CA Magazine Spring 2012 by Concord Academy

spring 2012

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGA ZINE

C Meet the Concord Academy alumnae/i who are working to protect our planet Sebastian Junger â&#x20AC;&#x2122;80 visits campus Class Notes

CO NCO RD ACADEMY MISSION Concord Academy engages its students in a community animated by a love of learning, enriched by a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives, and guided by a covenant of common trust. Students and teachers work together as a community of learners dedicated to intellectual rigor and creative endeavor. In a caring and challenging atmosphere, students discover and develop talents as scholars, artists, and athletes and are encouraged to find their voices. The school is committed to embracing and broadening the diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, and talents of its people. This diversity fosters respect for others and genuine exchange of ideas.

Photos by Ben Eberle

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.

Bona Chang â&#x20AC;&#x2122;13 Sculpture, Fall 2011

David R. Gammons

spring 2012

Editor

Anne-Marie Dorning Design

Irene Chu ’76 Class Notes Editor

Karen Kerns Assistant Director of Advancement Services

Editorial Board

page

Karen Culbert p’15

Assistant Director of Alumnae/i Programs

Arts coverage

Anne-Marie Dorning Associate Director of Communications

Kathleen Kelly Director of Advancement

F E A T U R E S

6 Sebastian Junger ’80 on War

Carol Sacknoff Director of Stewardship

19 Arts Q&A: Tapp Francke ’89

Pam Safford Associate Head for Communications, Enrollment, and Planning

Lucille Stott

Making Hydrocarbons History: James May ’96

Dean of Faculty

The Messenger: Belinda Griswold ’90

Billie Julier Wyeth ’76 Director of Alumnae/i Programs

D E P A R T M E N T S

Protecting Our Oceans: Betsy Nicholson ’91 Dangers in the Deep: Christie Wilcox ’03

Message from the Head of School

Concord Academy magazine welcomes story ideas and letters to the editor.

Water, Water, Everywhere: Gretchen Roorbach, faculty

Campus News

The Real Dirt: Hannah Hobbs Wolbach ’97 and Ben Wolbach ’93

CA Bookshelf

Please send correspondence to: Anne-Marie Dorning Concord Academy Magazine 166 Main Street Concord, Massachusetts 01742

Today’s Lesson — Saving the World: David Kukla ’82

Faculty Profile —Ben Stumpf ’88

Sustainability at CA: John Pickle, faculty

Athletic Campus Update

Conservation and the Code: Katie Eberle ’04

Athletics

Building Better: Louisa Bradford ’69

Arts

Alumnae/i Profiles Emily Thompson ’91 Sonia Lo ’84 Ben Carmichael ’01 Neva Goodwin ’62

Alumnae/i Associaton Update

Class Notes

In Memoriam

Or send us an email at adorning@concordacademy.org Concord Academy magazine is printed on recycled paper with soy-based ink.

25 CA Earth

36 The Seventies: The Way It Was

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.

Become a CA Facebook fan facebook.com/concordacademy Follow us on Twitter @concord_academy

Cover photo: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Image by Reto Stöckli

message

from the head of s c hool

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

Gabriel Cooney

Building Relationships

s I step out my front door and walk the few steps down Main Street to my ofﬁce, I often marvel at just how close our campus is both literally and ﬁguratively to the town of Concord. Belknap, Aloian, Wheeler, and all the other Concord Academy houses that dot the landscape on Main Street blend seamlessly with the stately family homes of longtime Concord residents. No fence, no wrought iron gate, and no long winding driveway separate our campus from the town that surrounds us. As a school, we have always believed that there is a richness to be gained by maintaining our twenty-six-acre campus in Concord, a town steeped in historical and literary traditions. Our faculty has also embraced this view. Last fall, CA history teachers immersed their students in the time period of the Revolutionary War by partnering with the experiential learning team at the Old Manse. Classes often head to the Concord Free Public Library to scour primary source documents in the archives. Students in English classes walk around Walden Pond in the path of Henry David Thoreau’s footsteps. Our students’ learning experience is enriched by their surroundings. But I also believe that the town of Concord is a better place for having our school in its midst. At CA we have made it part of our mission to share our resources with our neighbors. Local organizations often hold readings and lectures in the Chapel. The P.A.C. is the home performance base for the Concord Chamber Music Society. Our gymnasium is enlivened every week and weekend by the sound of Concordians young and old playing basketball. Most importantly, our students regularly venture into the community to volunteer at various local organizations including Open Table, a food pantry and supper program that serves needy families in surrounding towns. For the past ninety years, in ways large and small, we have been building relationships with the town in which we live. I have thought a lot about this as I have watched the new Athletic Campus take shape a mile from the main campus. The CA community

