CA Magazine Winter 2009 by Concord Academy

winter 2009

From Main Street to Wall Street CA Graduates on the Front Lines of the Economic Crisis New Teachers Emeritae/i Honored

C O N C O R D A CA D E M Y M I SS I O N 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.

Christine Wu â&#x20AC;&#x2122;11 Chinese three-legged cooking pot, Ceramics 1, Spring 2008

winter 2009

Editor

Gail Friedman Managing Editor

Tara Bradley Design

Irene Chu ’76 Editorial Board

Tara Bradley

page

Director of Communications

Gail Friedman

Photographer Zandy Mangold ’92 couldn’t resist a shot with his subject, Peter Fisher ’74.

Associate Director of Communications

Pam Safford Associate Head for Enrollment and Planning

Carol Shoudt Major Gifts Officer

Lucille Stott English Teacher, Advancement Writer

Meg Wilson Director of Advancement

F E A T U R E S

Elizabeth “Billie” Julier Wyeth ’76 Director of Alumnae/i Programs

Editorial Interns

A “Hardy” Welcome by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann ’63, Board of Trustees President D E P A R T M E N T S

Daphne Kim ’10

17 From Main Street to Wall Street Photography Interns

Libby Chamberlin ’09 Lisa Kong ’10 Jiyoon Lee ’09 Alison Merrill ’09 Write us

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

Message from the Head of School

Letters to the Editor

Campus News

Alumnae/i Profiles Rebecca Trafton Frischkorn ’71 Sarah “Sal” Paine Forbes ’36 Jonathan Shapiro ’87 Mary “Howsie” Jenney Stewart ’53

Interviews with Peter Fisher ’74 and Candace Browning ’73

by Sarah Bartlett ’73 Home Economics: How CA Learns About the Economy Protecting the Public: David Cotney ’85 Steering Clients Through the Storm: Lisa Phelps ’66 A Test of Resilience: Jorge Solares-Parkhurst ’94 The Unreal Real Estate Market: Keith Gelb ’88 CA’s Investment Strategies

by Nancy Shohet West ’84

by Gail Friedman

30 Convocation 2008

CA Bookshelf

Alumnae/i Association Update A Guide to the Chameleon Connection

Keynote address by Teacher Emeritus Bill Bailey © 2009 Concord Academy 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.

33 CA Honors Three New Teachers Emeritae/i

by Karen Culbert 40

by John McGarry

36 Meet CA’s New Trustees

Cover photo of Wall Street by Zandy Mangold ’92 Cover photo of Haines House and photo composite by Irene Chu ’76

Admissions Parents and Pop Rocks

Athletics 2008 Fall Highlights Profile: Olivia “Lee” Hall Delfausse ’62

Arts Q & A: Catherine Gund ’83

In Memoriam

message Jiyoon Lee ’09

from the head of school

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

A Time to Learn from Our Kids

ne of the hidden benefits of my job is its daily dose of optimism. Times like these challenge even the most positive among us. Yet the bleak economic news that darkens the near horizon has not cast its gloom on our students, who continue to work toward a world they know can be better. Their knowledge is our hope. Throughout the fall, students were deeply engaged in the historic presidential election taking place on a world stage. They felt invited into its dialogue and, as a result, they were interested, informed, and involved. Some volunteered for canvassing and other campaign work; many watched closely the debates and polls; nine seniors were registered to vote. All our sophomores were reading Huckleberry Finn, a novel that highlights, among other things, the enormous failure of the post–Civil War Reconstruction Period. It was not lost on these students that they were experiencing a rare confluence of history, literature, and real life, and their study of the novel’s slavery-era culture helped them appreciate more fully the magnitude of the events they were witnessing. No matter which candidate they supported, students knew this election was brand new. They were excited to be part of it, and they remain excited by its promise. It is very important for CA to harness that excitement, because it springs from a belief that things can get better. We must keep students actively interested in national and global issues and offer them even more chances to learn the value of service. Members of CASA, Concord Academy’s service organization, are leading the way in this, informing us of ways we can help people in need at home and abroad and facilitating those service activities. We have seen a record number of students and adults involved in service so far this year, and I sense a strong connec-

tion between that growing interest and the activism generated by this election. CA is known as a place of constant self-assessment. Since my arrival in 2000, I’ve been impressed with the desire and ability of our faculty and staff to imagine and reimagine. What can be done that we are not yet doing? How can something we are doing be done better? Over the years, we have become more diverse, more equitable, more environmentally responsible, more service-oriented. We are now reenvisioning our entire campus following the purchase of Arena Farms. The energy for such reinvention comes in large part from the students we serve, from the fresh infusion of hope they bring us each year. In these difficult economic times, that youthful optimism is more important than ever. It will continue to inspire me as I work with staff and faculty this year to ensure CA’s future, and I know it will inspire my successor, Rick Hardy, in whose capable hands the school will continue to thrive. These days, I feel especially privileged to have spent my career in education. In a classroom or an office, in good and trying times, my forty-three years in schools have always kept me in touch with possibility, the greatest lesson our kids can teach us.

Tim Morse

A “Hardy” Welcome

by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann ’63

President, Concord Academy Board of Trustees

Richard G. Hardy, CA’s new head of school

announced his decision to retire as head of school at the end of this academic year, the Board of Trustees moved immediately to begin the rather awesome job of finding a new head. Head searches take an enormous amount of time, energy, and care on the part of a great many people. There is also always the nagging question: Will we find the right person? Happily, as you all know, we have! Richard G. Hardy — Rick to everyone who knows him — emerged from a strong pool of candidates and quickly won the votes of all members of the search committee. Thereafter, he deeply impressed representatives of all of CA’s constituencies, and in October, the board elected him Concord Academy’s tenth head of school. The vote was unanimous. In looking for our next leader, we wanted someone who understood and valued our unique mission. We also wanted someone who could tell our story to groups all around the country and the world, in the process persuading them to join us as we strengthen an already very strong school. We were eager to find a leader who cherished our academic and social values and felt passionately about working with young people. In Rick Hardy, we have found all these vital qualities. I have already been awed by his concern for other people, his thoughtfulness, and the insight he draws from his twentyfive years at Milton Academy. Our new head of school was immediately impressed by the CA Jake has nurtured so carefully during his nine years of service. Rick met our bright and diverse student body; he sensed the dedication of our faculty; he sat through classes and saw for himself that our academic program is second to none. He is effusive when discussing the chapel talk he heard and the conversations he had with students (some of whom hugged each other when Rick’s appointment was announced). Rick said that, in meetings with alumnae/i, parents, faculty, staff, trustees, and students, the respect and intellectualism that characterize CA were obvious. Rick will join us officially on July 1, 2009. He recently attended the Board of Trustees’ January retreat and meeting. During his first year, the board will introduce Rick to parents, alumnae/i, and friends of the school in Concord, the Boston metropolitan area, and across the country. Perhaps most important, Jake will spend time with Rick during the coming months reviewing critical issues and sharing some of the CA wisdom he’s accumulated. As you can see, planning for the transition is well under way. So many members of our community have played a critical role in helping us find Rick and recruit him to Concord Academy. And many more have supported Jake and worked with him to create the excellent school that stands ready to greet Rick, his wife Adele Gagne, and their children Aidan and Owen. Abundant thanks to all of you for all you have done. Please join me in welcoming Rick Hardy to Concord Academy. 3

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

LAST JANUARY, when Jake Dresden

Iron Chefs, Iron Stomachs

disappointed to note that in their class reunion photo there was no identification of the 1948 alumnae. Would it be possible to get that information? My sister Anne died a few years ago, and the information I am requesting may be of interest to my nieces who are both Concord alumnae, Perry Howze ’71 and Anne Randolf Howze ’74, as well as to myself. Incidentally, the publication is extremely well done, and congratulations on your new head of school. He sounds like a winner.

ith boarders donning aprons and scrambling to meet a one-hour timeframe, CA re-created the Food Network TV show, Iron Chef, in November. Each three-chef team represented a different house; chefs prepared two dishes, competing to prepare the tastiest with the required ingredient — ramen noodles. Chefs also were given shrimp, mussels, imitation crab legs, diced chicken, tofu, garlic, coconut milk, and various vegetables and sauces. Jen Lamy ’09, Louisa Smythe ’10, and Andy Eaton ’11, representing Haines House, prepared the winning dish: coconut-mango pudding, with noodles used as a tapioca-like filler. A rival team chopped the noodles and used them to bread shrimp, which were then deep-fried and served with more noodles. Other competing dishes included a Thai chicken curry, a seafood stew (far right), and several stir-fries.

se Tim Mor

LETTERS

I AM A GRADUATE of Middlesex School, class of 1947. I had a sister, Anne Woodbridge Pickford, who was in the Class of 1948 at Concord Academy. In those days Middlesex was not coed, so having a sister at CA was very helpful, and made me a very popular member of my class. What I am leading up to is that I knew many members of the class of 1948 at CA, and I was

Henry Woodbridge Pomfret, Connecticut

Corrections

The Fall 2008 magazine reported that performing arts teacher and technical director Ian Hannan worked part-time last year; he was a full-time employee. Concord Academy magazine apologizes for the following omissions in the 2007–08 Report of Giving:

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

• Tom and Lisa Blumenthal should have been listed among the Capital Giving donors, under the donors to Unrestricted Endowment. • Carol P. Madeira ’67, the daughter of Mrs. Lawrence Edmands, should have been mentioned under Endowed Financial Aid Gifts. Mrs. Edmands made the gift in memory of her daughter.

In the Commencement section of the Fall 2008 issue, this photo was labeled incorrectly. Pictured are Emily Cohen ’08 and Laura Kerry ’08.

In the Arts section of the Fall 2008 magazine, the caption with this photo was wrong. Pictured are Eva Frieden ’11 and David Hook ’08.

Concord Academy magazine welcomes letters to the editor. Please send correspondence to magazine@concordacademy.org or to Concord Academy, 166 Main Street, Concord, Massachusetts 01742. 4

Amy Albrecht

ding: ne. Stan ion in Ju n u rence re w a th L tie er, Mary their six h t is a F 8 h 4 s 9 : Zoe 1 Ca . Seated Class of Pamela er Breen argent, rs of the th S e la y b F d r. m e y e e M ols, D d Kitse ton Dreie ird Nich ilkins, an d Kit Ea Nancy B egys, an dleton W m id o M C s la k e ng die Eic Curry, A erio, Ad os Elefth Comnin

Operations staffer Karen Vaillancourt, delivering lunch to Verrill Farm workers

CAMPUS NEWS

Photos by Lisa Kong ’10

Barn Raising hen Verrill Farm, a popular local farmstand, burned to the ground in September, the surrounding community chipped in to help, including Concord Academy. In October, CA delivered lunch to workers at the farm, which was up and running from a wagon within two days of the fire. In addition, CA’s chapter of Youth in Philanthropy raised more than $150 for Verrill Farm at a car wash. And math teacher and professional storyteller Tim Seston cohosted a special event for young children, held in CA’s Performing Arts Center, to raise funds for the farm.

t its October meeting, Concord Academy’s Board of Trustees voted to approve in principle a master plan for the CA campus. Sparked by CA’s recent acquisition of 13.6 acres, the board’s master planning task force worked with the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based consulting firm of Chan Krieger Sieniewicz not only to address the immediate need for athletic fields and facilities, but also to imagine the possibilities for the main campus in response to current and future needs. The plan envisions two multipurpose fields (suitable

for soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, and other sports), one baseball field, and eight tennis courts on CA’s new property, which was purchased in 2007 thanks to the generosity of Carol and John Moriarty PP’02, ’05, ’07. Formerly known as Arena Farms, the site is about a mile from the main campus. The board vote is a preliminary step toward developing that property, a process that will be phased in as fundraising allows. There currently is no timetable for construction on the site, which is likely to take several years to complete. The board delegated the next steps,

which include design and fundraising, to its executive committee, as well as to committees on facilities, finance, and fundraising. The master plan will inform the school as it establishes its priorities for the next ten to twenty years. Concord Academy magazine will update you as future planning progresses.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

arvey Burrell ’09 was as surprised as anyone when he found himself interviewing actor Bill Murray last summer. The impromptu interview happened during Harvey’s summer internship with Plum TV, a specialty cable network that

Libby Chamberlin ’09

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

InSPIRED by Science ast summer, Adam Brown ’09 was at a Cambridge biopharmaceutical company, testing chemicals to see their response on cells — research that could one day be applied to cancer treatment. In a nearby lab, Jake

Dockterman ’09 was learning how proteins could act as tumor suppressors. And over at Massachusetts General Hospital, Cathy Nam ’09 was testing the absorption levels of chemicals in sunscreens. If it’s up to Science Depart-

Plum TV

Alison Merrill ’09

CAMPUS NEWS Brush with Fame

was covering a Martha’s Vineyard music festival. Harvey, left, was helping set up a microphone on Murray when the actor said: “OK, you, come here. Ask me a question.” A senior producer was slated to do the interview, but Harvey went for it, asking Murray about the festival, its performers, and Vineyard residents. “I was not assigned to interview him. I was just supposed to mike him,” Harvey said. “But then he just asked me, and I couldn’t refuse.” The novice interviewer couldn’t help but be nervous. “It was the first and only interview I did all summer,” he said.

he CA chapter of Minga, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting sexual exploitation of children, raised $200 at a car wash in September. The funds helped support an Arlington, Massachusetts, school that provides residential treatment for girls who have experienced trauma, especially sexual or physical abuse. Minga (mingagroup.org) was founded by CA student Katie Simon ’10 in 2006 and already has received media attention, including a mention by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in a May 2008 blog about teens who start charities.

ment Head Michael Wirtz, more Concord Academy students will be in labs, doing hands-on work to complement what they learn in the classroom. “I want our kids to be immersed in sciences and to be around scientists,” said Wirtz, who is spearheading the new InSPIRE program (Interested Students Pursuing Internship Research Experiences). InSPIRE, still in a pilot phase, led to one of the three science internships, Adam Brown’s at CombinatoRx, a biopharmaceutical company. CombinatoRx tests combinations of existing drugs to see if they have what Adam called “a novel synergy.” The basic goal: to find drugs that work better together than they do separately. “Two drugs each might kill 20 percent of cancer cells,” Adam explained, “but together they might kill 80 percent.” The only high school intern at the company, Adam began

the summer reading journals and Web sites. By the second week, he was learning how to make tablets and examining how different pills dissolve. After that, he tested various chemicals’ effect on cells; at times he worked with the company’s oncology group, discovering the effects of different drug combinations on live multiple myeloma cells. “I know I want to be a scientist,” said Adam, who expects to return to CombinatoRx this summer. Jake and Cathy’s internships were not through InSPIRE. Jake heard about an internship at the Broad Institute, a genomics-focused research center, from his science teacher, Andrea YañesTaylor. At the Broad, he examined proteins’ effect on cells, and found that cells without a particular protein grew much faster, supporting the notion that the protein was a tumor suppressor. Jake, who plans to work again at the

Amy Albrecht

tona Fitch, father of Amelia Fitch ‘11, spoke about his work at Gaining Ground, a nonprofit farm in Concord, during a September assembly. Fitch, a longtime Gaining Ground board member, explained that the farm donates all its produce to area food pantries and meal programs, which serve the poor of Concord. He introduced his primary farmer and a local resident who benefits from Gaining Ground’s donations, as well as CA students who volunteer there. Lily Lousada ’11 spoke at the assembly, saying she grew up on a farm and appreciates the chance to reconnect with the land. Lewis Salas ’09, a boarder from New York, had volunteered in a food pantry but explained how satisfying it was to see another

Broad Institute this spring and summer, anticipates being named among the authors when findings are published in a scientific journal. He will present his research to Advanced Biology classes later this year. Cathy found her internship through determination, legwork, and the research required for her full-year “expert project” in Advanced Biology. Interested in dermatology because of her grandmother, a dermatologist, and her own sensitive skin, Cathy had decided to research the chemicals in sunscreens for her project. Encouraged by teacher Susan Davis, she contacted some of the experts she was researching, proposing to study the absorption of sunscreen chemicals in their labs. Cathy heard back from lab directors at two Boston hospitals, and ended up working at Mass General. After the project was complete, the scientist invited Cathy to continue her research.

She spent much of her internship learning how to distinguish, through experimentation, how chemicals are absorbed into water versus fat. Eventually, Cathy attached dissolved chemicals to pigskin, which is similar to human skin, to test absorption. “I was looking strictly at how much is absorbed,” she said, “not at what that means.” For Cathy, the lab work has led to a full-time job this summer and a glimpse of life as a scientist. “It’s definitely given me a better sense of what lab life is about,” she said. With hopes that more students will have experiences like those of Cathy, Jake, and Adam, Wirtz plans to contact alumnae/i, parents, and other friends of CA who work in the sciences to participate in CA’s Internship Opportunity Network (ION). If you can offer a CA student an internship in the sciences, please email Michael_Wirtz@ concordacademy.org.

Gaining Ground board member Stona Fitch, farm coordinator Verena Wieloch, and volunteer Angela Washburn

side of hunger relief. Gaining Ground raises and distributes approximately 25,000 pounds of organic produce each season, aided by CA’s composting program, which regularly trucks over loads of dining hall refuse.

