who leave behind a tradition of excellence. Josh Suneby ’11, Dan Weiner ’11, and Creighton Foulkes ’13 each earned EIL All-League honors for their play this season.

A LUM NA E/ I COR NER Joanna Douglas ’10, who just completed her freshman year at Green Mountain College, was the Northern Athletic Conference (NAC) Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, and on the NAC East Team in women’s lacrosse.

Concord Academy was well represented at the 2011 USAU D1 College Championships for Ultimate Frisbee in Boulder, Colorado this spring. Ben Sullender ’07 and Will Herold ’09 both played

Photos by Jon Chase

Left: I am on the far left (in bow). This is the US Olympic Women’s quadruple scull for the 1980 games. Taken at the US Olympic Team Training camp in Princeton, NJ, 1980.

Right: My daughter, Lauren and me, preparing to row our double in the Mystic Seaport Regatta, Mystic, CT, 2008.

N

for Carleton College, while Fannie Watkinson ’08 represented Stanford University (pictured above).

— Jenny Brennan, Director of Athletics

ANCY PARSSINEN VESPOLI ’73 first

picked up an oar to row crew as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, and since then the current of this rigorous sport, like the rivers upon which it is often played, has taken her all over the world.

A lifelong athlete, Vespoli played field hockey, basketball, and softball at Concord Academy, before joining Dartmouth’s then recently minted womens crew program. Like many newcomers to the sport, Vespoli discovered crew by wandering off the beaten path of traditionally mainstream school sports, and like many of crew’s devotees, she plunged headfirst into rowing and never looked back.

In 1978 Vespoli won the championship single at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston.

The most rewarding experience of Vespoli’s early rowing career came in 1980 when she made the 1980 Olympic rowing team. Although members of the team trained arduously for several years, including eleven sessions per week of rowing and weight lifting, they did not ultimately compete in the event. The escalating Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union caused President Carter to order a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Despite her optimism that the team might still get to row, Vespoli and her teammates were forced to watch the events from dry land. “You are at that level for a brief time of your life, and it goes by fast,” Vespoli says. “The Olympics almost happened [for me], but didn’t.” The spirit of Vespoli’s Olympic experience lives on, however; each year she rows the Head of

the Charles with several of her 1980 Olympic teammates.

Vespoli has remained active in crew throughout her life. Her husband, former Olympic rower and coach Mike Vespoli, started Vespoli USA, a New Haven–based company that builds competitive crew shells for high schools, colleges, and other rowing organizations all over the world. Vespoli has worked in the company’s engineering and marketing departments, using a passion for photography that she first developed at Concord Academy to create action shots for company brochures.

Today, Vespoli coaches boys crew at Guilford High School in Connecticut. Recognizing that crew is an extremely physically demanding and time-consuming sport, Vespoli aims to instill in her young rowers a love for a sport that they can carry with them not just to college, but throughout their lives. “Rowing is one of the truest forms of team sport,” Vespoli says.

“Rowing crew teaches endurance, pushing athletes beyond what they think they can do.”

In addition to coaching at Guilford, Vespoli has helped create the Vespoli Family Crew Scholarship at Georgetown University, a needsbased scholarship given to one university crew athlete each year.

“Crew has been a way of life for me, as well as a living,” Vespoli says. Whether she’s racing on the Charles River, coaching the Guilford boys’ team on Lake Quonnipaug, or traveling the world beyond with Vespoli, USA, one thing is certain: Vespoli never missed the boat.

— Adam Matson, freelance writer 45

C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G F A L L 2 0 1 1

Crew Member for Life

ARTS Facing forward: Claire Wright ’11; facing away: James Wyrwicz ’12, performing in the Squash Courts in FLUX Inset: The audience joins the Theatre 3 Company in a dance to the Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” at the finale of FLUX

Q&A

Justin Samaha ’94

Musician, Machinima Maker, and EMT

11 C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y M A G A Z I N E FA L L 2 0 1 1

by Chris Rowe, CA Arts Teacher

JUSTIN SAMAHA ’94 is a freelance composer for television, film, and the Web. He has scored music for award-winning documentary films on the Haiti earthquake, the BP oil spill, and the Madoff Ponzi scheme for the PBS show Frontline, as well as composed the soundtrack for MMOvie, a breakthrough machinima project. When not writing music, he is a volunteer EMT with New York’s Central Park Medical Unit. He has also been known to play electric guitar live with freestyle-dressage-rider Jane Karol and a big horse named Nibbit. Justin lives in Manhattan with his wife Eliza Miller ’94 and their three children, Eve, Dorothea, and Leo. Justin corresponded with CA magazine by email.