had long understood the need for new athletic fields, and in 2007, Concord Academy seized an opportunity to purchase a large parcel of land to address this critical need. As part of the process, CA reached out to its new neighbors in a number of ways. Last summer, we hosted a reception on campus for the abutters where they had the opportunity to view the architectural plans and ask questions. Director of Operations Don Kingman has met personally with homeowners directly affected by the construction of the new campus. He has given tours, explained architectural plans, and answered any and all questions. As a result, initial skepticism about the project has evolved into approval. When we ask our students, as we do every day, to take care of this community that we have embraced, we are forming a model for what we want to happen in the larger world community when our students graduate. We are saying, “Take it upon yourself to make a difference in the world in whatever way you can.” And they do. For the past six years, our students have had the opportunity to participate in service trips after school ends in June. This is not a requirement for graduation, and the timing is such that summer vacation plans are often delayed. Yet there has never been a shortage of students willing to forgo a portion of their summer plans in the pursuit of helping others. This year, groups will head to Nicaragua to build libraries; to Brattleboro, Vermont to help storm-ravaged communities rebuild; and to New Orleans to help out in the Ninth Ward. I like to think that all this is indicative of the way we see ourselves in the world. We care about the rest of this country the way we care about the town that has nurtured us for all these years. The plans for the Athletic Campus call for a baseball diamond, tennis courts, and a number of multiuse fields, all of which are much-needed—and long-awaited—assets for our student-athletes and coaches. Needless to say, the facilities will also be made available for public use. Circling the entire property will be a public walking path—a fitting symbol of our connection with our community.

Rick Hardy Head of School Dresden Endowed Chair

n January 17, 2012, Concord Academy students and faculty participated in a daylong celebration of the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The slate of events included a series of workshops, discussion groups, and a screening of the film Prep School Negro, by André Robert Lee. Lee produced and directed the film about his experiences growing up poor and African American in Philadelphia and attending the predominantly white Germantown Friends School on a scholarship. Lee said that he was “deeply moved” to be asked to be the keynote speaker on a day that honored the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “I am the dream, you are the dream, we are the dream,” Lee told the audience. But, he added, although he flourished in the academic atmosphere

Model UN oncord Academy was named Outstanding Small Delegation at a recent Model United Nations conference at Yale University, capturing the title from a field of more than fifty schools from around the world. Fourteen CA students attended Yale’s thirty-eighth annual Model UN confer-

André Robert Lee

at his prep school, his accomplishments did not come without an emotional cost. “There’s a notion that you often feel like a guest in a stranger’s house. You’re welcome there, but you’re, like, I don’t really want to touch anything, and you’re watching your peers run around, and it’s home for them.” After the film, during a question-and-answer session, Lee was asked, “What aspects of being in a minority

ence, which hosted more than 1,200 delegates from the United States, Europe, and Asia. Besides the group award for the school’s delegation, eight students were singled out for their exceptional performances. Juniors William Murphy ’13 and Josh Troop ’13 were named Best Delegate for their roles on the UN Security Council, as was Sam Shapiro-Kline ’13

for his role in the UN Conference on Science and Technology for Development. Sophomores Kai Salem ’14 and Hunter Moskowitz ’14 received Outstanding Delegate (2nd place) awards for representing India in the World Health Organization committee, and junior Phil Stefani ’13 and sophomore Clem Aeppli ’14 shared an Honorable Mention award as Indian delegates on the

Experience. In the afternoon, a panel of Concord Academy alumnae/i took center stage at the P.A.C. to answer questions and discuss their own experiences as students of color at CA. Vernard Lockhart ’04 admitted that it was a “huge culture shock” coming to CA from his hometown of Chicago. Lockhart said his first two years were difficult ones but he graduated from CA feeling it “was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