Go Green

orty-six alumnae/i brought friends and families to watch the Red Sox battle the Cleveland Indians at Fenway Park in September. Fans — of baseball and CA — spanned classes from 1961 through 2007. In total, CA’s group numbered 110; because it topped 100, the Red Sox

included the school in a special pregame ceremony, where Head of School Jake Dresden met Wally the Green Monster. It wasn’t a great night for the Red Sox, but CA won, along with the Indians.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G F A L L 2 0 0 7

Alison Merrill ’09

Gaining Perspective

New Clubs 2008−09 CAMPUS NEWS

Animation Club Going Clubbing by Daphne Kim ’10

Astronomy Club sketch of Club Expo,

DanceA Club September 2008: a

cacophony of voices; tables full of steamed dumplings, Display chocolate mousse, and other treats. An event so busy that some clubs even shared a table. Consider posters about horrific crimes against humanity crouching awkwardly next to a display of cupcakes and Shirley Temples. Starting a club is easy at CA: with a determined head (or two, or more), a faculty advisor, and ideas about what the club can do for the community, Dean of Students and Community Life David Rost will approve a club’s creation. At least nine new clubs have

Electronic Music Club Hip-Hop and Soul Club

emerged this year. At Club Expo, blasting speakers of the new Hip-Hop and Soul Club and the Electronic Music Club fiercely competed with those of the pre-existing Rock ’n’ Roll Club. “We knew that a lot of kids at CA loved hip-hop,” said Will Harrison ’10, cohead of Hip-Hop and Soul. “We thought they should be represented officially.” Club members post their favorite music mixes onto a conference on the school’s Intranet, and gather outside regularly with a boombox, welcoming nonmembers to groove along. “Someone should have thought of this a long time ago,” Harrison said. Some of the “new” clubs actually are not that new. SPEAK, which stands for Students Promoting Empathy,

A poster at Club Expo for SPEAK (Students Promoting Empathy, Action, and Knowledge), which combined two previous groups, Students for a Free Tibet and Save Darfur

Movies You’ll Understand Club Republican Club SPEAK

Action, and Knowledge, is a combination of Students for a Free Tibet and Save Darfur, which operated separately last year. This year, they decided to form a stronger, general antigenocide movement. Cohead Jenna Spencer ’10 believes that even CA can be ignorant

of world affairs. “Many people don’t even know that there are genocides going on,” she said. “We decided to start SPEAK to inform and educate people on these injustices and hopefully to inspire others to take action as well.” So far this year, SPEAK has had several successful fundraisers, selling ice cream, doughnuts, and badges to raise money for Tibetan and Sudanese refugees. Even after Club Expo, additional new clubs popped up, such as Display and the Astronomy Club. Display, which focuses on architecture and design, posts works by famous artists and CA students on an online blog. Cohead Lisa Kong ’10 said the blog, open to anyone, makes the group accessible. Display

Judi Seldin

NOTES ON THE ELECTION CA’s NH Delegation

McCain 7% Baldwin 1%

by Daphne Kim ’10

Barr 1% Nader 3%

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

hen Lily Lousada ’10 canvassed door to door in New Hampshire for Barack Obama, there was only one thing that troubled her more than supporters of John McCain: supporters of no one. “The type of reaction that bothered me the most was when residents replied that they were not interested in politics and they weren’t going to vote,” said Lily. Lily and seventeen other CA students — all Obama supporters, though McCain backers were welcome — traveled to Manchester, New Hampshire, in October to make a difference in U.S. history. Lily had suggested the campaigning trip to her house parent, Ben Bailey ’91, who accompanied the students along with CA Chief Financial Officer Judi Seldin. In Manchester, the CA group visited homes and collected information about resi-

McKinney 1% Obama 87%

Foreshadowing Obama canvassers in New Hampshire

dents’ registration statuses and candidate preferences. The students also made phone calls encouraging people to vote and inviting them to rallies. Lily, an enthusiastic Democrat who campaigned in New Hampshire three times, described the experience as “thrilling.” Daysha Edewi ’10, another CA campaigner, said it was “the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” Particularly inspiring to the group was the community of canvassers — people like themselves, who took time to encourage political awareness

and fight apathy. “It’s nice to be reminded that many citizens are willing to devote their time to something so important,” said Lily. The campaigners’ effort paid off when New Hampshire, a presumed swing state, went decidedly blue on election night. Daysha said that she will always have this small piece of living history in her memory — humble door-todoor visits that might have made a difference. “I can’t wait to tell my grandkids about it,” she said.

A’s mock election, held in late October by MOSAIC, the school’s multicultural affinity group, resulted in an overwhelming win for Barack Obama. Of the 302 students, faculty, and staff who voted, 87 percent chose Obama. John McCain received 7 percent of the vote, and alternative party candidates the remainder. The school results also mirrored the actual outcome on Massachusetts state ballot referendums: CA voters decriminalized marijuana, banned dog racing, and rejected elimination of the state income tax.

Living With Apartheid

Jonny Koh ’09 played Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner” before announcements on Election Day.

Political Tolerance tough place to be a conservative. Maybe that’s inevitable, but I’d like to think that it’s not.” Students, faculty, and staff watched McCain and Obama promotional videos, then split into small groups where they discussed fictional characters that would make a good president. In one group, candidates ranged from Henry Fonda’s character in Failsafe and Atti-

cus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird to James Bond and Scott from The Office. Then group members role-played, pretending they were supporters of either McCain, Obama, or Sarah Palin as they examined biases behind political cartoons. Some students created their own, such as the statement below on the community’s tolerance for McCain supporters.

Talene Bilazarian ’10 and Caroline Howe ’10, below, both attended the Democratic National Convention, courtesy of a summer program in which they were enrolled through Georgetown University.

Tara Bradley

he campaign for this election and the results of this election have a lot to do with the issue of equity.” English teacher Ayres Stiles-Hall, one of the faculty coordinators for CA’s Community and Equity Office, was introducing the political theme at a C&E program in October. The C&E Office, led by Assistant Dean of Community and Equity Jen Cardillo and three faculty coordinators, was created in 2007 to raise awareness and spark dialogue about issues of diversity; September’s program focused on race and humor. Flanked by life-sized cardboard cutouts of John McCain and Barack Obama, Stiles-Hall explained that the afternoon was intended to make students think about their opinions — “the way you get to the opinions you hold, the way you get to opinions that seem second nature.” While CA strives to be a tolerant community, he said, “it’s a pretty

“T

young black who worked at Schuster’s house dissented vocally against the government, he disappeared to a “farm school” where he was tortured. Once Schuster was old enough for a South African boarding school, he “went to school with the whites,” but during school breaks, went home to “vacation with the blacks.” He struggled with the injustices he saw; even as a small child, he refused to sing the country’s national anthem, which kept him from joining the Boy Scouts. “When I was in South Africa,” he concluded, “I was ashamed of what was going on.”

by Daphne Kim ’10

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

CA’s new Hip-Hop and Soul Club

uring a mid-October assembly, Thomas Schuster, father of Sam Schuster ’09, matter-of-factly described the desperation that surrounded him as he grew up among South Africa’s white minority. Schuster was immersed in a black world: his father ran the only theological college in South Africa that trained black priests. He played for an all-black soccer team and remembers hiding under the bus seat so police wouldn’t see that a white was riding with the team. “Violence was reasonably high, and it didn’t pay to protest the government,” he said. He saw what happened to those who did: when a

Libby Chamberlin ‘09

echoed what most club heads must feel: “I really like to share all my interests with other CA members . . . and let them explore what I’ve experienced.” Photos by Lisa Kong ’10

hopes to sponsor trips to Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art and other museums. For Steve Kim ’10, a passion for the stars led him to form the Astronomy Club. He

CAMPUS NEWS

And the Answer Is . . .

journal of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Check it out at concordacademy.org/ mathteacher.

Lisa Kong ’10

hen a writer in Mathematics Teacher magazine posed a question about whether a calculator could be used to arrange a list of numbers in random order, CA math teacher and scheduler Deborah Gray had an answer. Her letter to the editor was published in the October 2008 issue of the magazine, which is a

CASA members with George Larivee, third from right

The Larivee Project

athematics Department Head George Larivee continues his personal mission to open libraries in rural areas of Nicaragua. But next summer he’ll take off with an extra $500 to buy books, raised by CA students. Concord Academy Service Activists (CASA) earmarked the funding to Larivee last year, inspired in part by an article about Larivee in the Boston Globe. CASA advisor and Community Service Coordinator Liz

ALUMNAE/I CORNER Bedell said CASA students were so fond of Larivee that they outdid themselves baking for bake sales, and nicknamed their fundraising the Larivee Project. To CASA, funding Larivee’s literary efforts was a win-win. “They liked the idea of books for kids avid to read,” Bedell said. “They liked the idea of supporting George. They liked the idea of fulfilling CASA’s mandate to think globally and act locally.”

The latest book by Drew Gilpin Faust ’64, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, was nominated for a National Book Award. Showtime’s World AIDS Day programming included a documentary, All of Us, produced and directed by Emily Abt ’93. Several CAers have spotted Anjali Koka ’95, a resident in anesthesiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, in a TV commercial promoting the University of Massachusetts. Check it out at www.massachusetts.edu/future. Ben Carmichael ’01, left, has received a Marshall Scholarship; he will study at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

Lisa Kong ’10

Theo Stockman ’03 is performing in Hair on Broadway, after an acclaimed summer run in Central Park. Stockman was also featured in the July 2008 Vogue in a spread featuring the cast of Hair. Look for a Q&A with Stockman in an upcoming issue of Concord Academy magazine.

Grandparents’ Day 2008 More than one hundred grandparents visited campus November 13. They heard musical performances in the Chapel and attended classes with their grandchildren. 10

Lily Lamboy ’06 and her internship in Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office were featured in “Learning on the Job,” an article in a Smith College newsletter. Zack Winokur ’07 has been invited to study and rehearse with Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, a German dance company considered among the foremost in the world.

Celebrating Classes Ending in 4s and 9s and Welcoming All Alumnae/i

June 12â&#x20AC;&#x201C;14, 2009

FR IDAY, JUNE 1 2 All day

Explore Concord and Boston

3:00 p.m.

Registration and house check-in

6:30 p.m.

Opening reception and dinner

S AT UR DAY, JUNE 1 3 8:30 a.m.

Yoga

9:30 a.m.

Memorial service Panel discussions and classes

11:00 a.m. Joan Shaw Herman Award for Distinguished Service Panel discussions and classes Noon

Reunion luncheon

2:00 p.m., Panel discussions and 3:30 p.m. classes 6:30 p.m.

Reunion reception

7:30 p.m.

Reunion Weekend gala dinner

S UNDAY, JUNE 14 8:30 a.m.

Yoga

9:30 a.m.

Jazz brunch

11:00 a.m. CA Young Alumnae/i Committee (CAYAC) pancake breakfast

The schedule may change. For up-to-date information on Reunion Weekend, visit concordalum.org, call (978) 402-2232, or email advancement@concordacademy.org.

Nominate a classmate for the Joan Shaw Herman Award at concordalum.org.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Reunion Weekend

ALUM NAE I PRO FILES

Rebecca Trafton Frischkorn Class of 1971

The Secret Power of Gardens

BYNANCYSHOHETWEST’84

T H I S

I S S U E

•

Rebecca Trafton Frischkorn Class of 1971

•

Sarah “Sal” Paine Forbes Class of 1936

•

Jonathan Shapiro Class of 1987

•

Mary “Howsie” Jenney Stewart Class of 1953

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

ebecca Trafton Frischkorn ’71 has always loved working with the land. She grew up in Auburn, Maine, where her grandparents had a large garden that she describes as “beautiful but kind of ramshackle . . . the best kind of garden.” Primarily self-taught, Frischkorn worked as a professional landscape designer for thirty years and serves on the boards of the Cultural Landscape Foundation and the Shenandoah National Park Trust. But she no longer designs gardens for private clients, devoting her time instead to a project five years in the making: GardenStory: Inspiring Spaces, Healing Places, a series that debuted on public television in April 2008. Frischkorn defines a garden more broadly than most. “For me, a garden is not just a collection of vegetables or flowers,” she said. “A garden is any aspect of the land that we tend.” And though she may call gardening peaceful, she wouldn’t call it a solitary venture: “Gardening is a co-creative act that we do in partnership with nature.”

To find out when GardenStory airs in your region, go to GardenStory.org. GardenStory explores the healing potential of gardens. From top, a film crew at the Life Enrichment Center garden in North Carolina; gardens at the Terrence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center in New York City; Rebecca Trafton Frischkorn ’71 in Central Park's Conservatory Gardens.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Teacher Emerita Janet Eisendrath’s art history course nurtured Frischkorn’s interest in art and aesthetic settings, and just a few years out of college, Frischkorn published Children in Art with Kate Sedgwick, a book based on the idea—developed in Eisendrath’s class—that one can learn about art by learning to love art. GardenStory explores the unique relationship of each garden to its cultivator, and the transformative and healing effects that working the land can have. “In the same way that [Eisendrath’s art history class] was not just about art, GardenStory is not just about gardens,” Frischkorn said. “It’s about cultural values and how gardens reveal so much about the time and place and the people who made them.” The idea for the series took hold when she was touring England in 2000 with a longtime friend. Because the gardens were not yet in full bloom, Frischkorn described what they would look like a few weeks later. The friend commented that Frischkorn sounded like Sister Wendy, the public television personality who introduces children to Europe’s great works of art through stories. The storytelling concept resonated with Frischkorn. She was sufficiently established in the professional landscaping community to find a PBS producer who agreed to shoot a pilot episode, which was filmed a year later at a topiary garden in Monkton, Maryland. But the producer foresaw a problem. “He said to me, ‘You’re going to have to work awfully hard to convince me this is not just a series for rich, white women who garden,’ ” Frischkorn said. So she arranged to shoot a second pilot in Lynchburg, Virginia, at the home of the late Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer, whose garden was known as the setting for meetings with peers of Spencer’s such as W.E.B. Dubois and Langston Hughes. Frischkorn eventually went on to coauthor a book about Spencer with Reuben M. Rainey called Half My World: The Garden of Anne Spencer, a History and Guide, which won a 2004 Medal of Honor from the American Society of Landscape Architects. GardenStory, which airs on three-quarteres of PBS stations and in seven of PBS’s top ten markets, is “not a how-to series or a travelogue,” Frischkorn emphasized. “It’s an exploration of how gardens change our lives. We’ve done wonderful episodes on healing gardens and community gardens. I get the most extraordinary fan mail from people expressing a poignant gratitude for the way I explore the possibility of incorporating gardens in our lives, no matter where we are. Gardens are not at all just for rich people with lots of land.” Recently, Frischkorn has become particularly interested in the issue of environmental stewardship—and its relationship to gardening. “For me, the garden is that interaction between humans and the world of nature,” she mused. “When we love something, we want to care for it. I think gardens can teach us how to be better stewards of the Earth.”

Sarah “Sal” Paine Forbes Class of 1936

At Home on the Range

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

ven back in the 1930s, great things were expected of girls like Sarah “Sal” Paine Forbes ’36, born and raised in Weston and educated at the Winsor School, Concord Academy, and Vassar College. But with that pedigree, few could have imagined the particular honor that Forbes received last November: she was inducted into the Saddle and Sirloin Club Hall of Fame, the first woman in the club’s 105-year history to receive one of the greatest accolades in the American livestock industry. Now 89, Forbes has spent her entire adult life as a rancher. A college student when she met her husband during a vacation in Georgia, she followed him to Sheridan, Wyoming, and has lived ever since on Beckton Stock Farm, the ranch that she and her husband founded in 1941. A lot has changed in the ranching business over the past sixty-five years. “Early on, all the work involved horses. I liked that; I’ve ridden horses ever since my childhood,” Forbes said. “Now we do a lot of the same work with tractors and other machinery.” Forbes, who gave up horseback riding after a stroke eight years ago, is modest about her role on the ranch that she still runs. She says that as a mother raising seven children, she kept busy boiling bottles and washing diapers while her husband and their employees ran the business. But her husband died in 1955, and her son, Spike Forbes, gives his mother credit for revolutionizing the industry. “My parents initiated a lot of the practices in the livestock industry that are the accepted norms today,” he said. “Until the mid-1960s or so, the cattle business had always been run in a conservative and not terribly businesslike method. The interests of cattle ranchers were not necessarily geared toward either good mod-

ern business practices or good scientific methodology. My parents were among the first to take a close look at some of those practices and bring them more in line with how other industries do business.” When his father died, Spike said, his mother continued pushing for improvements: “Both of them had a lot of good ideas, but in the end, it was up to her to make them happen.” For example, the Forbeses founded the Red

Sal Forbes ’36 with her portrait artist Richard Halstead

Angus breed, and their operation was one of the first to use genetics to improve their product. “Today, the techniques that have evolved [in the breeding of cattle] are among the most scientifically advanced that exist in any kind of industry,” Spike said. “My mother was instrumental in putting those techniques into place. She had no academic background as a scientist, but she is an extraordinarily intelligent person who could see ways to apply scientific and economic principles to building a cattle business.” Later in her life, Forbes became involved in the alternative health movement and environmental causes. “She applied the same degree of tenacity to those causes that she did to ranching,” Spike said. Ann Holsinger of the Red Angus Association said the induction into the Saddle and Sirloin Club Hall of Fame, which took place during the North American International Livestock Exposition, symbolizes Sal Forbes’s pioneering spirit. “Sal was very active in the Beef Improvement Federation, which is instrumental in establishing standards in the beef industry. She was very forward-thinking,” Holsinger said. “And anything that she did, she was usually the first woman who did it. The beef industry is still very male-dominated. For a single woman to be so active in the cattle business, especially when she started, back in the 1950s, is a remarkable accomplishment.”