46

I think most CA magazine readers are familiar with the Frontline PBS series, but what exactly are dressage and machinima and how did you become involved in each?

Freestyle dressage is an equestrian discipline in which the horse and rider perform complex, dancelike maneuvers to music. Until now this meant prerecorded music, but Jane Karol, an accomplished rider, and I perform live together. I play electric guitar on wireless in the arena, while she and her horse perform their choreography around me. It’s exhilarating and lots of fun, and has shocked the conservative dressage world! We met while I was working at Summer Stages Dance at CA, and her daughter was a dancer in my wife’s dance class.

She had had this idea of live performance for a while, and was looking for someone to collaborate with. I’m now branching out into producing prerecorded music for other riders.

Machinima is the technique of creating video by playing a computer video game and capturing what occurs on-screen. Machinima creators play the game according to a script they’ve written, edit the “screen capture” like a film, and then add voices and sound effects. It’s fan-oriented stuff, usually a tribute to or spoof of a game. I was part of a team that tried to raise machinima from an amateur- to a Hollywood-level of production. Everyone on the team works professionally in film and TV: editor, director, writers, producer, and I. It was a dream job

Left: Gabe Folettie ’11 and Ellie New ’14 face off in Les Justes (with Pauly Daniel ’12 hanging at rear) Below: David Lander ’13 (foreground) with Abby Cosinuke ’12 and Jaspar Abu-Jabar ’11 and the ensemble of Exit the King

Right: Ethan Magno ’11 rehearses with the piano quartet.

Your compositions tend to be scores for films, TV, or the Web. Is there a reason for that?

I find images and music to be so powerful together.

I love the craft of evoking emotions with music, and supporting visuals and story. My earliest, most vivid memories include dramatic film and TV moments with music, and I am still drawn to powerful, epic imagery in music, books, movies . . . in anything and everything.

At what point in the Frontline projects do you get involved, and what material is available for you to build your score around?

I begin work about six weeks out from broadcast.

The editor sends me a rough cut of the film as a QuickTime movie, with temporary music in place that indicates where and what kind of music they want. The temp music is either my own music from past films, or other preexisting music. After screening it, the editor, producers, and I talk about the

emotional themes of the film, and our musical ideas.

Then I start writing, and the film goes through several major changes as they hone in on a final cut.

I continually write, revise, toss out, and rewrite during those final weeks to keep pace with their changes until about one week before broadcast.

Thanks to digital technology, the producers know that editors and composers can make major changes up to the last second, and that’s both good and bad. The film remains “plastic” for far longer than it could have just a few years ago, which means more time to get the last details right, but also more time to second-guess and lose perspective. With the technology available today, it’s possible for me to produce music at a pace and level of quality simply impossible ten years ago.

The volunteer EMT work is definitely the outlier on your resume. How did that come about?

After ten years of music work, I felt out of balance. I spend my work time alone in a dark studio surrounded by gadgets and computers, working for hours on very short bits of music that don’t mean much in The Grand Scheme of Things. I needed to counter that, and becoming an EMT was a natural choice for me, as my father is a surgeon, my mother a nurse, and my wife a medical student. Volunteering in Central Park on an ambulance crew is visceral and hands-on. I love the teamwork and the intense focus that comes with making quick decisions that

mean a lot to somebody. It is the opposite of my daily work, and that energizes me. I also freely admit that I just dig the fun and adventure of it. And my kids think the uniform looks cool.

What did you learn at CA that encouraged or prepared you for your current career as a musician and composer?

I studied music and guitar with Ross Adams and Keith Daniel, and they transformed me from a hack guitar player into a musician. They and many other extraordinary teachers instilled in me a strong selfdiscipline and desire to excel at whatever I put my hands to, and that remains the foundation of all of my professional and personal endeavors. I think that all CA graduates share these qualities — as well as a big capacity for self-punishment.

Speaking of CA, you and your wife Eliza are one of those fortunate CA couples that is still together. Any advice for our younger readers who are wondering if their relationships are going to survive graduation?

I sympathize. I know very well that a CA girl exemplifies intelligence, beauty, and spirit in near-perfect balance — and I’m told CA boys are very nice. Not a relationship to let go lightly. After graduation, your paths might diverge, but they can reconnect again.

Hope for the best, but follow your heart, wherever it leads you.

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C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G F A L L 2 0 1 1

for us, as we’re all avid gamers. We even play Dungeons & Dragons together, no surprise to those who knew me at CA. We used the popular World of Warcraft game to create a movie trailer and the first episode of a Web series that paid tribute to our favorite sci-fi and action-adventure movies and games. It was hugely successful and we had corporate backing, but business issues have prevented us from going further for now.