C AMPUS NEWS

at a prep school have changed most radically and what has stayed the same?” Lee answered that in his view, “There is more open dialogue now in terms of people talking about differences of experiences . . . there is more room for the conversation now.” After the film, students and faculty broke into smaller workshops to discuss a variety of topics including Deconstructing Bias, Stereotypes and Misconceptions, and the Undocumented Immigrant

Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Max Samels ’12, the head of CA’s Model UN (CAMUN) club, also took second place — an Outstanding Delegate award — for his role on the historical Congress of Vienna. “I’ve been doing it since freshman year. I love it. It’s about debating and politics, everything I love,” said Max. He will be secretary general at CAMUN 2012. 3

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Celebrating MLK Day

CAMPUS NEWS

In March, CA students took a midwinter break from their studies to spend the afternoon touring museums in the Boston area. by C. Adam Pfander ’12 t 12:50 p.m. the bell rang; for once in my CA career, I wasn’t rushing off to class or lounging in the upper Stu-Fac. I was headed out to participate in Gund Museum Day, a day when the life of a typical CA student — if there is such a thing — is put on hold in favor of an afternoon of art, silence, and contemplation. Most people knew which exhibit they wished to visit; available sign-ups for certain museums like the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston or the Institute of Contemporary Art disappeared as quickly as they were posted, gobbled up like candy. I was placed in a group headed to the Davis Museum at Wellesley College. So when the bell rang, my friends and I all headed to Aloian Circle to meet our buses. We walked eagerly,

Photos by Anne-Marie Dorning

Gund Museum Day — A Student’s Reflection

Five Questions for Kim Frederick, CA’s New Hammer Chair

Anne-Marie Dorning

istory Department Head Kim Frederick has been awarded the 2012 Katherine Carton Hammer ’68 Endowed Faculty Chair. The award, named in honor of alumna and former Board of Trustees President Katherine Hammer, recognizes and supports the distinguished work of a mid-career faculty member who has demonstrated outstanding talent in the classroom and inspired educational vision. Frederick has been a teacher at Concord Academy for nine years.

CA When did you discover your passion for history and teaching? KF I was always interested in people’s lives. As an elementary school student, I read the entire shelf of biographies in the school library. Being an historian allows you to have an academic justification for snooping through other people’s diaries. How much more fun can you have? I discovered teaching through coaching. After undergrad, I coached high school Ultimate Frisbee, and I just loved it. The kids were amazing, and watching them gain mastery and independence in something they had known nothing about was inspiring. I had this deep love of history and interest in big issues, and I wanted to be able to work with kids on

grateful to be missing our lastblock classes in favor of a museum trip. We reached Wellesley thirty minutes later — the beautiful campus hidden behind a thick layer of fog. Our tour guide greeted us coming off the bus. She was a bright-eyed, energetic college student, short and thin. She could not be much older than me, but a few years of college gave her an intimacy and familiarity with the art world. In a forty-five minute

those things as well as their forehands and hammer throws. CA What are your thoughts on being awarded the Hammer Chair? KF I feel honored to have been given this opportunity. Every day, I feel lucky to be at this school because I am surrounded by phenomenal colleagues. I am constantly in an environment in which there are creative teachers doing amazing things; who doesn’t benefit from that? I have a great job! CA You have said that you will use the Hammer Chair’s support to investigate and create field and archival research projects and opportunities for CA history stu-

sions, trying to get our tour group to coax out the larger meaning of his artwork. One particular piece was the artist’s portrayal of a baseball diamond. The curve of the field was representative of the arch of his life — his adulthood. Various bats made the piece jump out at you, adding depth to the visual. The concentric layers built upon one another — representative of both the prevalent and invisible aspects weighing on a person’s life. The baseball diamond

dents. What do you mean by that? KF I love field trips. When you get to go to a place, you have the opportunity to attach a sense of place to events in the past. In my American Urban History class we usually take a field trip to the North End. I love to see my students learn to read the environment so they can see the history in it. I would like to go back to CITYterm and find out how they’re teaching teachers — to find out if there is a way to make field trips more systematically meaningful.