Jonathan Shapiro Class of 1987

Accidental Litigator

Elise, Luke Schemmel, Deeanna, Jonathan Shapiro, and Scott

A lot of cases rest on the theory that whenever bad news for shareholders emerges, there had to be someone in the company that knew about it earlier. But often that’s not true.

always more to learn. Moreover, he said, “these are very large cases that merit the investment of time and money to get them right. In many branches of litigation, you run the risk of winning a case for a client and then presenting your client with a bill that’s twice as large as the award. In securities litigation, we’re dealing with large corporations, and there’s no risk of that. But even more importantly, a lot of our clients who are accused of misconduct really have not done anything wrong. Our cases often center around a well-founded, totally well-intentioned estimate of earnings that proved to be too optimistic,” such as in the synthetic skin case. Shifts in currency or economic circumstances can turn a profitable business unprofitable, he explained. “A lot of these cases rest on the theory that whenever bad news for shareholders emerges, there had to be someone in the company who knew about it earlier. But often that’s not true. Reaping profits that are less than anticipated is not fraud, it’s hindsight.” The current financial crisis has significant implications for his field. “Any time there’s a substantial investor loss in a public company, plaintiffs are going to file a lawsuit saying that there was fraud involved,” Shapiro said. “With the current array of financial market participants who have lost value in the market, we’re looking at about two hundred obvious targets.” Helping his clients find their way through this host of new lawsuits probably will be his next challenge—and another chance, he said, to help as many people and businesses as possible reach fair and manageable resolutions.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

ow do you predict the marketing potential of synthetic skin? Will it be in demand? How fast will the product attract investors? And whose fault is it if you’re wrong? These kinds of questions, which few of us face, are typical quandaries for attorney Jonathan Shapiro ’87. The synthetic skin case, on which he worked for nearly five years, was one of his favorites, boiling down—as many of his cases do—to whether a manufacturer is liable to its investors when a product does not perform as well as expected. Shapiro said he wishes he could say that his specialty, securities litigation, “was a carefully thought-out plan that took me years to execute, but that really isn’t true. I clerked for two years for a federal judge in New Hampshire, then got hired by my current employer, Wilmer Hale (which was then called Hale and Dorr), and showed up with no particular sense of what kind of litigation interested me most.” Within a few weeks, Shapiro was put on three cases, all involving securities. “Once you’ve spent eighteen months on this kind of case, colleagues start identifying you as someone with some degree of competency in this area,” he said. “But before starting those cases, I did not even really know what a securities litigator did. I never took a securities or corporations class in law school.” Shapiro began his career in Boston, and landed a high-profile case early, as an attorney for the plaintiffs in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” suit against the federal government. About two years ago, when his firm proposed a move to California to start a securities litigation branch, he turned them down. He was born and raised in the Boston area and had married his spouse, Luke, a week after the state legalized gay marriage. The eldest of the couple’s three children was happy in a Cambridge school. With no desire to head West, he set out to hire someone for the California position. But no candidate emerged, and when Shapiro was asked to reconsider, he saw the opportunity differently. “I’ve spent my entire career so far at one firm,” he said. “I began to realize that moving to the West Coast was an opportunity to do something dramatically different and profoundly exciting without the risk of changing jobs or employers.” So, in the summer of 2007, Shapiro and his family moved to Palo Alto. “We’re having a blast,” he reported. “It was a great challenge for us all to take on together.” Shapiro describes securities litigation as a field in which there is

Mary “Howsie” Jenney Stewart Class of 1953

Willoughby, at fifteen pounds, could be lifted right onto the patients’ beds if they requested it— and many of them did.

Four-Legged Lessons

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

ary “Howsie” Jenney Stewart ’53 is accustomed to a lukewarm reception when she arrives at her volunteer job. After all, she’s not the one the nursing home patients are eager to see. It’s her dogs they await. Ever since adopting a puppy named Willoughby eight years ago, Stewart has trained therapy dogs to work with patients in hospitals and other medical care settings near her home in Portland, Maine. Both therapy and critical-care settings were familiar to Stewart from her career as a substance abuse counselor. Facing retirement about a decade ago, she knew she wanted to devote her later years to volunteer work in a similar setting — but without the reams of paperwork typical to her profession. A friend was working with therapy dogs, and Stewart had loved canines since childhood, so she decided to take her cairn terrier along to find out what it was all about. The first step to certifying Willoughby (below right) for therapy was for puppy and owner alike to attend a training program. In addition to a formal classroom-type component, in which the animals learn to manage around wheelchairs, elevators, and hospital beds, the training required a great deal of socialization. “So I took Willoughby everywhere I went,” Stewart recalled. “In Freeport, Maine, I would take her into stores and banks and even L.L. Bean and explain that she was in training. We were never turned away.” Then she and Willoughby began accompanying a friend on nursing home rounds to test the dog’s rapport with patients. Stewart noted the chemistry that formed immediately between Willoughby and various people they visited. Willoughby, at fifteen pounds, could be lifted right onto the patients’ beds if they requested it — and many of them did. “When I walked into the facility, there might

be elderly patients who hadn’t been mentally focused for a while, and when they saw her, they would call her name and ask if she could come and sit on the bed,” said Stewart. “Willoughby loved doing that. The staff members love the dogs too; Willoughby learned right away to visit the hairdresser’s salon first — because they have dog treats.” Not everyone wanted the dogs in their rooms, but dogs are unlikely to take offense. For Stewart, observing the patient-puppy interactions was heartwarming. “Willoughby could connect with patients who hadn’t responded to much of anything,” Stewart said. “We would walk into a room together and the patients would never pay any attention to me; it was all about my dog. There was one woman who had advanced dementia, and the nurses told me she would wait all week for the morning that we visited. When I walked into the room, she would start to relax and smile and talk a little, which she didn’t do at other times. It was very touching.”

Stewart’s previous careers had included owning a yarn shop, teaching, and substance abuse counseling, but she calls working with therapy dogs “the most exciting job I’ve ever had.”And her dogs — Willoughby and the puppy named Sophie that she started training last spring — seemed to feel the same. “When I would put their volunteer smocks and pins on them, they would know where we were going and get really excited,” she said. “There were certain people they knew they wanted to spend time with.” Through an unfortunate stroke of fate, neither dog is still with Stewart. Willoughby died earlier this year, and the puppy was hit by a car. In the spring, though, Stewart plans to adopt a newborn cairn terrier and start the training process again. “Getting up in the morning and knowing you’re going to make a difference to so many people, bring them a giggle or a smile — it’s just not something I ever want to give up,” she said. “If you ask me about my work in chemical dependency rehabilitation, I can talk on and on from a research and clinical standpoint. But if you ask me about my work with the dogs, it’s much harder to articulate. It’s just something that comes from my heart.”

12,000

FROM

Main Street 11,000

10,000

9,000

Wall Street 8,000

Concord Academy magazine extends special thanks to Sarah Bartlett ’73, who volunteered to interview Peter Fisher ’74 and Candace Browning ’73. An experienced business reporter, Barlett is now director of urban and business journalism programs at the City University of New York (CUNY)’s Graduate School of Journalism. She has worked for Fortune, Business Week, and the New York Times, and wrote The Money Machine: How KKR Manufactured Power and Profits. Many thanks, too, to Fisher and Browning, for making time for CA amidst extraordinary challenges at work, and to Zandy Mangold ’92, whose photos helped bring Wall Street to Main Street. Mathematics teacher Mark Engerman also deserves special recognition—for patiently explaining economics concepts and helping to prepare interview questions.

Concord Academy alumnae/i work for huge investment banks and small financial firms. They build private fortunes and craft public policy. Wherever they work, whatever they do, all have been jolted by the current economic tsunami. CA’s financial insiders explain the chaos—and how it has affected their lives.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Debt of Gratitude

FROM MAIN STREET TO WALL STREET

Financial Insider Peter Fisher ’74

Sarah Bartlett: How has this whole financial crisis affected you, in your work life, in your personal life?

Peter Fisher: As an investor in fixed income, on behalf of both institutional and retail clients, it’s been a huge challenge to separate out my view about the economy from my understanding of the technical conditions in the market— how assets are priced when the banking system is forced to shrink its balance sheet. The crisis of the last fifteen months has been about the financial system as a whole coming to grips with the fact that its collective balance sheet was too big and still has to shrink, and this has meant falling asset prices as financial firms sell assets to shrink their balance sheets. CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

Did you see all this coming?

No, I can’t say I saw it all coming. It took me a long time to fathom the scale of it. I think I did see that the extended period of very easy monetary policy in ’03 and ’04 was going to end unhappily. Capitalism is premised on the idea that capital is a scarce commodity, and that we are going to ration it through market 18

by 9/11. With the financial markets literally blown to bits, it was Fisher’s job to help restore order and calm, and, most important, get the markets up and running. He was roundly lauded for doing just that.” In early November, Fisher spoke with Sarah Bartlett ’73, who directs journalism programs at the City University of New York (CUNY)’s Graduate School of Journalism.

prices. But with the extended period of negative real interest rates—interest rates lower than the rate of inflation—we made it effectively free to borrow money. That’s what made it possible for people to flip houses willy-nilly—they’d borrow and they’d flip the house and make a lot of money, and they’d go do it again because borrowing costs were just too low. So I did think that there would be a comeuppance for that. I don’t want to pretend that I saw how bad it would be or that I had it all figured out. It wasn’t until September that I got my mind around the scale of the problem—that we were confronting the need to shrink the financial sector’s balance sheet by many trillions of dollars. Have you been consulting with people of the Fed and the Treasury? Have you been working on weekends?

Well, they talk to a lot of people in the markets and to other people at BlackRock. We’ve been working hard for a long time, and we have to in order to protect our investors’ interests. So it’s not just about giv-

ing advice to the Treasury that makes you work on weekends. But some of it is noodling the Fed and the Treasury to try to get them to think about the different remedies they could put in place, to give them the benefit of the view from the trenches. In 1998 you were at the Fed helping to keep the world from collapsing. The NY Fed put you in charge of monitoring [the hedge fund] LongTerm Capital Management when there were fears that its collapse would cause an international financial crisis. You really had a major hand in that, if [financial writer] Roger Lowenstein and others are to be believed. Then the aftermath of 9/11, I know you got steeped in that, keeping the markets going. So how does it feel to be on the other side of the table now?

Some of it’s very similar. One of my responsibilities when I was at the Fed and the Treasury was to be the person who could understand what was happening in the markets and explain it for the benefit of policymakers. That part is similar. The part that is different is realizing you

Photos by Zandy Mangold ’92

Peter Fisher ’74 is managing director and cohead of the Fixed Income Portfolio Management Group at BlackRock, the global investment management firm. He has been undersecretary for domestic finance at the U.S. Treasury and was considered one of the people responsible for the resilience of the markets after 9/11. According to a 2004 Fortune magazine article, “Fisher, a Democrat, joined Bush’s Treasury in August 2001 and was immediately put to the test

have to defend your clients and your company and, at the same time, you’ve got to think about going on the offense, too. Is this the time assets are cheap, and should you be buying them? You’re stuck managing assets no matter what the system throws at you. That’s harder. You don’t hanker to be back in a policy-making position where you could actually do something about this, do you?

Well, we all like to be Mondaymorning quarterbacks. But I had seventeen years of public service. That’s a good amount. I don’t hanker for the pressure that they have.

The housing market has been in recession for two years. The banking system has been having a recession for more than a year. And now we’re just beginning the consumption recession.

Do you think the so-called rescue plan makes sense?

We can argue about the finer points, but essentially it’s headed in the right direction. As I said a moment ago, it’s something of an unnatural act for the banking system to shrink. We’re all used to the idea that equity markets fluctuate. But we don’t really like the idea that our money market fund goes up and down, or our bank deposit. Of course, it’s guaranteed by the FDIC, but we don’t like the idea that our bank might go out of business, even if we get our deposits back. So when you start trying to shrink the banking system as a whole, it’s

pretty disturbing. If the banking system is shrinking, then banks are selling assets to each other and prices are falling. When the whole financial system has to de-lever—to shrink both its assets and liabilities—at the same time, there are only two alternatives to falling prices: first, you can move assets onto the government’s balance sheet, or second, you can inject capital from the government into the banking system, which will help the banks hold on to the assets they have and make new loans as well. We are getting a fair bit of falling prices and now, when you think about all the government programs,

we are also getting a mix of equity injections and asset purchases. How do you see that trickling into the more general economy? What’s your view about how long the adjustment process is going to take?

The credit market started freezing up in August 2007. A lot of people made the mistake of seeing that we had a very weak fourth quarter in 2007 and said, “Aha, credit markets got upset in August, and then we had weak growth in the fourth quarter.” Actually, no. The lag is much longer from the credit market seizing up, and we’re actually seeing

it now, a year later. We are getting pronounced weakness in personal consumption because credit has been tightening for more than twelve months. Both households and businesses are finding the terms of financing much tighter, and they cut back on consumption and investment. So we are now seeing a sharp deceleration in the economy. The housing market has been in recession for two years. The banking system has been having a recession for more than a year. And now we’re just beginning the consumption recession. The question is, “Where does the recovery come in?” You can’t really get a recovery until

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Peter Fisher ’74 at his BlackRock office in Manhattan

FROM MAIN STREET TO WALL STREET

you can get credit conditions to ease up. That’s why the Fed and the Treasury have been so hyperactive. They know they’ve got to get credit flowing again for the economy to recover. Some people feel that the problems are more structural, that all of that leverage masked the fact that there are very few sectors of the American economy that are really profitable anymore, and that profitability has only been possible with this extreme leverage. Do you buy into that?

Well, it’s going to be hard to grow our economy with the engine we’ve had, which was rising household indebtedness. We’re not going to get to use that engine again, at least not at the same pace that we did for the last twenty years. But much of the accumulation of wealth we’ve had was real. We did squeeze inflation out in the ’80s and early ’90s. We did have a productivity boom in the late 1990s. I don’t want to write it all off to higher leverage. How about the last ten years?

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

In this decade household leverage was over the top. So we’re going to work our way back to ratios of household debt to income during the end of the 1990s. This is going to be a painful process, and that’s one reason the government is stepping in and effectively playing the role of credit provider, to smooth the transition. We destroyed roughly six trillion dollars of household wealth between 1999 and 2003 with the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the subsequent recession. As bad as that felt, in macroeconomic terms we had a relatively easy adjustment: it was as if we went to bed and all woke up less wealthy than we were the night before; we simply wrote down the value of our mutual funds and 401(k)s. This time the losses are concentrated on the balance sheets of banks and other leveraged invest-

ments, so the losses are being multiplied by the leverage and they need to pass through the banks’ and brokers’ and insurance companies’ income statements. There are people who are saying, “Oh, this is the end of the free markets,” that we’re moving into a sort of socialist direction or state capitalism. Do you accept that?

I hope not. At CA I went door-todoor for George McGovern, so I’m not saying this from an ideological perspective. There is a lot of wealth stored up in our country, in our pension funds, our insurance policies, our mutual funds, and we need to find a way to convert people’s savings into productive investment. I’ve seen Washington up close and personal and I’m not against improving and tightening the financial regulatory process, but allocating capital from Washington is something I really wish we could avoid. Let me use an awkward example. It’s hard to stand up and say, “Let’s not let people own their own homes.” How could you be against home ownership? Of course we want each family to have the opportunity to own its own house. But as a society, we need to be careful not to pump up home ownership beyond what’s actually sustainable—sustainable for individual families and sustainable in macroeconomic terms. In this last cycle, a lot of people bought homes with zero down payments; they were not really home owners, they were “leasing” their homes. So we’ve got to be careful that we don’t take our social policy goal and create perverse economic incentives. Home ownership is terrific, but it is not for everybody. You’ve got to actually have saved up enough to have some equity in your home, and enough income to support the cost of owning a home. Using a certain metaphor, in the financial system we’ve had some really terrible car accidents, and we

“

We’ve got to be careful that we don’t take our social policy goal and create perverse economic incentives. Home ownership is terrific, but it is not for everybody.

“

If you look back over the last four

You’ve seen Washington up close and personal. Do you think we’re capable of the nuances that you feel are necessary?

We’re capable of it. That doesn’t mean we’re going to get it. I was at the Treasury at the time, so let me take whatever responsibility I am due, but, with respect to the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation [which increased regulation on public companies] and the post-Enron reforms—I feel very sad about how they turned out. Not because I’m against improving corporate governance, but I think implicitly throughout the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation we were empowering the second-guessers. We were saying, “Let’s empower the auditors and the independent directors; let’s have more second-guessers in corporate America.” With the benefit of hindsight, I think this wasn’t quite the right answer. What was the right answer?

I would prefer for us to have focused even more on disclosure, making the first-order decision makers more accountable. I think there are ways of doing that. I think we’ve kind of overencumbered and made more litigious and burdensome that process rather than thinking about, where do we really want to shine a spotlight?

A lot of people say we’re in this mess because there wasn’t enough regulation.

It’s not about the quantity of regulation. It’s about the quality. I don’t think the right thing is to measure regulation by how many pages it takes up. I think that we haven’t thought clearly enough about how to regulate leverage beyond banks. You obviously have a strong interest in public policy, as you said, seventeen years of it. Is there any way to trace any of that back to your time at CA?

I was always interested in American history and particularly in the populist era and the challenges of the banking system. I can remember having that interest at CA with Bill Bailey, but I don’t think I translated it into an interest in finance until later. Maybe I should have gone into acting or, as one friend suggested, taken my law degree and become an agent for actors. That would have been a different career path. If anyone had told me you’d be sitting in a chair at BlackRock, I would not have believed it.

Well, those who knew my math skills at CA may have been surprised finding me at the Fed, but we don’t have to dwell on that. Do you think the worst is over?

I hope so, but it will take us a while to recognize it. By early 2009, the banking system will begin to be stable as a whole. We’re still going to see banks being closed; that’s going to be very upsetting. So somewhere here in the fourth quarter and early in the first quarter we’re going to find our way to stabilizing the biggest banks. The other banks and other financial firms are going to have to get sorted out during the first half of 2009. In the real economy, I think we will also see the nadir in consumption come some time between now

recessions, when you get the low in

consumption, the high in unemployment and the low in income come many quarters later.

and June, and then things will start improving. But lagging indicators will continue to weigh on confidence. For example, if you look back over the last four recessions, when you get the low in consumption, the high in unemployment and the low in income come many quarters later. How many?

It varies from recession to recession, but between four and eight quarters later. It’s a long time later. So this is going to be years?