Cortland in Lower Orchard, 2010

by Libby Bourquin ‘51

IN MEMORIAM

Sophia Chamberlin Alway ’33, sister of the late Anne Chamberlin Newbury ’29, aunt of Nancy Newbury-Andresen ’57, and great-aunt of Elizabeth Newbury ’98 Patricia F. Beede, mother of Susan Beede ’78 Andrew Cachel, father of Kathleen Cachel ’12 Clare Carruthers Bovey ’51 Linda Briggs, mother of Jeffrey Briggs ’80 and grandmother of Taylor Briggs ’12 and Ashley Briggs ’13 Ge Yao Chu, father of Irene Chu ’76 Denise D. Connors, mother of Rose Crowley ’15 Willis V. Daugherty, Jr., father of Katharine Daugherty ’85 Francine S. Goss, mother of Joshua Goss ’97 and Hilary Goss ’00 David Green, father of Susan Green Swanstrom ’72 and Charles Green ’75 Lydia Poole Barker, daughter of the late Constance Leslie ’68 and niece of Tracy Barker Greenwood ’65 Anne Chamberlin Newbury ’29, mother of Nancy Newbury-Andresen ’57, sister of Sophia Chamberlin Alway ’33, sister-in-law of the late Frances Newbury Roddy ’33 and grandmother of Elizabeth Newbury ’98

C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y M A G A Z I N E F A L L 2 0 11

Susan Perry ’60, sister of Penelope Perry Rodday ’68; niece of the late Charlotte Hutchins Bemis ’36; cousin of the late Margaret Bemis Case ’49, Ann Bemis Day ’48, Alice Bemis Wiggin ’53, Faith Bemis Field ’57, Marjorie Bemis ’62, Eleanor Bemis ’66 and Alice Bemis Bueti ’73 Edith Cowles Poor ’39, mother of Lila Greene ’67 and cousin of the late Eliza Farnsworth Van Hollen ’45 Sarah Wheatland Richards ’43 Sergei Samoylenko, father of Seija Samoylenko ’13 Paula Scolavino, former staff Jacqueline Walker Smith ’52 Susan Farnsworth Spooner ’62, sister of the late Lois Farnsworth Sykes ’60 and Barbara Farnsworth Fairburn ’57 Ethel Storer ’36 48

Concord Academy Annual Fund: Discovering your Reason to Give

by Karen Culbert, Assistant Director of Alumnae/i Programs

What inspires you to give?

Reasons for supporting the Concord Academy Annual Fund can take many forms: gratitude, loyalty or a commitment to academic excellence. We are proud that an impressive 90 percent of all

alumnae/i have made at least one gift to the school, including 55 percent within the last five years.

Imagine the impact on today’s students and teachers if 90 percent of all alumnae/i gave back to CA every year.

Please join Cathy Marques ’07 and Jerry Parker ’99 in their support of a new generation of CA students. Every Annual Fund gift, in any amount, will directly benefit the experience of current students and the resources available to faculty members. We invite you to reflect on the influence that a Concord Academy education has had on your life and discover your reason to give.

To make a donation, please contact Ben Bailey ’91 at (978) 402-2246 or visit concordacademy.org/giveonline.

How else can you help?

Alumnae/i volunteers are an essential part of the fabric of the school. Volunteering can be a rewarding way to connect with other alumnae/i, students, and faculty members. Whether serving as a class agent, an alumnae/i admissions interviewer, or helping with your reunion or a young alumnae/i event, your input, time, and energy is always welcome.

For information on volunteer opportunities, please contact Director of Alumnae/i Programs Billie Julier Wyeth ’76 at (978) 402-2232.

C AT H Y M A R Q U E S ’ 0 7

J E R R Y PA R K E R ’ 9 9

AT ONLY FOUR YEARS out of high school, Cathy Marques has been a loyal and consistent donor to Concord Academy’s Annual Fund.

Marques, for whom financial aid made possible her experience at CA, is committed to giving back, saying “I feel so lucky for the opportunities I had. For me, giving back each year is a simple way to express my gratitude for CA’s commitment to each and every student. I cannot think of a better way to say thanks than to make sure that others will be able to enjoy the CA experience.”