KF It is like basketball, but it’s outdoors, on a football-sized field. With a Frisbee. Brilliant! It’s a game where transitions matter. You have to be good at playing both offense and defense. And you have to be good at switching from one to the other instantaneously. It is also a game that is self-refereed. I think that’s why common trust resonates with me. In many other sports, your job is to see what you can get away with, but in Ultimate Frisbee if you’re breaking the rules, why are you playing the game? If you took everything I loved about every sport I’ve ever played and put it together, that’s Ultimate. I hope to be back coaching the CA team next year.

CA In addition to being a history teacher, you are also something of an Ultimate Frisbee expert. What is it that captivates you about the sport?

Jean Kilbourne at CA

he portrayal of women in advertising was the subject of award-winning author and activist Jean Kilbourne’s talk to Concord Academy students in December. Kilbourne’s visit was sponsored by CA’s Community and Equity Office. In her speech, Kilbourne addressed the issues facing young women across the country.

NOV

Save the Date! Friday, November 2 Celebrating Concord Academy’s 90th Keynote address: Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust '64 Main Campus, 1:00 p.m. Friday, November 2 Dedication of the new Concord Academy Athletic Campus Athletic Campus, 3:00 p.m. 5

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tour, she tried to impart at least some of that precious experience to our small group of high school students. The exhibit began at the top of the museum, featuring the art work of Radcliffe Bailey. Bailey’s work is large scale — portraits that take up whole walls; sculpture that reached above my head. It was clear that our tour guide was infatuated with this one artist, having met him as he set up the exhibit. She asked questions, sought our impres-

remains in my memory, not because I am particularly affected by the sport, but because I was finally able to interact with our tour guide. She asked me, “What do you think of this piece?” “I’m not sure,” I answered in earnest. “I can’t see the meaning.” “Well, maybe we are not supposed to,” she told me with the confidence of her education. “Maybe it’s because life is so complicated, we can never really make it out. We see only the top layer, and have our individual impressions.” Her words echoed down the silent wooden hallways of the museum, past the stonyfaced guards and contemplative curators. They rattled through the upper rafters and reverberated within me. It was an education beyond the normal scope, beyond the CA bubble. I was interacting with the real work of a real man, a real artist. I wasn’t looking for just another answer, but instead seeking the right question to ask.

Photos by Tim Morse

Sebastian Junger ’80

War Talk by Alison Lobron

C CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

A’s October 25, 2012, assembly opened with a paradox: Why do so many Americans who consider themselves “against war” nonetheless watch war movies? After a moment of contemplative silence, assembly speaker and best-selling author Sebastian Junger ’80, explained. “War is compelling,” said Junger, who spent a year embedded with American troops in Afghanistan and chronicled the experience in the book War and the documentary ﬁlm Restrepo. “War is about loyalty and bravery, as well as violence,” he said. “If it feels like we’re contradicting ourselves, we are. Many soldiers feel a sense of contradiction within themselves. For the soldiers, horror and intoxication go hand in hand.” In a ﬁfty-minute assembly, Junger captivated his audience of CA students, faculty, staff, and parents with stories of his year in Afghanistan while emphasizing the need for Americans to recognize the complexity of war. Often, he suggested, our public debate consists of liberals 6

talking about the horrors of war while conservatives talk about the heroes. To his mind, neither approach tells the whole story. Too often, he thinks, society fails to recognize many of the nuances: that soldiers can relish the excitement of the battleﬁeld even as they fear the dangers; that they can love their fellow platoon-mates to a degree they hadn’t thought possible; and that because of the excitement and the close bonds, many soldiers themselves miss the war after they get home. “It’s like missing a bad relationship or a bad marriage,” said Junger, adding, “My book is an attempt to explain that.” Junger shared tales—some surprising, some funny, some horrifying—of day-to-day life in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. “It was awful, but also simple. You didn’t have to deal with anything but staying alive,” Junger told the students. “You didn’t have to deal with checking email, or paying bills, or a ﬁght with your girlfriend. In a weird way, it was relaxing.”