Before we really feel this is all behind us we’re going to really be in 2010. This is going to be a sharp recession and then take us a while to crawl out.

they can rush for the exits at the same time but, in fact, we can’t. We can’t all sell at the same time without disrupting the system. It is surprising and disturbing and I wish I had a better answer for why we had to repeat the same fundamental mistake about too much leverage, too little capital, and too much false reliance on the ability to sell it to somebody else. These are amazing times. I thought you might be more frazzled. I imagined you were having many sleepless nights.

Oh, I can have those, too. But I’m the gray hair. I’m the guy who has supposedly seen something like this before.

When I was rereading the Lowenstein book, When Genius Failed, about the federal bailout of LongTerm Capital Management, it struck me that some of the players are the same players and that some of the lessons that should have been learned were not. How come we can’t learn lessons?

I wish I had a simple answer to that. There are a lot of differences between 1998 and today. This is so much huger—it’s a huge swath of the economy. That was . . . one big hedge fund overexposed . . . It was pretty small potatoes compared to this. What I think you’re pointing to is that the mechanics seem to be similar: too much leverage and a liquidity illusion. Everyone thinks 21

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

need reform to make the system work better. But adopting the metaphor of car wrecks, we need to get tough, but tough on what? Should we put a policeman on every corner to hand out more tickets? Should we demand that every car and truck have a second driver, to critique and second-guess the primary driver? No, that would be a dumb idea. I would suggest that we get tough on highway safety, that we think hard about speed limits, traffic flow, and highway design. It’s easy to say “Let’s have tougher regulation”; it is harder to give content to that idea.

FROM MAIN STREET TO WALL STREET

Shaping Smart Investors

HOME ECONOMICS: How CA Learns About the Economy

he stock price started at $8, but over a few weeks had fallen to $5.50 per share. Some of the shareholders were taking it hard — especially those who played on CA’s boys varsity soccer team. In this CA math class, a stock market seminar, students were learning about the value of stocks by trading shares of something they understood well — the school soccer team. The team hadn’t been playing as well as the class had expected, and that lack of confidence translated into a falling price — and a basic lesson about the real market. CA math teacher Mark Engerman, below, a former portfolio manager for Barclay’s, taught the stock market seminar this fall, an introduction that covered concepts such as market capitalization, initial public offerings, and priceearnings ratios. He also is teaching the course this semester. During one October class, students learned to use Yahoo Finance to research a company, in this case Apple. They studied the day range and year range of the stock price, and analyzed various charts about the company’s price swings. The most important number for investors, Engerman told the class, is the EPS — earnings per share. He went on to explain price-earnings ratios and why Google’s ratio is higher than Microsoft’s (because Google is younger and has more potential for growth). Later in the semester, the class played an online stock market game, buying shares of companies somewhat better-known than CA varsity soccer. The team, however, ended the season with a .500 average — a better showing than most of those real companies.

Economics 101

A CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

bout forty students and faculty, lured by the chance to better understand the current economic crisis, attended an early October seminar, sponsored by Concord Academy’s Investment Club. Mark Engerman, math teacher and former portfolio manager, joined Kevin Parke (above), a current CA parent and former investment manager, in a back-to-basics course on economics and the stock market meltdown. The presentation started with

information about how economies grow, explained risk and return, and concluded by exploring the bailout and its likely repercussions. In little over an hour, the two financial experts covered topics including mortgage-backed securities, speculation, regulation, and the role of politics in the bailout vote. Parke and Engerman also explained how leverage can lead to extreme gains or losses. “Leverage cuts both ways,” said Parke, “and it’s quite brutal on the down side. A 10 percent decline in asset value can wipe you out if

you’re 90 percent leveraged.” On the other hand, Engerman pointed out, “leverage can be a wonderful thing if things are going well.” Substantial time was dedicated to the subprime mortgage crisis, which Parke and Engerman broke into terms a financial novice could understand. Engerman summed it up simply: “Banks were lending irresponsibly, and people were borrowing irresponsibly.” Engerman, who advises the Investment Club, also teaches a stock market seminar at CA.

Alison Merrill ’09

Understanding the Crisis

the concept of opportunity costs—what’s lost when you opt for a course of action—to the stock market, but he also broke it down to immediately relevant terms: “The opportunity cost of watching TV rather than studying is enormous.” Before Dresden taught economics at CA, he taught Russian history. “I teach because it is the best way for me both to learn and to pass along my love of the subject,” he said. “It combines the best of human interaction—listening closely to ideas and integrating those ideas into further understanding. I have loved the opportunity to influence the minds of young people.”

Jiyoon Lee ’09

giant pad of paper with a chart of fixed and variable costs temporarily transforms Head of School Jake Dresden’s office into a classroom. Dresden has always taught at Concord Academy, and during the fall semester, he led an economics independent study— a college-level introduction to microeconomics. Often, he explained points by drawing examples from Concord Academy: during an October class he used CA’s historic buildings to shed light on the concept of depreciation, helping students Elan Tye ’09 and Justin Stedman ’09 easily understand that depreciation does not equal market value. “From an accounting standpoint, the buildings are worth zero,” Dresden said, because the school has owned them for so long. But, he added, the buildings, like many depreciated items, are valuable. Throughout the semester, the class often meandered into the current economic crisis. Dresden related

Photos by Zandy Mangold ’92

A Careful Analysis Candace Browning ’73 Candace Browning ’73 is president of Merrill Lynch Global Research. Browning — who was named one of the top twenty-five non-bank women in finance by U.S. Banker magazine for the past two years — supervises analysts worldwide whose research is the basis for investment advice provided to clients. Prior to holding this position, Browning was director of equity research for the Americas, and before that was based in London as deputy director for global research. Browning has been at Merrill Lynch (which recently was acquired by Bank of America) since 1990, when she joined the company as a research analyst covering the airline industry. Institutional Investor magazine repeatedly named her an “all-star analyst.” Browning now oversees about 1,100 people based in eighteen countries who cover more than fifty economies and 3,200 stocks. Her department serves institutional clients, such as pension and mutual funds, as well as retail investors. In mid-November, Browning spoke with Sarah Bartlett ’73, a CA classmate, former business reporter, and now director of urban and business journalism programs at the City University of New York (CUNY)’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Sarah Bartlett: What is this financial crisis doing to your job?

Candace Browning: First of all, I would say that in many ways the unthinkable happened. Particularly, the notion of a high-yield financial; well, there was never such a thing. What do you mean by a highyield financial?

Normally a bank is considered

investment grade. All of a sudden, you saw companies that had been considered financially very, very strong—you saw their business models come into question . . . Household names. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. In my department we tried to get ahead of those changes so that we could provide our investor clients the very best advice. So my life changed, really [by my] being actively involved

in all the meetings to assess how this was going to impact our clients’ investments. Lots more meetings?

We had endless meetings. We brought together the credit analysts and the equity analysts, and only by doing that could we really begin to completely understand what was happening. [And] the macro

analysts, people who could interpret what this meant for the GDP [Gross Domestic Product], but also the economists. So you have to bring everybody into a room. And that normally doesn’t happen?

We do those kinds of meetings, but they became much more intense, much more frequent. They weren’t 23

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Candace Browning ‘73 at her Merrill Lynch office in lower Manhattan

FROM MAIN STREET TO WALL STREET

really necessary before. I remember it all began in August 2007 when we downgraded Countrywide [Financial]. That was a very good example of the credit people working together with the equity people to really understand what had happened to this business model. So, lots of meetings. Late nights? More travel?

Not more travel, no, just more meetings, particularly on Sunday afternoons because that was the Treasury’s favorite time to announce initiatives. So every Sunday at five o’clock we had this call—for eight, nine weeks, every Sunday. We would huddle together to figure out what to say to the clients on Monday morning. When you look back, what was the worst day or night?

Countrywide in August 2007; that was the first piece of popcorn going off. And then it got very intense around Bear Stearns. That was really frightening. Why?

It was really the unthinkable that something would fall apart that quickly. And then Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy.

Lehman was terrible, but Bear Stearns was like the beginning of the next phase, if you will. You had

Countrywide, then you had Bear Stearns, which ultimately was bought by J.P. Morgan. That was the beginning of phase two. So Lehman wasn’t that much of a surprise when it finally came around because you sort of understood, after what had happened with Bear Stearns, that the unthinkable could happen. By the time this article comes out, Merrill Lynch will be part of Bank of America. Can you describe any of the changes since this was announced?

I’m actively involved in the transition—basically figuring out how we should structure research in the new company. It’s very exciting. The combination of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch will be unparalleled in breadth of client base, depth of product capabilities, and geographic presence, so we’re really putting together a financial powerhouse. On the research side, we’ll remain in the top tier of research providers, and the aim is to be number-one. So it’s been very exciting to work on that and actually somewhat of a distraction from the markets. Probably a healthy thing.

It’s a very healthy thing because you’re actually creating something. You’re creating something for the future, and that is really a wonderful feeling. But in terms of my life, having to put together a transition

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

“

You sort of understood, after what had happened with Bear Stearns, that the unthinkable could happen.”

and deal with the markets at the same time— I can’t even imagine.

It’s pretty wild. We’re in the middle of what seems like another market downdraft, shall we call it? What do you say to retail clients at this point?

As a retail client, you have to set your asset allocations by the calendar, rather than by what’s going on in the marketplace. What do you mean by that?

At all points in time you need to make sure that you can live with the risk in your portfolio. So if you had 70 percent allocated to stocks, which are risky investments, clearly that’s not the place you want to be for the long term. But now that the market has gone down as much as it has, it’s not the time to redo your allocation. You want to have an allocation you can live with over a market cycle. If you’re in a liquidity jam and you didn’t have the right allocation to begin with, then clearly you have to sell. But if you don’t, my advice would be to keep your long-term asset allocation where it is and to think about adding to certain positions very, very slowly. Not jumping in, but adding where appropriate. And I don’t think that day trading or trying to pick the bottom is sensible. I also really think that making sure you’ve allocated appropriately across all sectors [is important]. Because the leaders of yesterday’s market are unlikely to be the leaders when we come out of this. What I mean by that is, if you look at what happened, for example, when the technology bubble burst, those companies were not the leaders coming out of it. Picking the bottom was not the best strategy. Financial [company stocks] had gotten to the point where they were almost 25 percent of the S&P, which

is huge. So I would think about having a balanced portfolio across all sectors. For example, consumer durables, they’re very out-of-fashion, but they’re steady cash-flow generators with very steady revenue streams. People should be looking at those kinds of stocks. So you don’t think there will be a fundamental reassessment of the stock market? That people will forever look at this differently, a real generational change in perception?

I think, if you take a very long-term view, i.e., the next two to ten years, you will see a return to normal valuations in the stock market. However, I do think that some structural changes have come out of everything we’ve gone through. First of all, I think that more transparent products will be popular in the years ahead. There was an overinvestment in what I would call nontransparent, financially engineered products. This is really one of the problems that we had; there was a divorce from, I guess I would call it risk and responsibility. There was this notion that you can simply sell on the risk to someone else without an understanding that the whole thing could unwind and the risk come back to you. Because people didn’t understand that, they took on outsized risks. Mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, things like that?

Exactly. I think, going forward, that’s all going to change. The more transparent securities are going to be very much in vogue, and stocks are one of those. I’m sure you get asked this all the time, but I can’t resist. How much lower do we have to go? Where’s bottom?

I feel like we’re getting near it. But, again, I think this notion of bottom-picking is really a fool’s errand.

“

As the volatility in the market has

increased. We’ll do a conference call, and we’ll have four thousand people on the call.”

I meant more in terms of pain and anguish and jobs being lost. How much worse are we going to feel?

Do you feel pretty good about the government rescue plan? Are there things that should have been done that have not been?

I don’t know whether [the stock market is] at the bottom, or close to the bottom, or not far from the bottom. On the real economy side, I think that this pain is likely to continue for some time. In fact, I think we’re at the beginning. Japan is in recession, Germany is in recession, and we’re there too. I think it’s going to be very difficult, and it’s going to result in changes in habits.

I would like to see consolidation in the financial services sector, such that we have a very strong, wellcapitalized banking system. And while we’ve had fits and starts along the way, certainly in the last six months we’ve made a lot of progress toward that.

Do you ever think about whose fault this mess is?

Everybody thinks about that. Frankly, I think it was really a perfect storm—a perfect storm of financial institutions taking on unnecessary risk, of changes in regulation, of an unprecedented slew of new financial engineering, and all of this happened during a period of low interest rates. Nobody understood what the unintended consequences would be. And that applies not only to regulators, but also to government policy as it relates to institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This really was a perfect storm of many players thinking that they were doing the right things, but nobody understood how all of this was interrelated. It produced a bubble, but nobody understood how devastating the consequences of the unwind would be. I don’t really think you can point your finger at one particular player.

How much further do we have to go? Do you think there’ll be a lot more bank closures?

I think there will be more bank consolidation, particularly in the small- and mid-cap area. The role of analysts, over the last five or six years, has come under attack by various parties — a concern about credibility, about the ethics of the industry. What have you done to help change things, and how much confidence should people have in the research that’s being done?

One of the things that I have stressed over and over is that we’re here to provide money-making ideas to our clients. And we measure the value of our ideas to our clients. We have a system called StarMine. It’s an outside vendor. It basically provides us data, which measures the performance of our analysts’ recommendations. That’s one of the tools that we use in compensating our analysts at year end. And we have outperformed handily the various indices around the world. We track that and provide

that information to the analysts. In fact, they can look at it daily if they want to. So one of the things we’ve changed is really much more performance management, as it relates to the actual recommendations. The second thing that I’ve done is stress to analysts that they are here to look through the investor lens. We vet all the [investment banking] transactions, and occasionally there will be deals that we don’t do as a result of that vetting. The third thing that we did, earlier this year we changed the rating system. We went back and looked in history at how stocks behave. We found that on average, over a rolling ten-year period, about 40 percent of stocks in the S&P 500 in a given year will actually decline in value. And 47 percent of stocks will go up. The rest performed in what I’m going to call a neutral band, which is 0 to 10 percent. Seeing that there were fluctuations greatly by sector and by year, we were not going to require that 40 percent of stocks be rated “sell” in a single year. So we now have analysts rank their stocks within their sector, and we require that at least the lowest 20 percent be rated “underperform.” That’s “at least,” so going into this tough market, we had over 30 percent of our stocks rated “underperform,” which was the highest number of any of our competitors. I’m quite proud of that. We’ve been very, very bearish on the market. Now, I think the challenge is going to be . . . when do we turn? So, to answer your question, research at Merrill Lynch is independent. The research analysts recognize that; they’ve reflected it in their ratings. The second thing I’d add is that . . . as the volatility in the market has increased, the value of sale-side research has also increased. We’ll do a conference call and we’ll have four thousand people on the call. How would that have been before?

First of all, we weren’t doing confer-

ence calls on huge subjects like the [Troubled Assets Relief Program] of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because nothing was really happening. During these volatile periods, people want to understand what’s going on. So, in that regard, the value of sell-side research has gone up. Moving on, I’d like to ask you about women in the financial services industry because in recent months there have been some big casualties: [Citigroup’s] Sallie Krawcheck, [Morgan Stanley’s] Zoe Cruz. And you survived. It’s that Concord Academy training.

Exactly. What qualities does it take to survive nowadays in this industry and then, more specifically, how you think women are faring, or can fare, in this environment? You and I were in the first coed class at Concord so we have a different—

Different vision. And we came through a different educational system than some of the alums.

That’s a really good point. One of the reasons I came to financial services was because I had worked in a corporation and was part of a larger team in which it was very difficult to be judged for your individual performance. One of the things I liked about being a research analyst was you could’ve been from the moon, and if you came up with a moneymaking idea, nobody really cared that you were a woman or a man. So I was attracted to financial services, and research in particular, for that reason. I think that is still true; if you look at the research department, we have a large number of women. I think the other reason we have a large number of women is because it’s the kind of job that can integrate, somewhat, with a family. 25

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

increased, the value of research has also

FROM MAIN STREET TO WALL STREET

It’s very client-facing, but a lot of it’s on the telephone, you can write your reports at midnight, so you have a lot of flexibility, which brings me to the broader question that you’re asking. I do think that the long hours and the travel associated with a lot of other aspects of investment banking are very difficult for women. And I think that’s one of the reasons why our numbers are not as high as we would like them to be. How many women at Merrill Lynch are in a senior management position at your level?

Three or four, something like that. I think that the hours and the lifestyle are difficult for women. I frankly think one of the other problems that we have—and I find this frustrating—it’s difficult for us to attract the best women. Why do you think that is?

I think it’s partly because of the lifestyle, and I think that young women are put off by Wall Street. I find that when we recruit we focus very, very hard on trying to get the best and the brightest women to come in, and what happens is, we get them in, and then we tend to lose them, and I think it’s partly due to this lifestyle issue. Do you think that the general anger and hostility that is being directed in this sort of populous wave toward Wall Street is going to make that even harder?

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

I do. I think it will be harder to attract everybody. My suspicion is that it will be even harder to attract women. Dare I say this—women don’t feel comfortable promoting their accomplishments as much as men do. I’ve had this discussion with women in my department because we’ve run special programs to get women to be able to tell their stories. I think one of the other differences is that—I shouldn’t generalize—but I think many women 26

need to feel good about what they’re doing. That it’s somehow contributing to society or to a broader goal. I’ve talked a lot today about [how] I view my department as providing moneymaking ideas to clients. I think that’s great. That really turns me on. I want to give my clients great moneymaking ideas so they can retire or . . . Lead a good life.

Lead a good life. That really speaks to me, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been doing this as long as I have, because I ultimately believe that we’re providing a utility. You and I were in the same class at Concord Academy. I have to admit that if you had told me then that you would be the president of global research for Merrill Lynch, I would’ve been astounded. We were all mischiefmakers at that point.