Originally from Portugal, her parents saw the school for the first time when they came up from New Jersey to move Marques into Wheeler House in the fall of 2003. Although the transition from her inner-city public school to the

MAKING A YEARLY GIFT to the Annual Fund is a ritual for Jerry Parker, even throughout his years in college and law school when his gifts were, in his words, “a symbolic gesture.” From personal experience, he knows that the most important factor in young alumnae/i giving is “all about participation . . . . Young alumnae/i should feel encouraged to show their support for CA. A contribution of any size is a helpful one.”

A positive athletic experience was very important to Parker when he entered Concord Academy as a sophomore day student. Basketball and baseball, as well as music—he played cello—were activities that he believed would be his main focus. What Parker didn’t realize at the beginning was how much his world was about to expand,

“CA is a community with a common experience that transcends class year.” rigors of the CA curriculum was at times overwhelming, Marques credits her success to the tremendous support she received from faculty, staff, and her host family, the Tunnards. She notes that “Whatever your background, whoever the person you are, at CA you are accepted.” Marques soon embraced all that CA had to offer, from ceramics to volleyball. She entered college well prepared, observing that “CA gave me confidence as a student and as a person.”

Marques will continue to be a loyal donor to the Annual Fund every year, making sacrifices when necessary. “Giving is such a small act of gratitude for what I received. Even if it means having to give up a dinner with a friend to be able to give back, I will continue to give. And for young alumnae/i, the time to give back is now.

As CA’s future donors we need to start investing in a place that gave us all so much.”

and how the experience he gained at CA would exceed all of his expectations, giving him exposure to new disciplines that he wouldn’t have considered before, such as musical theatre, drawing, and ceramics.

Academically, Parker was inspired by a range of teachers from all subject areas including his advisor Parkman Howe, and teachers Gary Hawley, Stephen Teichgraeber, and Christine Campbell who “made math palatable for me.”

Bill Bailey and John O’Connor were instrumental in his choice of history for an undergraduate major at Princeton. Now practicing law in Washington, DC, Jerry periodically runs into other CA graduates. Although these alumnae/i are not always classmates, he enjoys making these connections, noting that “CA is a community with a common experience that transcends class year.”

Through his work as a class agent, Parker encourages others to join him in demonstrating a personal dedication to this community: “I want to contribute to students having the wonderful opportunity to explore themselves that CA encourages. Giving to the Annual Fund is something I want to do every year.”

Non-Profit U.S. Postage PAID Hanover, NH Permit No. 8 Concord Academy 166 Main Street Concord, MA 01742

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Campus Events

For a more complete list of school-related events, please see concordacademy.org and click on “more calendar options” beneath the calendar items listed there.

October 14 – 15

November 18

February 24 – 25

Parents’ Weekend

Hall Fellow Dr. Lucy Ann McFadden ’70 7:30 p.m.

Winter Mainstage Theater Production The Bacchae

Admissions Open House

December 5

March 20, April 2 & 4

Admissions Revisit Days

November 11 – 12

“Caring for Aging Parents” Janet Benvenuti p’09 7:00 p.m.

October 29

Fall Mainstage Theater Production The Imaginary Invalid

April 22

Benefit for Financial Aid January 17

MLK Day celebrated at CA

June 1

Commencement

Alumnae/i Events

For more details and to register for events, please call Billie Julier Wyeth ’76 at 978-402-2232 or see concordacademy.org/alumnaei/events.aspx

October 22

November 10

March 13

Alumnae/i Fall Meeting with Head of School Rick Hardy Ransome Room, Math and Arts Center 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon

Greenwich, Connecticut Reception with Head of School Rick Hardy

Washington, DC Event

October 23

Southern Maine Dinner SeaGrass Bistro, Yarmouth, ME 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

May 14 December 1

Boston Area Alumnae/i Reception with Head of School Rick Hardy Les Zygomates Wine Bar and Bistro 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.

December 26

November 2

London Reception with Head of School Rick Hardy The Hempel 31–35 Craven Hill Gardens, London, W2 3EA 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Concord Academy Young Alumnae/i Committee (CAYAC) Winter Event Tavern in the Square Porter Square, Cambridge, MA 8:00 to 11:00 p.m.

February 12

November 9

New York City Gathering Mel Scult on the Works of Emerson

Alumnae/i and Student Community & Equity Event March 12

New York Event

Senior Class BBQ with Alumnae/i Ransome Room and MAC Terrace 5:30 to 7:00 p.m.

Alumnae/i Spring Meeting with Head of School Rick Hardy Ransome Room 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.

June 15 – June 17

Reunion Weekend

Parents of alumnae/i: If this magazine is addressed to a son or daughter who no longer maintains a permanent address at your home, please email magazine@concordacademy.org with his or her current address. Thank you.