Then he added, “But we also all almost got killed.” There were audible gasps from students as Junger recalled seeing sand fly up in his face and realizing that a bullet had just whizzed by him, faster than the speed of sound. He remembered the “crazy high” he felt after one firefight— which was quickly followed by depression. “That night I crashed,” he remembered, “I couldn’t

Sebastian Junger ’80 with several of his former CA teachers, Stephen Teichgraeber, Sylvia Mendenhall, Janet Eisendrath, Sebastian Junger, John O’Connor, Philip McFarland

is virtually foreign to them. “It was really eyeopening,” said Julia Packman ’14. Others appreciated the nuance that Junger brought to his discussion of military life. “Sebastian delivered a dangerous message—that war can be thrilling—and allowed students to draw their own conclusions without trying to dissuade them from military service,” said Stephanie Manzella, a CA history teacher whose U.S. History class hosted Junger for a discussion after the assembly. “I think the students appreciated how he spoke directly to them without shielding them from the exciting—or harrowing—parts of war.” Two of the themes of War—the excitement of risk, and male friendships in the face of danger—have seeds in Junger’s time at CA. In

conversation with a handful of faculty and students earlier in the day, Junger laughed to hear that one of his CA exploits has become a campus legend: As a day student from Belmont, he and a friend routinely jumped on the back of the commuter rail and rode to campus. “It was really, really dangerous. I can’t believe how dangerous,” Junger remembered. He shook his head. “One of the reasons I stopped was because Ron Richardson [Junger’s French teacher] was so concerned I’d get hurt.” But just as he did not disavow the exciting parts of war, he didn’t shy away from remembering the thrill of the train ride. “I remember the fall leaves swirling behind the train,” he said. “It was just fantastic as an experience.” Junger called CA a “mind-blowing education,” but said it was later, as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, that he first began to imagine himself as a writer. Success did not come immediately; he describes his twenties as “muddled and torturous.” He spent time as a high-climber for tree-removal companies before vaulting to journalistic fame with his 1997 bestseller The Perfect Storm. Drawn to writing about dangerous professions—such as commercial fishing and fire-fighting—he has also been a foreign correspondent in places such as Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Liberia, and Kashmir. Junger credits his success as a writer to his willingness to take risks. He urges young journalistic hopefuls to “get on a plane and go. Go to Cairo. Go to Beirut. Nobody’s going to risk money and time on you unless you do. But if you go to one of those places, you’ll pick up work.” But he also urged students to take other kinds of risks—not so much physical as simply allowing themselves the time and space to figure out what they want to do as adults. “Adulthood lasts a long time, and you don’t, in my opinion, want to figure out exactly what you’re going to be when you’re in high school,” he said. Three decades out of high school, Junger said he’s now finding himself less and less drawn to risk. “I think there’s a curve, and I’m on the back side, where my tolerance has declined,” he said. He thinks his changing feelings are due, in part, to getting older, and in part to the recent loss of Hetherington. Since Hetherington’s death, Junger said he has sworn off combat reporting. And the word “risk”—or at the least the sound of it—now means something else to him. He’s working to establish a training program called Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC), in which journalists can learn basic battlefield medicine. The program is inspired by Hetherington: Junger’s colleague in War whose death taught him war’s saddest lesson. 7

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believe we were out there, that all these healthy young men were killing each other. It depressed me—and that lasted until the next firefight.” In addition to the highs and lows of battle that both he and the soldiers experienced, Junger spoke of a “brotherhood” so profound that many find it hard to leave their unit and return to their families and friends. “It’s not a friendship; it’s unconditional,” said Junger. “That’s the deal in combat.” As a journalist, Junger said he both was and wasn’t part of the brotherhood he covered. “I was a lot older, and I think you can have that brotherly relationship only with a peer,” he said after the assembly. “I wasn’t carrying a weapon, and that’s a big deal. I felt included in it, but not of it. But I liked these guys and I worried about them and I wanted to be with them when I was home.” He paused, and then laughed. “I didn’t quite phrase it that way to my wife.” While Junger said he thinks he got close to understanding the experience of soldiers, it wasn’t until after he was home that he learned the hardest truth of war. In April 2011, Junger’s colleague, photographer Tim Hetherington, was killed on a reporting trip to Libya. After Hetherington’s death, Junger told the students he got an email from a veteran, who wrote that Junger had just learned the most painful part of combat. “The core reality of war isn’t that you might die,” said Junger, quoting the veteran’s note. “It’s that you will lose your brothers.” For some in the audience, Junger’s talk offered a look at an aspect of American life that