Exactly. I wonder if there are any aspects of your education at Concord that you can connect to your career choice.

Concord, in terms of my education, was the critical changing point for me. Not in the sense that I did that much work, but really more in the sense that it taught me to believe in myself . . . I learned at Concord that if I wanted to do something, I could do it. The teachers and the educational system at Concord really taught me that. I remember a comment that Ms. Plumb wrote in chemistry; it was along the lines of, when she’s good she’s very, very good, and when she’s bad . . . But that really underscored the point that if I wanted to do it, I could do it. And that’s resonated with me through my entire career at Merrill Lynch.

Classmates Candace Browning ’73 and Sarah Bartlett ’73, after the interview

Protecting the Public David Cotney ’85

avid Cotney ’85 moderated a summit on the looming foreclosure crisis back in 2006, when few were bemoaning the impact of subprime mortgages. The Massachusetts Division of Banks, where he is chief operating officer, warned banks about predatory lending practices in the 1990s. Cotney says he didn’t realize how bad this crisis would be, but he saw it coming. He noticed things turning for the worse about three years ago, when banks began aggressively marketing questionable mortgages. “What happened in the 2005-to-2007 time period was a proliferation of products that pushed the envelope in a

ven when the stock market was booming, Lisa Phelps ’66 routinely gave her investment management clients a reality check. “When they would express pleasure at strong performance, we always responded, ‘Remember that you’re borrowing against the negative periods that are sure to come.’” The result at Assabet Advisors, where Phelps is a director, has been relative calm throughout the market’s turbulence. “We’ve had almost no frantic calls,” said Phelps,

one of two investment advisors in the small Northborough, Massachusetts, firm. It’s also possible that Phelps didn’t receive the calls because she made them. “Within a day of Lehman’s fall on September 15, we had called every client, and we have maintained at least weekly contact with most of them ever since,” she said. “We have always encouraged our clients to ‘let us do your worrying for you’ and to call us whenever they have qualms. Perhaps because

different way”—things like interest-only loans that required no income verification. Even more disturbing was the increase in outright fraud, “everything from the person taking the application and basically making up the income to the borrower lying about his income.” Piling on were credit agencies that bundled the mortgages into AAA-rated investments and, said Cotney, “Wall Street’s insatiable appetite for the high returns of these packaged mortgages.” Thanks to the work of Cotney and the Division of Banks, Massachusetts consumers are faring somewhat better than most Americans. About one in forty-eight are expected to face foreclosure, according to a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts, compared to one in thirty-two in New York, one in twenty in California, and one in eleven in Nevada. A law Cotney helped craft, with the help of working groups he led after the 2006 summit, guarantees consumers a ninety-day delay before foreclosure. Cotney and his colleagues have tried to make a difference on the federal level too. “We were pretty out in front trying to warn the federal government that if more was not done to address what we were seeing then there would be a problem,” he said. But the feds didn’t act swiftly, and even stymied Cotney’s efforts in Massachusetts and efforts by other states. “There was a lot of preemption of state consumer protection laws.

of that offer, few have called.” When she reaches out to her clients, she generally advises them to stay the course. “Our advice in this horrible period is the same as in any season: develop a portfolio that makes sense for your financial goals and personality. Unless something changes in your life, maintain it, rebalancing when necessary,” she said. “Trying to beat the market by ‘picking the right securities’ and ‘timing the market’ tends to be unsuccessful because we just can’t know these things with enough accuracy to win at that type of speculation.” As the S&P continued its nosedive, however, some of Phelps’ clients realized they were more riskaverse than they thought. “The crash has caused us to reevaluate each client’s emotional tolerance for risk,” she said. “We’ve found it interesting that fear and panic is not

That tied our hands at the local level,” he said. Despite that, Cotney has become a national player. He is the sole representative for all fifty states on a task force of the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council, which did not have a state representative until 2006. “I go to DC every month to negotiate with, or tussle with, our federal counterparts,” Cotney said. In addition, for several years he’s been involved in a project to centralize licensing and other information about lenders nationwide. “Massachusetts could shut someone down and they could move to another state and set up shop,” he said. The Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors launched about a year ago with seven states, including Massachusetts; nineteen have now signed up, and Cotney hopes for full participation by July. Though his job can be mired in policy and politics, Cotney has not become cynical, about work or the economy. “I consider myself an optimist,” he said. “We’ve been dealing with this now for close to two years. My guess is that we’ve got another year to go. Like I said, I’m an optimist.” Cotney believes there is plenty of blame to share for the crisis, though he exempts most local banks. “The vast majority of banks in this country are small, local community banks. They had absolutely nothing to do with this crisis,” he said. “But there were a number of very large national

related to the level of wealth (or how much someone can afford to lose), at least among our clients. It’s about emotional context.” Regardless of an investor’s anxiety, she has strongly discouraged any instinct to flee the stock market. “Moving out of the market at this point if you don’t need the money today is a mistake because you’re locking in losses,” she said during an early December interview. “You will not know, except with hindsight, when the recovery has begun. If you’re not invested, you’ll miss it.” Some of Assabet’s clients find it comforting to know that when their returns decline, so do Phelps’. The firm’s fees are gauged according to client assets. “When assets decline, our revenues decline proportionally,” she said. “In some way, that is reassuring to clients. We share their pain!”

institutions, both banking and nonbanking institutions, which fed this. But they were just one of the players. Clearly consumers have some fault, but it was also the mortgage brokers who took the applications, the lenders who financed these loans, the companies that bundled them into securities and sold them to the investment banks, who couldn’t get enough and paid incentives in fact to get more of them. There’s a lot of fault to go around here. Because it’s such a complex problem, there are not easy solutions.” Nevertheless, this consumer advocate continually hunts for answers, easy or not. Since mid2007, his office has received about 1,900 requests for help from consumers facing foreclosure, most of whom were able to at least delay the proceedings. Even if foreclosures stop making headlines, Cotney will have plenty of other perils to monitor. Next hot topic: reverse mortgages, which, some senior citizens take out against the equity in their homes to generate retirement income. “What we’re seeing is some inappropriate use and marketing of these products,” he said. When your clientele is an entire state, there’s always another danger, scheme, or scam. “In the biggest sense of the word we are a consumerprotection agency,” he said. “We have to ensure that the depositors’ money is safe, that the risks at the institutions we regulate are well-mitigated. Consumer protection is part of our mission.” 27

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Steering Clients Through the Storm Lisa Phelps ’66

FROM MAIN STREET TO WALL STREET

A Test of Resilience Jorge Solares-Parkhurst ’94

orge Solares-Parkhurst’s career is like a roadmap through the current economic crisis. But don’t feel too sorry for him. From 1998 until 2006, the investment banker worked for UBS, the giant global financial services firm that later was battered by scandal and devastated by exposure to subprime mortgage holdings. He moved from there to Bear Stearns, which lured him with the opportunity to run his own team. Solares-Parkhurst was off to a good start at Bear Stearns, bringing along two colleagues, building that team, and continuing the work he had done at UBS — helping banks and other lenders, including residential mortgage companies, in mergers and acquisitions and in raising capital to grow their businesses. But the honeymoon was short. “Within a year, by the summer of 2007, it was clear that the fixed

CA’s Investment Strategies CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

hrough up markets and downturns, Concord Academy follows a conservative investment strategy designed to ensure the continued strength and viability of the school. The Board of Trustees’ Finance Committee, a fourteenmember group chaired by Jeffrey Eberle P’99, ’04, is responsible for managing the school’s money matters. Eberle, president of Tertiary, Inc., a Concord-based venture capital firm, and chairman of its parent company, Northwest Hospitality Group, also heads the board’s Investment Subcommittee, which carefully monitors the school’s portfolio and analyzes its

income markets were starting to unravel,” he said. Bear Stearns ultimately collapsed with fanfare and was purchased for a pittance by J.P. Morgan. Just before Bear bottomed out, Solares-Parkhurst had landed a key client — the state of California — and had dubbed the job Project Zinfandel. But there was no time to drink in the success. He was standing in Starbucks when a colleague said, “You know, we’re done. We’re toast. Hedge funds are pulling their money from Bear. It’s over.” And he was right. “We went from being really busy to being in a state of shock,” Solares-Parkhurst said. At first, he thought a federal infusion of funds would give the company a thirty-day reprieve. But within days, company executives were on frantic phone calls with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The investment banker was assured he would still have a job, but in the end J.P. Morgan brutally cleaned house. Suddenly SolaresParkhurst’s growing client base was overshadowed by his employer’s downfall. “It was pretty stark,” he said.

On June 3, his last day of work, Solares-Parkhurst officially traded Project Zinfandel for his next endeavor, which he called Project Bootstrap. “I put together a list of all the investment banks I knew,” he said. His skills were in demand, so there’s a happy ending. SolaresParkhurst landed several offers and was back at work in about a month, with the Arlington, Virginia–based investment bank, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., in its Financial Institutions Group in New York. He recently reclaimed Project Zinfandel. And he’s been helping a bank and a consumer finance company recapitalize, that is, find the funds necessary to survive. With that kind of expertise in this kind of economic climate, business should be good.

investment strategies. “The mission of the Investment Subcommittee on behalf of the entire board is to ensure the sustainability of the institution over the long haul,” Eberle said. “So we do not take particularly aggressive positions.” The Investment Subcommittee oversees the school’s endowment, with guidance from TFC Financial Management, a Bostonbased investment management firm. The subcommittee meets at least once per quarter to review investments and discuss strategies. CA maintains between 15 and 40 percent of its investments in fixed assets, 60 to 85 percent in equities, and 0 to 40

percent in alternative investments. Shortly before the October stock market meltdown, the subcommittee moved additional funds to fixed investments, which have suffered less than stocks. “The Investment Subcommittee made a decision to have the mix be a little more conservative,” Eberle said. CA’s endowment contributes roughly 10 percent of the annual operating budget. Some schools and universities depend much more on their endowments; for example, endowment provides about a third of Harvard University’s operating budget and close to half of Princeton’s. Judi Seldin, CA’s chief finan-

terms were too lenient, and lenders weren’t holding the debt they helped create, but instead were packaging mortgages into high-risk securities that the financial community gobbled up. In 2003, Gelb and his colleagues already sensed that prices would soon peak and sold most of their investments in the residential market. “We pulled back our investment pace dramatically and have been aggressively selling commercial investments the last few years,” he said, noting that whatever they still own, they’re basically stuck with until the economy stops tanking and properties start selling. In this situation, he explained, “you focus on maximizing cash flow to the best of your ability—if it’s an office building, it’s aggressively renewing expiring leases and leasing vacant space.” Like a family protecting its nest egg, Rockpoint is sitting tight, for now. “Our equity fund is $2.5 billion-plus, with approximately 10 percent invested since the fund’s inception eighteen months ago. We’re not going to invest any meaningful equity any time soon,” Gelb

said. His firm raised an additional $500 million, which is dedicated to lending, filling in the credit gap left by traditional lenders. The credit and economic crisis, said Gelb, “dramatically changes the paradigm in commercial real estate.” He believes the downturn will be severe and the eventual recovery slow, with retail and hotels suffering most. “The consumer, which is twothirds of the economy, is severely overleveraged. Credit is pulling back and the wealth decline has been dramatic, considering the significance of housing and the stock market to the consumer balance sheet. If you combine those factors with the bearish employment picture, consumption will continue to tail off and, in turn, individuals and corporations will suffer,” he said. Once the economy recovers, Gelb doubts American business will remain disciplined. “People have short memories,” he said. “I think there will be a change for a while, but ten to fifteen years from now I wouldn’t be surprised if we revert to the perverse practices of the ’06−’07 time frame.”

cial officer, explained that the school’s approach to drawing on the endowment — based on a twelve-quarter historical average of market value — helps safeguard against tumultuous swings on Wall Street. While CA’s investments have consistently outperformed benchmarks, she expects repercussions from the current malaise. “We’ll be feeling the effect of this for several years,” she predicted. “CA already operates leanly, so that any impact on revenue will be noticed. We will be creative in our thinking about new revenue sources and ways to reduce expenditures without impacting the experience of our students.”

Head of School Jake Dresden — anticipating reduced endowment income and other possible declines in revenue — has been working closely with the board and with senior administrators to help CA tighten its belt. Considering the market volatility, said Dresden, “there’s no question we’re going to feel it.” Dresden met with faculty and staff in November and December to discuss the budget and to seek suggestions from the community about priorities and places where the school can reduce costs. The Finance Committee is also analyzing CA’s budget carefully and will consider the recommendations of Dresden and his

administrative team. “We are being extra tough this year in looking at every single expenditure to make sure we’re not spending anything we don’t have to,” Eberle said. At the same time, he added, the board is determined to hold down tuition increases, recognizing the burden on individual families. And it is examining plans for capital projects. “We’re looking hard at the priority of the various projects and we may reorder things,” Eberle said. Still, Concord Academy board members are careful not to overreact to economic volatility. “To a person on the Investment Subcommittee, you would find

the sentiment that ‘We’ve seen this before.’ We know the market is going to have volatility, and we have a very specific discipline we stick to,” Eberle said. “We may change some of our allocations around the margins, but it’s most important to stick to the discipline because it has held the institution in great stead.” Eberle is confident Concord Academy will ride out the current storm, pointing out that the school’s investment strategy has proven itself repeatedly over the decades, through recessions, inflation, and even stagflation. Likewise, it is helping CA weather the 2008 market meltdown.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

f you think the credit squeeze in the home real estate market couldn’t have been worse, consider commercial real estate. “It has been more dire,” said Keith Gelb ’88, a managing member of Rockpoint Group, a real estate private equity firm. Just as banks and other lenders froze credit to homeowners, they essentially stopped lending to commercial investors.

The actual statistics make “dire” an understatement. According to Commercial Mortgage Alert, $230.2 billion worth of commercial mortgage-backed securities—the main source of lending for large commercial real estate transactions in the U.S.—were issued in 2007. That compares to $12.1 billion in the first eleven months of 2008, and nothing at all in the third quarter. The credit driving commercial real estate completely dried up. Gelb explained that a secondary source of lending, stemming primarily from insurance companies and European banks, also froze, though more recently. “European banks are in as much or more trouble than U.S. banks, and the U.S. life insurance companies have their own balance sheet issues, so they have also pulled back,” he said. As if to pile on the malaise, another benchmark of the sector, Real Estate Investment Trusts, saw their stock prices fall as much as 75 percent since their peaks in February 2007. None of this is particularly shocking to Gelb, after several years of what he called “sheer lunacy” in lending and real estate prices. Loan

The Unreal Real Estate Market Keith Gelb ’88

CONVOCATION 2008 CONCORD ACADEMY welcomed the school year, as it has since

Lagemann admitted that her pro–John F. Kennedy fervor at CA led to some time in the headmistress’s office. “My roommate and I found an old sheet, wrote JFK in big red letters, climbed out of the window of Bradford House—we lived on the first floor—and hung the sheet in the Chapel before a Monday morning Chapel service,” Lagemann said. “We subsequently spent a fair amount of time sitting in Mrs. Hall’s office discussing other ways we might demonstrate support for our candidate.” Bailey dedicated his talk to some of CA’s proudest moments—times when the school made decisions of ethical distinction, many of them brave and well ahead of their time. The complete text of Bailey’s speech follows. You can listen to the speech at concordacademy.org/bailey.

➢

Tim Morse

2002, with a formal Convocation. Speakers included Teacher Emeritus Bill Bailey, who delivered the keynote address, as well as Head of School Jake Dresden, Student Body President Jung Hee Hyun ’09, and Board of Trustees President Ellen Condliffe Lagemann ’63. Lagemann reflected on another election year—1960, her first year at CA. She encouraged students to think about politics, and to think independently. “Now is the time in your lives when you need to learn to think for yourselves about what values you believe in and why you believe in those values,” she said. “It is no longer good enough, as you all know, simply to follow the lead of your parents or that of your classmates. You may end up agreeing with them, but you need to think for yourselves and to make your own political choices.”