My Life Next Door Huntley Funsten Fitzpatrick ’81 Dial, 2012

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

For ten years, Samantha Reed has secretly watched the Garretts — a large and boisterous family — from her second-story window. In her mother’s eyes, they are the scourge of the neighborhood — spontaneous, loud, and much too visible. In contrast, life in the Reed household is well-scripted, orderly, and exceedingly controlled, especially so as Sam’s mother begins her reelection campaign for state senate. A chance visitor to Sam’s rooftop perch forever changes her world and results in a budding romance with Jase, a forbidden boy from next door. Over the course of the summer, Sam grows increasingly closer to all the Garretts, from babysitting the youngest members to enjoying family gatherings far different from her own. Just as Sam finds a place in this loving household, a tragic hit-and-run incident shatters everything. A horrible realization comes to Sam when she discovers who did it, but how can the truth be revealed? This debut YA novel balances romance, humor, and personal integrity in a manner that is rare in the genre.

Danger Garden Curtis Hughes ’92 Feverish Nightmare Productions, 2011

Far from Shore: Chronicles of an Open Ocean Voyage Sophie Webb ’76 Houghton Mifflin, 2011

Hughes brings four varied works to bear in this recent recording. At its center are two powerful operatic pieces based upon the journal writings of Rosemary Beck, twentiethcentury artist and contemporary of Philip Guston. Over a long career, Beck used both visual and written expressions to convey her frustration with the male-dominated art world of the 1950s. Hughes and the Firebird Ensemble capture Beck’s sentiments in dramatic vocalizations and instrumentations. Interspersed with the Beck-inspired pieces are instrumental works, including a fascinating ensemble of twelve saxophones; the title composition, a reflection on the results of ill-conceived botanical experiments; and the final track, entitled “National Insecurities,” a piece written in the early days of the war in Iraq. Hughes, a teacher of theory and composition at the Boston Conservatory, also shares his passion for music with Concord Academy, teaching a yearlong course in music composition. The fall 2011 mainstage production, The Imaginary Invalid, featured the compositions of his students, Stephen Lin ’12 and Allie Mundel ’13.

Colorful illustrations and informative text bring young readers along with Webb, as she and the crew of the research vessel, the McArthur II, spend four months at sea. The floating lab’s mission is to follow dolphins and gather data to determine why populations are struggling to thrive despite changes in tuna fishing practices. Along the way, Webb and fellow field biologists count seabirds and make observations of the plentiful sea life that dwell in the deep ocean waters. Beginning in southern California, Webb traces the path of the McArthur II through miles of open water, including passage across the equator and landings in Hawaii, Ecuador, and Mexico. Budding naturalists will glean much from the colorful charts and graphs, vivid drawings, and clear explanations concerning the current health of this vast, deepwater environment and its inhabitants. Webb is an award-winning writer and illustrator of two previous books for children, My Season with Penguins: An Antarctic Voyage and Looking for Seabirds: Journal of an Alaskan Voyage.

Cooking Without Borders Anita Lo ’84 Stewart, Tobari, & Chang, 2011

CA Bookshelf 9

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Lo, visionary chef and owner of Annisa in Manhattan’s West Village, crafts a stunning first cookbook loaded with lush images of her trademark fusion cuisine. Informed by her family’s international background and inspired by extensive travel during her formative years, Lo draws upon varied influences while creating and perfecting new dishes. By offering an inside look at how she selects the freshest ingredients (including the harvesting of her own seafood on Long Island Sound) and combines them in imaginative ways, Lo shares her love of food and the discovery of novel combinations for aspiring home cooks.

FAC ULTY PR OFILE The Simple Life

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

ine students are sitting in class. Using a computer program, they are trying to call up a thirty-second piece of music they’ve created. After a few false starts, the ﬁrst notes of one of the compositions ﬁll the room. Ben Stumpf ’88 looks around the room beaming. “That is actually fantastic,” he said, adding, “That’s really cool.” Clearly, Stumpf is comfortable not only in the classroom but on the CA campus. Perhaps that’s not surprising given that he’s an alumnus, and his four sisters went to CA as well. Concord Academy is practically in the family DNA. After graduating from CA in 1988 and Oberlin in 1993, Stumpf embarked on a career in the technology sector. Stints at Apple Computer and the Department of Education followed soon after. But the corporate life just never appealed to Stumpf, so he turned his attention and his 10

talents to creating a nonproﬁt called YouthTech, which empowered teens to set up computer technologies in their communities. YouthTech received big grants and a lot of media attention, signs of success for most people. For Stumpf, however, it became increasingly clear that he was moving towards a career path that had been on his mind for quite some time. “I have known that I wanted to be a teacher since I was six. It’s not surprising—my mom is a professor and so are two of my sisters,” said Stumpf. As the topic turns to teaching, Stumpf easily articulates why the profession appeals to him. “I love transferring my own curiosity and excitement to a group of kids. I love to see the creativity of kids. I love engaging them, and watching them work in groups, because something larger always emerges.”

Stumpf teaches Creative Computing, Digital Graphic Design, and Filmmaking 2: Documentary. He is also in charge of the Model UN club and the documentary club, and coaches the intramural soccer team and intramural Ultimate Frisbee teams. While he enjoys all those roles, Stumpf said that the independent study work he has supervised has nurtured his soul in a way he couldn’t have imagined. “One of my students is writing a launcher for an Android phone, another group is creating a new kind of calculator . . . it is so exciting to engage kids in something that bends their minds,” he says with a smile. A love of learning is only one of Stumpf ’s passions. The other is the environment. “I have built my life around that Thoreau notion: “Live simply, so that others can simply live.” Stumpf walks, bikes, and uses public

Newsmakers

English teacher ABBY LABER has been appointed to the faculty of the Institute for Writing and Thinking at Bard College — a post she will hold in conjunction with her work at CA. In April, Laber will begin teaching one of a number of workshops that explore why teachers should bring more creative nonfiction into the classroom. JON WALDRON, CA’s head cross country and track and field coach, can now add “Hall-of-Famer” to a long list of accolades. The Cambridge Sports Union, one of New England’s oldest and most prestigious running clubs, inducted Waldron into its Hall of Fame at a ceremony this past December. Waldron has been a member of the club for twenty-seven years. The Associated German Societies of New England awarded CA’s own SUSAN ADAMS, the Rose Mary Kemper German Educator of the Year Award. Adams has been an integral member of Concord Academy’s faculty since 1972. Concord Academy’s Director of Health and Wellness JEFF DESJARLAIS is now a licensed independent clinical social worker (LICSW) after completing the 3,500 clinical hours required for certification and passing the licensing exam last July. Ceramics Monthly, the premier ceramic art journal in the United States, has published an article by visual arts teacher BEN EBERLE ’99. The feature, “Succulent Curiosity — The Art of Angela Cunningham” is based on a solo exhibit of Cunningham’s at the Vessels Gallery in Boston, owned by Roberta Tunnard P’04,’07 Director of Athletics JENNY BRENNAN earned her master’s degree in educational leadership from Northeastern University this past year. In addition, Brennan was invited to join the Sigma Epsilon Rho Honor Society for NU alums. Concord Academy Head Squash Coach TARIQ MOHAMMED has been named the 2011 Developmental Coach of the Year by the U.S. Olympic Committee. For the past five years, Mohammed has been a squash coach at CA, as well as the director of Kidsquash, a community squash program based at Harvard University. He also blogs about squash and sports at tariqmohammed.wordpress.com.