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

3) (by far the most interesting definition) “an old fart” I think a number of my students here as well as some of the current faculty at CA thought I had reached the latter status some years before I actually retired. I’ve chosen this morning to devote my time with you, tracing the history of Concord Academy’s commitment to social justice, to tolerance, to embracing of differences, to being a leader in these areas rather than a follower. Institutions — governments, schools and universities, religious denominations, professional organizations — express a belief in values that they see as goals to guide them and their communities. We all know, for example, that in the Declaration of Independ-

traditionally invited. Except they were not. When the head of CA learned that invitations had not been issued to the handful of Jewish girls at the school, she wrote to the cotillion committee, informing them that CA boarding girls would not be attending. And you may say, of course, what else could the head do? Yet Concord, in the fifties, was like most suburban communities in the Northeast. The country club here did not accept Jewish members. Emerson Hospital’s doctors had a bitter fight over whether to allow the first Jewish doctor who came to town to affiliate with the hospital. Real estate companies told prospective Jewish buyers that

there were simply no houses on the market in whatever price category they were seeking. Before I came to Concord in 1967, I was teaching at another New England private school with an all-white, overwhelmingly Christian student body — so typical of that era. A group of faculty petitioned the head to admit students of color. A program had recently begun, called ABC, A Better Chance, a form of affirmative action, seeking qualified students for admission to private school. We had been told that no such students had applied, an argument always used to preserve the status quo, and that no, our school would not join ABC. The

Teacher Emeritus Bill Bailey

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

1) honorary title following retirement bestowed upon teachers and professors

ence, the signers pledged to create a society based on the premise that “all men are created equal,” a premise modified at the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in 1848 when the signers redefined that premise to read “all men and women.” Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, called for a “new birth of freedom.” And so it is with Concord, a school that has, I believe, a remarkable story of commitment. CA is, however, no different from our country or any democratic society, no different from religious institutions that profess openness to all, and to social and economic justice. Our story is not without blemish, not without hypocrisy, not without failure or at least hesitation to carry through on our mission. But I am not here to give a balanced view of Concord. I am here to introduce you or to remind many of you of how CA has attempted to create a school whose values are clear and, I dare say, noble, appreciated, and supported by its students, faculty and administration, and alums. What follows is a story of moments when we did not shrink from our responsibility to ourselves and members of the larger community. I’ve chosen not to name names as I’d like you to concentrate on the sense that you are a part of a remarkable place rather than dwelling on the obviously vital roles played by key people at Concord. Please keep in mind, students, that some of these milestones were made when the climate was not auspicious for change. What appeared radical and courageous in years past may be far more widely embraced in your world, both within and beyond CA. It was in the early fifties. CA was an all-girls school with a considerably larger number of students living in the Concord area than at present. Each year, a cotillion was held at the Colonial Inn where many girls were making their debuts — a term to describe the event when girls of seventeen and eighteen were presented to society. All CA girls were

Photos by Tim Morse

t is quite wonderful to have the opportunity to speak to you on the opening day of school. Jake, I greatly appreciate your words of welcome. When I retired from CA six years ago, I knew I would miss the students and my peers. I knew I would not miss faculty meetings and grading papers. And yet, as you know from the introduction, I am back teaching in New York City. When Mr. Dresden asked me to speak today, I had a conflict with my schedule, for today is an all-day faculty meeting which I was allowed to miss for this occasion — a blessing in disguise. Mr. Dresden has introduced me as a teacher emeritus, a title I have now borne at CA since June 2002. I was never that sure about the meaning of that title, which a number of us have received as retired CA faculty in recognition of our years of service. So prior to writing this talk, I checked the dictionary — teachers should do what they ask of their students. Needless to say, I looked in a hard cover, not having any idea how to access Wikipedia. And there it was with several citations, including

fall of my first year of teaching here, I spoke with the head of the school, expressing admiration for CA’s commitment to ABC. I asked if there had been a problem with the Board of Trustees. He looked at me: “Bill, it never occurred to me to consult with them.” At about the same time, the U.S. was heavily involved in the Vietnam War with 500,000 American troops committed to defeating communism. Opposition to the war was growing — in Washington, on university campuses, on editorial boards of newspapers. It was a day in the spring of 1968 at CA, and time for an assembly. Kids here (as maybe now?) were thinking, oh no,

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

why do we have to go? A Harvard University Nobel Prize winner, scientist, and teacher, George Wald, was speaking. His topic: the war. His message: the Vietnam War was a travesty, contradictory to and destructive of what our country should stand for. Concord did not realize that the school was a kind of testing ground for Professor Wald’s speech, the very same one that would be delivered soon after at Harvard by Professor Wald and reprinted in newspapers and journals across the nation. At the time, Berkeley, the University of Michigan, and other universities staged what were called “teach-ins,” with professors

and outside speakers educating (with a bias, of course) about the Vietnam War. CA responded with its own teach-in, setting aside a day of seminars with all classes canceled. When Martin Luther King’s birthday was made a state holiday with all public schools closed, CA instead devoted the day to learning about MLK, his message, and the need for justice for all. I assume you still do. Just so you know about alternatives — one neighboring school (not in Concord) chose a different option for a year or two, giving those students of color the day off and requiring the whites to attend classes! In the early eighties, a CA girl became pregnant. Abortion was not an option. She and her parents met with the head of the school. The girl had chosen to have her baby and to give it up for adoption. The head proposed that the girl remain at CA until she was due to deliver. He then asked her to come back as soon as she was able. Once again, students, please be aware that almost no private school that I know of would have offered the girl that opportunity — even now many would not. She returned to CA to graduate with her class. She gave her chapel talk in late spring, making reference to her pregnancy. The closing music — my guess is that picking that music is just as important to all of you as it was then — was a tape of the popular song, “In the Heat of the Moment”! Only at CA! In the late eighties, Concord formed a gay-straight alliance. It was reputed to be the first at an eastern seaboard private school. It was a long step toward acceptance, ultimately embracing gays and lesbians at CA, both students and faculty. More recently the CA Performing Arts Department produced The Laramie Project, a dramatic presentation of the story of the horrible murder of a young gay man, Matthew Shepherd. Once again, Concord made history for itself as a community, giving the first East Coast public performance of that play.

Many of you know that the country of South Africa was governed by a small white minority for well over a hundred years, fostering a policy known as apartheid, a legally enforced segregation of the races, akin to Jim Crow as practiced throughout our South through the 1960s. Our own government refused in the 1980s to condemn and isolate the South African government. Many educational and religious institutions in the U.S. challenged the government and chose to end investments in American corporations that engaged in business in South Africa, a big step to take, as such institutions rely on their endowments to make as big an increase as possible. A faculty member here and a group of students proposed that the Board of Trustees divest its holdings in such companies. They did a great deal of research and made their proposals before both the school community and the board. They were expressing a commitment to justice for the African majority led by Nelson Mandela. The group failed in attaining their objective, but the effort was not lost sight of. More recently, I understand that Concord has made a remarkable effort to respond to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Most of you know of the welcoming of a couple of students from New Orleans and of the numbers of students and faculty who have made the trek to the city to help in its rebuilding. When I was preparing this talk, I found numerous other examples of CA’s commitment. I was awed, in part, because I had never put it all together. So what’s the point? You can make a difference. You can take a stand on an issue that might challenge Concord Academy, that might challenge your country and the world that you are a part of. More importantly, you would be challenging yourself. I wish you an exciting year at Concord. Thank you again for giving me this opportunity. — September 2, 2008

CA Honors Three New Teachers Emeritae/i fourth grade,” said Bailey. “Here I was in Princess Ida.” That performance built his confidence and led him to sing with groups in Boston and New York. “I still sing,” Bailey said, “and I have Madge and Doris to thank for that.” Bailey also recalled studying Moby Dick in Teichgraeber’s class, while Teichgraeber sheepishly admitted dropping German with Susan Adams after being unable to keep up with the work. Richardson recalled that he and Teichgraeber fought to keep German in the CA curriculum. Talk turned to grammar (“how are we going to save whom?” Rosenblum wondered), science labs, and other CA memories. Dresden put the memories into historical context. “I was thinking about whether to do something on 9/11,” he told the emeritae/i. “The ninth graders were only seven when 9/11 occurred. Take that paradigm and keep moving it back. You realize so many of the experiences that are so important to our generation are just history, that’s what they are.” Regardless of passing time, the legendary group remains an essential contributor to CA’s special ethos. “I have come to appreciate,” Dresden said, “how important all of you have been to the whole spirit of the school.”

Photos by Tim Morse

—Gail Friedman

Head of School Jake Dresden with Stephen Teichgraeber (top left), and with Ron Richardson and Gary Hawley (left). Madge Evans with Sylvia Mendenhall (top right), and (bottom right) the three new teachers emeritae/i, Teichgraeber, Evans, and Hawley.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

t was as though CA had its own brain trust, and the members were gathered in one spot. Bill Bailey, Janet Eisendrath, Philip McFarland, Sylvia Mendenhall, J.J. O’Connor, Ron Richardson, and Sandra Rosenblum—all the school’s living teachers emeritae/i—sat in a circle in Jake and Pat Dresden’s living room, fêting three new inductees to the group. On September 2, just after Convocation ceremonies, Dresden conferred the honor of teacher emerita/us on Madge Evans, Gary Hawley, and Stephen Teichgraeber, recognizing their long service to CA and their exceptional commitment to the intellectual and personal development of their students. At Concord Academy, Evans taught science from 1969 to 2007; Hawley taught science from 1974 to 2007; and Teichgraeber taught English from 1974 to 2007. They join the seven aforementioned veteran emeritae/i, as well as Doris Coryell, now deceased, who was the first to receive the distinction, in 1987. In a small ceremony, Head of School Dresden read the text on each new honoree’s certificate. For Evans, it noted “her deep commitment to the intellectual and personal well-being of students, her gracious colleagueship and spirit, and her dedication to the teaching of science.” For Hawley, “his deep engagement with his students, his commitment to equity and justice, and his exceptional talent as a teacher of science.” And for Teichgraeber, “his passionate engagement with students, his uncompromising commitment to their intellectual development, and for inspiring a generation of young people to love English literature.” “Like Jake, I have always been a teacher too, and I know what it takes to be a great teacher,” CA Board of Trustees President Ellen Condliffe Lagemann ’63 told the group. When the new emeritae/i spoke, Evans credited mentors, such as Bailey and O’Connor, for her long and successful tenure at CA. Hawley seemed touched by the group he was joining. “It’s such an honor,” he said. “It’s such a unique group of individuals.” Teichgraeber turned the old Groucho Marx line on its head and said he was proud to join this club, even though it would have him as a member. Quickly the talk turned reminiscent, much of it focusing on Gilbert and Sullivan productions. “The only solo I had ever had was as Hansel in

Old Masters, New World: America’s Raid on Europe’s Great Pictures Cynthia Saltzman ’67 Viking, 2008 Not to be outdone by the old money of Europe, America’s brash new industrialists and rising socialites strove to become serious collectors of fine art. Old Masters, New World outlines how Isabella Stewart Gardner, J.P. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, and others amassed such glorious collections. Through skillful liaisons with dealers and numerous trips abroad, these American collectors took advantage of financially strapped gentry, brought home the spoils of Europe, and built collections that include works by artists such as Titian, Raphael, Rembrandt, Vermeer, El Greco, and Rubens. Today, art enthusiasts can view many of these works in galleries and museums around the country, including Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

Musical Notes

Friend by Grizzly Bear Featuring Ed Droste ‘97 Warp Records, 2007

I See You Everywhere Julia Glass ’75 Pantheon, 2008 National Book Award-winner Julia Glass has penned a new novel involving an intense rivalry between two sisters. The older, Louisa, dutifully plays by the rules; the younger, Clem, breaks them all. At the heart of the matter is the fact that Clem is her mother’s favorite and Louisa cannot let go of her deep-seated resentment. Glass shares the inner workings of both characters, offering rare insight into why they continue to turn to each other in their most troubled times — despite the wedge that divides them. Toss in the revelation of family secrets, numerous failed romances, and a tragic twist, and you’ve got the combination for a captivating tale.

Marriage: The Dream that Refuses to Die Elizabeth Fox-Genovese ’58 (Edited posthumously by Sheila O’Connor-Ambrose) ISI Books, 2008

The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, & Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire Matt Taibbi ’87 Spiegel & Grau, 2008

Respected as a Marxist-feminist scholar, Fox-Genovese forged a long career in academia and, in 1986, became the founding director of Emory University’s Institute for Women’s Studies. In 2003, as a visiting scholar at Princeton, she presented three lectures on historical, moral, and cultural foundations of marriage. The transcripts of those lectures and five earlier essays provide the text for this book, which was published posthumously. A firm defender of marriage, Fox-Genovese wrote the following passage, initially intended to be part of the book’s preface: “Marriage for love — the promise of an enduring and engulfing bond between a man and a woman — is a dream that refuses to die. In defiance of the rising tide of cynicism, sexual liberation, promiscuity (before, after, and during marriage), and declining interest in children, the dream still promises that we will finally be loved as we long to be loved.”

Taibbi traveled the American heartland and beyond, taking the pulse of a country that was on the brink of despair while in the midst of an important presidential election. No stone is unturned in his quest to unearth the truth behind the antics of our darling members of Congress, the apocalyptic preaching of the Christian right, and the ongoing saga that is the Iraq war. Despite countless revelations, the reason Americans elected “multimillionaire petro-royalist” George W. Bush to two terms remains elusive. Those familiar with Taibbi’s political journalism in Rolling Stone will revel in this exposé of a deranged state of the union; the uninitiated should prepare themselves for a vicious and hilarious primer on national politics.

Coming soon in CA Bookshelf, works by: Margaret Erhart ’70 Anthony Neal ’77 Faith Andrews Bedford ’63 Send your book and music news to magazine@concordacademy.org.

Matt Taibbi ’87 speaks at assembly February 26.

Through the pages of Utopia, New Jersey, Buchan brings readers back to a time when visionary Americans earnestly pursued experimental living. Eight such communities are historically examined and accompanied by detailed descriptions of what remains today — often oddly named streets and an assortment of aging buildings. From Upton Sinclair’s Helicon Home Colony in Englewood to Bernard MacFadden’s Physical Culture City in Helmetta, readers gain access to the unique philosophies of the eccentric founders, their devoted followers, and the often curious lifestyles that found a temporary home in the Garden State.

A Guide to Fiction Set in Vermont for Children & Young Adults Ann McKinstry Micou ’48 Vermont Humanities Council, 2008 This companion to Micou’s 2005 publication, A Guide to Fiction Set in Vermont, features more than four hundred works of fiction written for young people. Clear categories for picture books, easy readers, children’s fiction, and young adult fiction allow readers to easily browse the title summaries. Handy indexes enable quick searches for titles, subjects, real place settings, and illustrators. Included are works by noted contemporary writers such as Julia Alvarez, Gregory Maguire, and M.E. Kerr, as well as young adult classics by Louisa May Alcott, Robert Newton Peck, and Paul Zindel.

Private Treasures: Four Centuries of European Master Drawings Margaret Morgan Grasselli ’68 National Gallery of Art, 2007 Within the pages of this gorgeous, large-format catalogue are ninetythree full-color drawings from America’s finest collections of European masters. Grasselli, curator and head of old master drawings at the National Gallery of Art, along with colleagues and curators from the Morgan Library and Museum, collaborated directly with private collectors to gather these images for public viewing. Featured works by artists such as Fra Bartolommeo, Correggio, Delacroix, Fragonard, Gainsborough, and Degas span four centuries of fine art. Each work is accompanied by detailed descriptions, written by specialists in the field of master drawings.

CA Bookshelf by Martha Kennedy, Library Director

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Utopia, New Jersey: Travels in the Nearest Eden Perdita Buchan, Former Faculty Rivergate Books, 2007

Photos by Tara Bradley

Meet CA’s New Trustees

D. Pike Aloian P’03

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

ike Aloian has uniquely deep ties to Concord Academy. His father, David A. Aloian, was CA’s fifth head of school, from 1963 to 1971; during that period Pike lived in Phelps and Lee houses. His mother, Mary “Mimi” Frankenberg Aloian Kissling, graduated from CA with the Class of 1948 and taught art at CA while David was headmaster. Pike’s grandmother, Patricia E. Frankenberg, was a housemother in Bradford and director of admissions from 1954 to 1970. In May 1970, the board president, Irving Chase, established a financial aid fund, the Patricia E. Frankenberg Scholarship Fund, to honor her years of service to Concord Academy. But Pike Aloian brings much more than a strong CA lineage to the Board of Trustees. The school will benefit from his years of experience and expertise in investment, finance, and real estate. A managing partner of Rothschild Realty Managers, LLC, a real estate

investment management firm based in New York, Aloian specializes in providing capital to public and private real estate companies and in working with these enterprises to profitably grow their businesses. He serves on the board of directors of several real estate companies, including two that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Brandywine Realty Trust and EastGroup Properties. Aloian earned his BA from Harvard College and an MBA from Columbia University, where he has also served as an adjunct professor of finance and real estate. He lives in Darien, Connecticut, with his wife Leslie and has two sons, John and Andrew ’03.

Paul S. Barth P’06, ’10

aul Barth’s technological expertise will be valuable to the Board of Trustees. Currently managing partner of NewVantage Partners, a strategic advisory firm he

cofounded, Barth has gained a reputation as a best-practices expert in data management, with years of experience helping Fortune 100 corporations leverage their information as a strategic asset. NewVantage, based in Dedham, Massachusetts, advises senior executives of leading financial services firms on emerging technologies and solutions. Before NewVantage, Barth was cofounder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Tessera Enterprise Systems, a systems integration firm; he became CTO of iXL Enterprises, a leading international Internet integration firm, following the merger of Tessera and iXL in 1999. Barth also was vice president of technology at Epsilon Data Management (an American Express company), and held senior technology positions at Thinking Machines and Schlumberger. Barth holds a BA from Hampshire College, a master’s from Yale, and a PhD from MIT. He is married to Kathy Knight; together they cochaired CA’s Senior Parent Gift Committee in 2005–06. They live in Lexington with their three sons, Brian ’06, Casey ’10, and Jason.

Silvia Gosnell P‘10

n the world of nonprofit boards, Silvia Gosnell is a veteran. Currently a member of the board and the executive committee of WGBH, the

primary public media outlet in New England, Gosnell also holds a seat on the advisory board of the Trinity Boston Counseling Center, and formerly held positions on Massachusetts General Hospital’s President’s Council, on the

board of the Meadowbrook School, and on the vestry of Trinity Church in Boston. A clinical psychologist in private practice and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, Gosnell also is a mental health consultant to Partners in Health in Boston and has visited its sites in Haiti and Peru. In her practice, she works primarily with economically disadvantaged patients, many of them Latino. Formerly an associate with Palmer & Dodge, a Boston law firm, Gosnell earned a BA and a law degree from Yale and a PhD in clinical psychology from Adelphi University. She lives in Cambridge with her son Philip ’10, but her CA connections don’t stop there: her sister-in-law, Robin Travers, graduated from CA in 1973,

Erin Pastuszenski P’10

rin Pastuszenski’s resume is brimming with volunteer experience in independent schools. Currently president of CA Parents and thus an ex-officio board member, she served last year as parent news coordinator. Pastuszenski has cochaired the Annual Fund for Boston University Academy, and now chairs that school’s Alumni Parent Council. For

of Women Voters of ConcordCarlisle. When she was practicing law, Pastuszenski was an associate with Bingham, Dana & Gould in Boston; a staff attorney with Textron, Inc.; and a junior partner with Nutter, McClennen & Fish. Pastuszenski, who has a BA from the University of Arizona and a JD from Cornell, also was director of placement and career services at Northeastern University School of Law. Pastuszenski and her husband Brian, a partner at Goodwin Procter, live in Concord and have two sons, Charlie ’10 and Edward, a graduate of Boston University Academy and a sophomore at Stanford.

Katrina “Kate” B. Pugh ’83

roject-oriented consulting skills and longtime dedication to Concord Academy make Kate Pugh a key addition to the Board of Trustees. As vice president of the Alumnae/i Association for Alumnae/i Giving, she holds an ex-officio board position.

nine years, she chaired the Sage School Board of Trustees, and continues to be involved on the school’s development and capital campaign committees. Pastuszenski volunteers outside education too: she is communications director and a member of the executive steering committee for the League

Pugh has been vice president for knowledge management at Fidelity Investments; a senior manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting, in their strategy practice; a first vice president and senior project manager on management information systems strategy at JPMorgan Chase in Chicago and New York; and a knowledge and project manager with Intel Solution Services. She

has a BA from Williams College and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Pugh’s history at Concord Academy stretches all the way back to 1930, when her great aunt, the late Elizabeth Bosley Brewster, graduated. Other CA graduates in her family include her sister, Becky Pugh Brown ’81, and her brother, Alex ’85. Kate Pugh has been a class agent, class secretary, leadership solicitor, and reunion coordinator; she has led the Nominating Committee and worked on the Alumnae/i Council’s technology team. Pugh became involved in the Alumnae/i Council in 1987, after graduating from college, and she’s remained involved ever since, even as she changed jobs and moved from state to state.

Karmala Sherwood

armala Sherwood leads a school that faces challenges distinct from Concord Academy’s, and that makes her perspective on the board par-

ticularly valuable. Head of the Smith Leadership Academy Charter School, Sherwood brings her strong leadership skills to CA’s board, along with a passion for community and equity in education and an intimate understanding of the daily trials that face urban schools. After twenty years of experience in the Boston public schools, Sherwood became head of Smith Leadership Academy in 2006, after two years as instructional leader and a year as principal. The

school, in the Dorchester area of Boston, serves 216 students in grades six through eight, mostly of African American, Caribbean, and Latino descent. Many live with one parent; several live in foster care or shelters. Sherwood earned a BA from Albion College, attended Tufts University, and received a master’s degree from Lesley University. As head of Smith Leadership Academy, she has championed school reform, standards-based learning, and literacy.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

and her father-in-law and mother-in-law, Tom and Georgia Gosnell, are grandparent cochairs of Annual Giving for 2008–09, their second year in the position.

A Guide to the Chameleon Connection: Your Online Alumnae/i Community

e talk a lot about community at Concord Academy. The school’s mission is based on students and teachers working together as a community of learners, discovering how to balance individual freedom with responsibility and service to the larger world around us. As alumnae/i, we are constantly creating new communities in our work and family experiences. With increasing demands on our time, and as our experiences become richer and broader, maintaining these connections can become challenging. Thankfully, technology is constantly evolving, enabling us to strengthen our communities in new and exciting ways. Have you had a chance to explore the new Chameleon Connection Web site (concordalum.org)? This valuable tool helps alumnae/i of all classes keep in touch with the community they formed while at CA. We invite you to find old friends, explore Concord Academy alumnae/i in the news, and connect with current faculty and staff members. These two pages provide a primer to help you navigate the site. For alumnae/i who do not participate in social networking sites on the Internet, you will be pleasantly surprised at the connections you can reestablish using the Chameleon Connection. For graduates who are already on Facebook or LinkedIn, this site will enhance your CA network by enabling you to link with alumnae/i in your industry or location, as well as by keeping you connected with news or alumnae/i events in your area. We look forward to seeing you on the Chameleon Connection and hope you take advantage of all the features this tool has to offer.

How to Use the Chameleon Connection for the First Time

What You Can Do on the Chameleon Connection

Go to www.concordalum.org.

You can create a profile to help you connect with alumnae/i in your class. Please include information such as industry, geographic location, and the college or graduate school you attended. Providing this information will help other Concord Academy graduates connect with you. (This site is password-protected and is viewable by only Concord Academy alumnae/i and faculty.) On the Chameleon Connection, you can also:

Click on First-time login for alumnae/i in the right column. Enter your email address and hit Reset Password. A password will be sent to the email you entered. You may change your password on your profile page. After you receive your password, click on Log in to My Chameleon Connection in the right column of the Welcome page and follow the prompts. If you have problems, please go to Help at the bottom of any page and email webmaster@concordacademy.org.

• Search for other alumnae/i who live in your area • Find alumnae/i in your industry and connect professionally • Find news articles on Concord Academy alumnae/i • Learn about alumnae/i events in your area • Connect with a current staff or faculty member • Send an email or private message

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

• Share and view photos • Post a Class Note

Maureen Mulligan ’80 President, Alumnae/i Association

• Start a group discussion • Update your street and email addresses so you can receive the most recent communications about Concord Academy • Save postage and paper

Chameleon Connection: Finding Your Classmates

Chameleon Connection: Finding News and Events

Chameleon Connection: Finding Faculty and Staff

Go to www.concordalum.org and log in with your username and password.

Personal news, such as weddings, births, and “where am I now” information, is posted directly by alumnae/i on their personal profile pages. To update your own profile, click on the My Profile link in the left column, then use the links under your name in the right column to update information.

To find current faculty and staff, you must log in to the Chameleon Connection with your username and password. In the menu on the left side, select Find Faculty & Staff.

To view names of all members in any class year, click on the Class Pages link in the left column. Use the dropdown menu to select a class year, and you will be directed to that class page. Alumnae/i names appear in the center of the screen. Click on the name to view a profile. For a more targeted search, click on the Find Alumnae/i link in the left column. This provides a way to search for alumnae/i by last name, name while at CA, geographic location, industry, college attended, and interests. Simply fill in any of the boxes with the words you want to search (some fields have selections available in a drop-down menu). Click on the Search button at the bottom of the form. All alumnae/i who match those search terms will be displayed.

To view information posted by other alumnae/i, click on the Class Notes link in the left column. (Chameleon Connection Class Notes are not included in the printed Concord Academy magazine. To submit a note for the printed magazine, please contact your class secretary.) News posted by the Alumnae/i Programs Office, usually concerning professional honors, new books, film releases, and national and international scholarship awards, can be viewed by clicking the Alumnae/i News link in the left column. These news articles are shared to the class page of the alumna/us profiled in the story, as well as to the concordalum.org eNewsletter that is distributed several times a year to alumnae/i.

Using the provided form, fill in any of the fields to search. To view names of all current faculty and staff, be sure all fields are blank (including Choose Department), then select Search. Once the name (or names) from your search appear, you can then send faculty or staff members a private message via email, add them as friends, or invite them to join a Chameleon Connection group.

— Karen Culbert, Advancement Associate

Alumnae/i events are displayed by clicking the Alumnae/i Events link in the left column. For more information, click directly on the event name.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

You have two ways to locate CA classmates on the Chameleon Connection; the first is a listing by class, and the second is a search tool that allows you to locate alumnae/i in a more targeted way.

by John McGarry, Associate Director of Admissions and Director of Financial Aid

he special sauce in the McDonald’s Big Mac. The secret formula in Coca-Cola. The marriage of peanut butter with jelly. These are all examples of synergistic relationships combining to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Add to the list another mystical life force, a “game changer” for the Concord Academy Admissions Office: the parent tour guide. Let me explain. Many visiting families are surprised when they visit Concord Academy for the first time and learn that the student will be toured by one of our current students while the parents will be shown around by a parent. More than fifty of our current parents, mostly day parents but more than a few boarding parents, currently volunteer as guides for the Admissions Office. It’s their way to support efforts to introduce our school to the more than eight hundred families who interview each year. In the Admissions Office, we hear sincere appreciation for CA’s unique approach to the campus tour. Families value the opportunity to converse with someone who was in their shoes a short time ago. And a parent tour can serve as an objective introduction to the campus—a valuable resource that parents may not get at other schools. While parents are touring with parents, prospective students are engaged in peer-to-peer conversation, unencum-

Photos by Tara Bradley

ADMISSIONS CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

PARENTS AND POP ROCKS: It’s All About Synergy

CA’s parent tour guides

bered by the parent question or comment which, although well-intentioned, sometimes embarrasses a student at a time when nerves may already be frayed. Why are so many CA parents eager to volunteer in this capacity? It’s not the free Jolly Ranchers candy. Many—especially those who learn little from their own tight-lipped teens—appreciate a regularly scheduled opportunity to walk around the campus, to serve as ambassadors for the school, and to keep up-to-date on what’s happening at CA. Others describe the pleasure of meeting parents who share similar educational values. I suspect more than a few of our parent tour guides take advantage of the chance to experience a window into their children’s academic lives. Some of our parent guides really like it: Tim and Mary Hult p’98, ’00, ’02 served as tour guides throughout the eight years their three children were enrolled at CA. Ann Gund p’08 remains one of our dedicated tour guides despite

her son Grady’s graduation last year. For some of our tour guides, a sense of graciousness and hospitality run in the family: boarder Morgan Ingari ’09 has toured for several years, her dad Frank volunteered as a parent tour guide for Morgan’s first three years at CA, and now her mother Margaret is touring as well. In fact, twenty-seven of our parent tour guides have children who volunteer as student tour guides. Parent tour guides are the secret bonus in the Concord Academy admissions experience. Just like the consumer who purchases Pop Rocks candy for the fruit flavor then delights at the bubbly effervescence, so is the visiting family pleasantly surprised by the added value that a parent tour provides. We in the Admissions Office recognize this PopRocks contribution by our parent volunteers and appreciate a school that fosters such a cooperative spirit between parents and the rest of the community. Besides, parent tour guides do not cause cavities.

EIL meet. Honorable mention Lewis Salas ’09, a team cocaptain, finished sixteenth. The successful season depended on the depth of the squad: Seth Ritland ’09, Julian Bercu ’10, Toby Bercu ’11, Dexter Blumenthal ’11, and Alistair Wilson ’11 were key contributors. Second-year coach Jon Waldron was named EIL Coach of the Year. The girls cross country team ran to a second-place finish in the EIL Championship meet, its best finish in over a decade, guided by coach Karina Johnson.

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Dan Sanford

The girls varsity field hockey team finished 7−5−1 and won the Eastern Independent League Pool B Tournament. Cocaptain Hannah Kaemmer ’09, the team’s leading scorer with eleven goals and six assists, was named to the EIL All-League team, as was Olivia Pimm ’10. Cocaptain Elizabeth Hoffman ’09 consistently put the ball in the goal, tallying nine goals and one assist. Liz Novis, formerly a standout player at Bentley College, coached the team for the first time.

At first it looked like a rebuilding year for boys cross country; the near-recordsized team of twenty-seven included ten freshmen. Instead, the varsity team — including five underclassmen — compiled a 7−1 record and won the EIL championship for the second year in a row. Dylan Awalt-Conley ’10 emerged as the team’s most consistent performer, winning three regular-season races and placing second at the EIL championship, which earned him All-League honors. Cocaptain Eric Edelstein ’09 also made All-League for his sixth-place finish at the

AT H L E T I C S

FALL HIGHLIGHTS

AT H L E T I C S

Cocaptain Emma Quinn ’09 earned All-League and All-New England honors, placing fourth at the EIL Championship meet and sixth at the New England Prep School Track Association (NEPSTA) meet. Kyra Morris ’11 was named an EIL All-League honorable mention.

players, eleven sophomores, and one freshman.

The boys varsity soccer team finished 7−7−2 overall, 5−7−2 in the league. Cocaptain Josh Reed-Diawuoh ’09 received EIL All-League recognition and was named to the New England Senior All-Star team. Alex Milona ’11 was also named an EIL All-League player in his first year with the team. The team, coached for the ninth year by Adam Simon, was young, with six returning

The girls varsity soccer team returned just nine players from last year and felt the loss of nine seniors. Coach Tim Seston is looking ahead after a 1−11−1 season, which did feature an exciting win over league rival Beaver Country Day School, 2−0.

Photos by Dan Sanford

The CA golf team, led by veteran coach Tim Hult P’98, ’00, ’02, finished fourth out of nine teams in the league, with a 7−9 record. For the second consecutive year, Justin Stedman ’09 made the All-League

team and Max Silverman ’10 was named an honorable mention.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

E I L A L L - L E A G U E P L AY E R S

Olivia “Lee” Hall Delfausse ’62

Boys Soccer Alex Milona ’11 Josh Reed-Diawuoh ’09 Chris Walker-Jacks ’12 (honorable mention) Golf Justin Stedman ’09 Max Silverman ’10 (honorable mention) Boys Cross Country Dylan Awalt-Conley ’10 Eric Edelstein ’09 Lewis Salas ’09 (honorable mention) Girls Cross Country Emma Quinn ’09 Kyra Morris ’11 (honorable mention) Girls Soccer Emme Arnzen ’09 (honorable mention)

ee Hall Delfausse ’62 might never have been a national ski champion if not for Concord Academy’s headmistress, Elizabeth Hall. It was 1961, and CA teachers weren’t wild about a student missing two weeks of school, at least not to compete with the junior national ski team in Montana. “Mrs. Hall unilaterally decided that my participation in a national event was more important than school,” Delfausse remembered. “I came in fourth in the event, propelled myself onto the national scene.” She went on to ski at Middlebury College for two years, until she was invited to travel with the U.S. national team in Europe. After four years, a serious ankle injury derailed her ski career. Still bursting with athletic energy, she spoke to the tennis coach at Berkeley, where she had enrolled, and spent two years on the team there. Delfausse’s first tennis lessons had been at about age ten, at the Concord Country Club, but lessons about hard work came much earlier. “My parents made me work even when I was twelve or thirteen, to help pay for skis,” she said. “I’d weed dandelions for a penny apiece when I was little.” From the beginning, she attacked the court the same way she did the ski slope — with a vengeance. And as a senior player today, she still has the fire, riding a string of national titles into the New England Tennis Hall of Fame, where she was inducted this past summer. In doubles play in her age group, she ranked number-one nationally from 1989 through 1995, and number-two in 1996 and 1997. Her current goal? “To be in the top three in the country again in my age group.” Her partner and opponent Molly Hahn introduced Delfausse at the Hall of Fame ceremony as “a risk-taker, willing to go for big shots on important points, willing to push her body hard, sometimes beyond its limits as she flies through the air, only

to be carried off the court.” Hahn spoke of a player who was known for “rehabbing like crazy from an injury in order to return to top shape in time for a competition” and “developing a topspin forehand that few sixty-and-over players possess.” At sixty-four, Delfausse frequently travels from her New Hampshire home to play in tournaments; she competes primarily in the sixty-and-over group, though she recently placed third nationally in the fifty-five-plus bracket. She retired in June after twenty-five years’ teaching high school literature, and has also taught tennis since 1976, coaching various high school teams and running tennis travel tours. Delfausse has won three motherdaughter national championships with Sarah Delfausse Olsen, who seems to have inherited the tennis gene; Olsen coaches and recently published a children’s book, Tennis for Me. For all her tennis championships, and the skiing accolades of her youth, Delfausse’s mother-daughter titles mean the most. “The first gold ball with my daughter was probably the high point of my athletic career,” she said. “I’ve won national titles in skiing, but it doesn’t compare to a team effort with my daughter.” Whether playing beside her daughter or against a number-one seed, Delfausse’s skill is surpassed only by her sportsmanship. “It’s not about beating people. It’s never been that way for me,” she said. “It’s, how can I work to be the best I can be? If my opponent’s better than I am, I congratulate her heartily.” She may not be cutthroat, but she is competitive. In fact, few could handle the intensity of Delfausse’s brand of athletics. “It takes a certain personality because you’re going to fall down a lot of times,” she admitted. “It’s not about falling down, it’s about how you pick yourself up.” — Gail Friedman 43

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Girls Field Hockey Hannah Kaemmer ’09 Olivia Pimm ’10 Louisa Smythe ’10 (honorable mention)

David R. Gammons

A RT S P

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

ass the Salt, a short play by Aliza Rosen ’10, was chosen for publication in an anthology of fifteen studentwritten plays. Aliza, right, wrote the play in a CA workshop preparing for the Massachusetts Young Playwrights Festival, where it was staged. The anthology publisher, Samuel French Inc., discovered Pass the Salt when Aliza directed it for a playwriting festival at her acting camp. The play examines the lives of a dysfunctional couple through their inner monologues; the individuals’ conversations converge only over mundane talk, saying things such as “pass the salt.”

Aliza says her work continues to surprise her. “The play is quite complex, and I still discover new things about it each time I read it,” she said. Libby Chamberlin ’09

Shake the Pepper

Alison Merrill ’09

Students in The Tsarina's Harp, cowritten by music teacher Keith Daniel, English teacher Parkman Howe, and two non-CA colleagues.

Best Bounce

lex White ’10 and Edmund Metzold ’11, above, won the Best Young Filmmaker Award at the 2008 Northhampton Independent Film Festival. Bounce, about the adventures of a young boy’s rubber band ball, was a project for a fall 2007 Filmmaking 1 class. See the film at concordacademy.org/bounce.

Faculty Bonding

KO RI CY NT CH RI

hroughout October, members of CA’s Visual Arts Department exhibited paintings, photographs, film, sculpture, and other works at the Concord Free Public Library. The exhibit, dedicated solely to CA visual arts faculty, was a refreshing opportunity for students to rediscover their teachers as artists. And faculty said they enjoyed the chance to bond with their fellow artists and colleagues. Visual Arts Department Head Cynthia Katz, a photography teacher who showed abstract portraits of lilies, called it “thrilling to do something that we are passionate about together.”

AN TO

CON

IN BU LL

LE DA RL

EB ER FE EN

IN G

LE '9 9

HI A KA TZ

S RO W

JO NA TH AN

JE SS

Alison Merrill ’09

JU ST NI CO BE N

SM IT

IC A ST RA

IN ET

Cardboa rd,

Chr Water is Rowe Bun paper, and sco galow tch tape

TE W IN TE

RS Jessica Straus Wood, paint, and foun Foghorn d obje ct

COR

D AC ADE MY VISU AL A FA C RTS U LT Y EXH at the IBIT Concord

Jonath an Sm ith Occipita pencil on pan l el

Oil and

Free Pu blic Lib Octob rary er 2 – 31, 20 08

— Daphne Kim ’10

Cynthia Lily Seri Katz Gelatin es #17 silver print

Ben Ebe Inbound rle ’99 Low-fire , Outbound ceramic and woo d

CA students at Rock ‘n’ Roll

Federal Subsidies

ummer Stages Dance at Concord Academy has received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts — its first NEA grant — for its acclaimed Meet the Artist performance series. To see the line-up of contemporary dance artists and companies coming to Summer Stages this July, visit summerstagesdance.org.

A Culture of Generosity

o far this year, CA students have attended a professional dance performance, two musicals, and a symphony concert through an initiative known as the Boston Program. The program, funded by a donor who wishes to remain anonymous, allows students to attend cultural events at no cost. Dean of Students and Community Life David

Rost and Theatre Program Director David R. Gammons chose the program’s events, which include Moontides in 23,149 Parts by the Movement Workshop Group, the musicals Legally Blonde and Spring Awakening, the Philharmonia Quartett Berlin, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, the Preservation Hall Band, Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll, and Chekhov’s The Three Sisters.

Amy Spencer and Jake Dresden at the Baryshnikov Arts Center

Academy, and Dresden praised Summer Stages as “one of the thrills of the time I’ve been at the school. I’ve had a great deal of fun supporting it, watching it grow, and seeing the dancers who were at CA now in New York City and other places.” Several CA and Summer Stages alumnae/i, parents, and past parents attended the performance and a reception in Dresden’s honor.

Double Billing he Concord Academy Orchestra and the Community Youth Orchestras (CYO) of Boston held a joint evening concert in December, performing the Manfredini Pastorale, Haydn’s Symphony No. 30, the Boccherini Fandango guitar quintet, and the Mascagni Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana. Guest guitarist Gustavo AssisBrasil accompanied the Boccherini work. The CA Orchestra played the same program without the CYO during an assembly the previous day. CA Orchestra conductor Debra Thoresen also directs the CYO.

Chris Elam/Misnomer Dance Theater

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

n September, Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy and the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) presented a special showing of its 2008 Artist Residency Project in honor of Head of School Jake Dresden’s commitment to arts education. The event, at the BAC in New York City, previewed a work in progress by the current recipients of the artist residency — choreographer and new media artist Nell Breyer and dancers/choreographers Alissa Cardone, Lorraine Chapman, and Bronwen MacArthur. The work premieres in full this summer during Summer Stages’ 2009 Meet the Artist series. Also performing were the Chris Elam/Misnomer Dance Theater (a 2007 resident) and the Dance Conduction Continuum #4 with Burnt

Sugar Arkestra (a recently named 2009 resident). Performing Arts Department Head Amy Spencer and dance faculty Richard Colton, cofounders and directors of Summer Stages Dance, approached Dresden in 2005 with the idea to collaborate with Mikhail Baryshnikov and the Boston Ballet. Dresden supported the initiative, which has evolved into the Artist Residency Project. The residency supports choreographers and their companies as they develop new works. Residents spend three weeks in July at Summer Stages Dance in Concord and three weeks in late fall at the BAC in New York. Colton called the residency “a bit of perfection in an imperfect world.” At the event, Spencer thanked Dresden for his support of creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit at Concord

Photos by George Lange Photography

Dresden Honored in NYC

Sadie Rain Hope-Gund

ARTS

Catherine Gund ’83 is an award-winning documentary maker and founder of Aubin Pictures, a New York based, not-for-profit company that produces films focusing on issues of social justice. Gund’s documentaries include Motherland Afghanistan; Making Grace; On Hostile Ground; Hallelujah! Ron Athey: A Story of Deliverance; When Democracy Works; Positive: Life with HIV; Sacred Lies, Civil Truths; Not Just Passing Through; the Emmy-nominated A Touch of Greatness; and her current work, What’s On Your Plate? She lives in New York City with her partner Bruce Morrow and children Sadie, 12, Kofi and Rio, 9, and Tenzin, 4. Gund answered questions by email. She had more to say than space allows. Check out her full interview at concordacademy.org/gund. And learn more about What’s On Your Plate? at whatsonyourplateproject.org.

Q&A

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

Catherine Gund ’83 46

With so many moving stories and worthy causes in the world, how do you choose your projects? Each project has grown from a conversation, a bit of footage, or a great proposal that really sparked something in me. There are so many vital issues and subjects that concern me, but finding a charismatic character to tell the story is hard. My documentaries are driven by characters, not issues; by a person or people who are so compelling that they could be talking about almost anything and I would listen. My most recent project picked me. For the first time, I was actually casting about for an idea, asking friends what subjects they felt were underrepresented, asking people about folks in their lives who fascinate them. Then, when my daughter Sadie became a vegetarian at nine years old, we talked about her choice and what it would mean for her diet. I told her that vegetarians can’t just eat pasta and pizza, and she told me that some

of her friends do just that. I explained why it wasn’t healthy for anyone to eat such an unbalanced diet. Sadie suggested we make a film about vegetarians gone bad. Although I could instantly picture the pulp fiction–style poster, we never made that movie. Instead, we started to work together on What’s On Your Plate?, a documentary about kids and food politics. That was about two years ago. And that’s the project I’m still working on. How do you maintain a sense of objectivity? Is that necessary? I find it amusing when people claim to be “objective” since the filmmaker is an inevitable filter. I definitely choose to represent people I believe in. One of my first feature documentaries, On Hostile Ground, was about abortion providers, and while we were filming, I recall being asked (often) whether we were going to “balance” the story or “show both sides,” and I kept wondering what was the other “side” to a doctor doing her job. We did however include protesters at abortion clinics. I do find it valuable to present material in an accessible and calm way so that viewers aren’t turned off by strident, dogmatic, or didactic material — which isn’t to say I don’t feel opinionated. Challenging as it is, I want the broadest possible audience to benefit from engaging with the people, stories, and issues raised in my films. Have you made films in which you did not consider yourself an advocate for the cause portrayed? If so, please describe some differences between filming as an advocate versus as more of an observer? Advocate is too strong a word because I prefer to present a situation

or person as is and let the audience decide. That said, there are definitely projects where I do have a strong connection to the subject matter and want to open people’s eyes. On Hostile Ground was one of those types of films. Making Grace, about a lesbian couple trying to have a baby, is another example. I make documentaries instead of mainstream Hollywood movies because I’m concerned with social consciousness-raising. In What’s On Your Plate?, the girls do advocate fixing the food system, but it’s not done in a judgmental or presumptuous way. They ask a lot of questions first, and they learn as the year progresses to the point where they want to change the harmful business practices around food that they encounter. They participate in improving the school lunch program, and they commit to raising funds for more farmers’ markets in East Harlem. And finally, they decide to continue working with the farmers they met during the planting and harvesting seasons. In this way, they’re modeling what motivated people can do. What are some of the most difficult challenges you face as a documentary filmmaker? Raising money is the number-one challenge for independent filmmakers. Many social justice funders won’t fund film projects, and many broadcasters — who commission work — want sensationalist, commercial material. The funding for the films I’ve made comes from many different sources, which range from foundations to government, corporations to individuals. I’ve also raised production money from early distribution deals, as well as in more creative ways, like auctioning things on eBay that people

From What's On Your Plate? : The Angel Family Farm in Goshen, New York

personal challenge and taught me a few things. Each one fired me up. But my current film is always my favorite. What do you consider the highlight of your career so far? Your 2006 Emmy nomination for A Touch of Greatness (about innovative educator Albert Cullum)? Sure, the Emmy nomination was certainly a highlight, but I also loved meeting Dr. Mojadidi, the ob/gyn in Motherland Afghanistan who has chosen to share his medical knowledge and expertise with doctors (both in Afghanistan and on Native American reservations in the States) who have limited access to training and up-todate information and necessary resources. Also, showing my films to my children always makes me happy.

donate. If you’re lucky, there are things you can’t plan for, such as surprise anonymous PayPal donations. What’s one primary message you hope people take away from What’s On Your Plate? We are facing a crisis. My children are members of the first generation in history to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. Much of that is due to diet-related illnesses such as diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, obesity, and some cancers. The food we buy and eat is less and less sustainable for our health, our environment, and our economy. Until people connect the dots — between underpaid farmers, lack of safe park and playground space, diabetes, confined animal-feeding operations, corporate advertising to children, urban sprawl, and accessibility of local, seasonal, organic food, among other things — this crisis will only worsen. When is the film’s premiere? We intend to complete the film in early 2009. We will premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, followed by a theatrical release, community-based screenings, and television broadcast. We’re developing an extensive outreach campaign in collaboration with nonprofit organizations that are already active in the movement to improve what kids

eat. By spring, we will showcase an interactive Web site for kids and grownups alike. If any educators would like to contact us about our outreach plans, we would be happy to speak with them. And the DVD, complete with extras, excerpts, and study guide materials, will be available by the end of the summer. Could you share one or two moments during production of What’s On Your Plate? that were especially enlightening or inspiring? A farmer, Ana Angel, says that farming in New York State with her husband and four children is her way of merging her children’s U.S. culture and her Mexican culture. Her love of family, her connection with the land, and her attitude toward life inspire me. She sees other options beyond assimilating or isolating. Her desire is to develop a culture in the United States that celebrates immigrant farmers, international cuisines, and health as a way to support families and strengthen communities, a culture that allows food to sustain us all. I read that for Making Grace, about the birth of a lesbian couple’s child, you whittled 65 hours of video into 80 minutes. Is that typical? This time we’re working with over 150 hours to make a 75-minute film. Luck-

ily for documentary filmmakers, tape is cheap. If you let a camera roll and observe more of the action, you’ll capture wonderful, unlikely, and exciting moments that you might have missed if you had to conserve tape stock. Also, a 30-second scene can be made up of images from many different tapes and audio from still other tapes. It’s probably more accurate to imagine building a movie out of select pieces of footage than to think of it as being “cut down” from the whole lot that was filmed. When does the story or arc of a film become apparent to you? In the beginning? During filming? During post-production? Although you have a sense of the broad strokes, the magic of documentary is that you don’t know what’s going to happen or what will be revealed. I am committed to documentary because it’s stranger than fiction and it’s about remaining open to the creative process. Almost always, the footage you end up with will tell you more about the arc than any preconceived plan. The film ultimately will tell you what it wants to be.

Is there anything else on which you’d like to comment? Two years ago we started making What’s On Your Plate? and I am stunned by the awareness and sophistication of my daughter’s generation. They’re so pure in their ideals because they don’t owe anything to any lobbyist or stockholder. They intuitively know when things are wrong, unfair, or lopsided. I am thrilled that my daughter and her friend Safiyah have taken on this project and pursued it with so much honesty, humor, and energy. That Sadie is doing this film with me now is the icing on the Tofutti Cutie.

Which of your films makes you most proud? Why? I’m happy to say that I love all my films, like I love all my tattoos. [She has six.] Each presented its own

W W W . C O N C O R D A C A D E M Y. O R G W I N T E R 2 0 0 9

Chef Bryant Terry with Safiyah Riddle and Sadie Hope-Gund at the Union Square market in New York City

How did you get into filmmaking? In college, I came into a group of activist, on-the-cheap videomakers who were using the media to teach media literacy; they were showing people to read between the lines, and I jumped right in. The collective was called Paper Tiger Television, and they’re still around today. I feel very grateful to all the folks I worked with during those years for being among the best role models, co-conspirators, and fun people I’ve ever met. Actually one tributary was Jon Harris at Concord Academy. He was my photography teacher (now he’s a lawyer), and I loved taking black-andwhite photographs and seeing what came across in a picture. Recently I met with his son, James Kienitz Wilkins, who is an aspiring filmmaker. I love that circle.

amaniwillett.com

Photograph by Amani Willett ’93

IN MEMORIAM

Ann K. Bailet, sister of Jennifer Keller ’86 Anthony J. Blackburn, father of Emma Blackburn ’81 John G. Cornish, husband of Alice Smith Cornish ’40 Richard L. Dupras, grandfather of Charles B. Pannell ’11 Lissa Fowler ’55 Roy J. Moffa, father of Michael A. Moffa ’91 and Lauren Moffa Syer ’92 CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

John Lowe Newbold, husband of Judith Bourne Newbold ’55 and father of Jennifer H. Newbold ’78 Francis B. Sayre, Jr., father of Harriet Sayre McCord ’74 Henry Z. Steinway, father of Susan Z. Steinway ’74 Jeptha H. Wade, father of Rebecca Wade Comstock ’82 Morton D. Weiner, grandfather of Jessica A. Lander ’06 and Daniel A. Lander ’09 Mary Elizabeth Winter, grandmother of Anders W. Rasmussen ’10 Shari Zimble, sister of Lisa Zimble ’79 and Peter S. Zimble ’86 48

Helping Others Ride High Through the Gift of Education Christine Kaufman Thompson ’61 (1943–2007)

hen Christine “Tina” Kaufman Thompson ’61 was a student at Concord Academy, she was known as a generous friend and a talented artist who worked hard and loved life. Her former roommate, Sallie Cross Kingham ’61, has lively memories of their years together at CA, when Tina would receive notes from her many boyfriends and dream of the day when she would have her own home and family. Sallie recalled, in particular, a special moment when she and Tina were about to room together. They discovered a third bed had been placed in the double room and learned it was for a younger student who needed emergency housing because of a family tragedy. “Tina’s warm and loving nature came to the fore,” recalled Sallie. “Neither of us had been expecting a third roommate, but she took the lead in making the girl feel welcome.” Tina was also an avid athlete during her CA years, especially keen on field hockey and lacrosse. In more recent times, until her death in February 2007, she took great pleasure in reading, tending her garden, caring for her many pets, and sailing. But most of all she loved riding horses. It was her daughter Stacey’s love of riding that inspired Tina to learn after her daughter left for college in 1983. She loved the challenge so much that she even described the dressage event, which many find technical and often trying, as “dancing on horseback.” In all of life’s endeavors, Tina valued education. It was this love of learning and her fond memories of CA that inspired her generous bequest to Concord Academy, which endowed the aptly named Dancing Horse Scholarship Fund. Tina hoped her bequest will help bright, deserving students who cannot afford CA to benefit from the full experience she herself had enjoyed. Printed in the program at Tina’s memorial service, held at her farm “Dancing Horse” in Stowe, Vermont, was the Nigerian proverb: “Hold a true friend with both of your hands.” Sallie Kingham remembered her old roommate as someone who did just that. “It is hard to believe she is gone because she was so vital and optimistic,” she said. Sallie believes the Dancing Horse Scholarship Fund is the perfect legacy for Tina because it ensures that the generosity which defined her life will live on, helping students at CA thrive, year after year.

Tina Kaufman Thompson '61 in her CA yearbook and riding her horse

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

Address service requested

Special Events

Assemblies

February 7

April 22−25

Performing Arts Center, 2:10 p.m. Alumnae/i, parents, past parents, and former faculty are welcome at assemblies.

Dance All Day Festival Dance and Performance Space, 1:00 p.m.

CA Dance Company at Bear Spot Farm 276 Pope Road, Concord, 7:30 p.m., $15

February 20–21

May 11, 13

Picnic by William Inge Winter Mainstage Theatre Production Performing Arts Center, 7:30 p.m., $12

Music Performance Workshop Smith Room, 7:30 p.m.

March 2

Music Performance Workshop Smith Room, 7:30 p.m. March 25

“Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project” Hall Fellow Dr. Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Performing Arts Center, 7:30 p.m. March 27

Student/Faculty Basketball Game to benefit Special Olympics Student Health and Athletic Center, 7:30 p.m. April 3–5

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE WINTER 2009

Directors Seminar Theatre Festival All in the Timing by David Ives It’s Clementine Season, My Peach by Ana Luderowski ’09 Performing Arts Center/Student Health and Athletic Center Atrium, 7:30 p.m. Free

CA Parents Benefit for Financial Aid Student Health and Athletic Center, 6:30 p.m.

Tea by Velina Hasu Houston Asian Students Association Production Performing Arts Center, 7:30 p.m. Free

March 5

CA Percussion Ensemble

Senior Class BBQ with Alumnae/i Ransome Room, 6:00 p.m.

April 2

Alumnae/i Association Annual Meeting Ransome Room, 7:30 p.m.

Davidson Lecturer Donna Tabor Founder of Building New Hope, an organization that fights poverty in Central America

May 15−16

April 9

Theatre 3 Company presents Howl and On the Road Performing Arts Center, 7:30 p.m., $12

CA Jazz Ensemble April 16

CA Chorus May 18

CA Orchestra Performing Arts Center, 7:00 p.m.

April 23

May 21

Athletic and Senior Recognition Event Performing Arts Center, 6:15 p.m.

CA Film

Composer Augusta Read Thomas

May 22−29

Spring Student Art Show Math and Arts Center Reception May 22, 3:45 p.m.

Baccalaureate 7:30 p.m. May 29

April 17

Matt Taibbi ’87, Rolling Stone political correspondent

May 12

May 28 April 4

February 26

Commencement Chapel Lawn, 10:00 a.m. June 12–14

Reunion Weekend

Check for updated information at www.concordacademy.org/calendars. 50

Jake

TEACHER

Dresden

M ENTOR LEADER

Concord Academy 2000–2009

For updates and details on the following receptions, which honor CA’s departing head of school, check concordacademy.org or call (978) 402-2217. March 5 March 10 April 14 April 15 May 1

New York City Washington, D.C. San Francisco Los Angeles Concord