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Photos by Elke Shipani ’12

transit whenever possible. When he absolutely has to drive a car, he gets behind the wheel of a biodiesel-fueled VW. “I drive it rarely, and it gets amazing mileage—something like forty-ﬁve miles per gallon,” said Stumpf, who divides his time between an on-campus apartment and a co-op housing arrangement in Somerville, Massachusetts. He supports local farmers, has been known to drink raw milk, and has also been a driving force behind a number of “depaving” projects in his community. He describes it as a kind of Joni Mitchell in reverse—where a group of citizens get together and rip up parking lots to make way for green space. “A lot of the pollution we create is by burning fossil fuels,” said Stumpf. “I love having a mango in the winter as much as anybody, but they don’t grow here . . . there is a way of living more seasonally, simply, and sustainably.” Despite his passionately held beliefs, Stumpf has learned over the years that lecturing people on how they live and protesting corporate malfeasance wasn’t doing much to help the environment. ”We’re going to need people to go at this at the pace they can,” he says. “People are often focused on the losses, the things they will have to do without if they live more sustainably. But I like to think that it is a more enjoyable, even meaningful way to live. It’s a way of living that encourages us to have more community. If I could live in a Thoreau cabin in Vermont and survive, and help other people, I probably would, but that’s not likely.”

Adam Simon

CA’s Athletic Campus Takes Shape

Director of Operations Don Kingman, Director of Athletics Jenny Brennan (second from left) and athletic council students at CA’s new athletic campus.

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he former Arena Farms property is nothing but a memory now that work has begun on Concord Academy’s new 13.5-acre Athletic Campus. In late January, after the permits were in hand, excavators moved onto the site, dumpsters were loaded into place, and a temporary fence was installed around the perimeter of the property. Shortly thereafter, Concord Academy’s Head of School Rick Hardy announced that the fundraising goal for the new seven-million-dollar facility had been met and everything was on target to have playable fields in place by September 2012. “This is an extraordinary accomplishment for us, particularly in these economic times, and we are grateful to the CA community for their commitment to this project,” said Hardy. CA’s current playing fields are located along the Sudbury River and prone to flooding at times of substantial rain. Concord Academy’s student athletes and coaches have long endured canceled practices and games because of the “underwater classroom” situation. “The next six months are going to be amazing. You won’t believe the transformation that’s going to take place after that building comes down,” said Don Kingman, Concord Academy’s director of operations, who has lived and breathed this project for the past four years. That transformation didn’t take long. On February 14, it took a grand total of eighteen minutes for the red barn to succumb to the relentless pounding of side-by-side excavators. The resulting debris field was carefully divided into piles. Instead of hauling away all the debris, Kingman and his crew made the decision to recycle close to 80 percent of the structure. “Everything will be separated into three big piles. One will be concrete, one will be steel, and

another will be wood. We will recycle the steel, we will crush the concrete and use it as the structural base for the roads and sidewalks,” said Kingman. In tandem with the demolition of the buildings on the site, thousands of pounds of topsoil was stripped and stockpiled for use in various locations around the property. The topsoil will be used for landscaping, and a sandy soil “root mix” will be used for the fields, which will be natural grass, not artificial turf. So far, the weather has been optimal for the project. “We want it really warm so the ground totally thaws, or we want it cold so we can drive on it. What we don’t want is a lot of snow, because that makes our jobs that much harder,” said Kingman who got his wish—less than an inch of snow fell in the Concord area in all of February, meaning that work on the Athletic Campus continued at a rapid rate. In fact, in March Kingman was already talking sod. “In a perfect world, July 1 we will be laying down sod. We want to have six weeks for the root system in the sod to bind with the top layer of earth we are putting down.” The plans call for three hundred trees and bushes to dot the landscape of the new facility, which will include six tennis courts, two playing fields for soccer, lacrosse, and field hockey, and a baseball diamond, along with a large building complete with changing facilities and a gathering space. Perhaps no one is more enthusiastic about the opening of the new playing fields than athletic director, Jenny Brennan. “These playing fields are an exciting and important step in the ongoing development of our athletic program. I can’t wait to see our student-athletes practice and compete on these fields.” A dedication ceremony for the new athletic campus is due to take place on Friday, November 2.

On the wrestling mat, Binh Ngyuen ’15, Aram Soukiasian ’13, and Charlie Colony ’13 were named champions of the Eastern Independent League (EIL), and the CA boys’ team finished second overall. At the EIL championship meet, twelve members of the CA wrestling team finished in the top three in their weight classes.

Also of note, the Eastern Independent League recognized several CA athletes for their outstanding efforts throughout the season: Binh Nguyen ’15, Charlie Colony ’13, and Aram Soukiasian ’13 for wrestling; Carly Meyerson ’12 for girls squash; and Malin Segal ’14 for boys basketball.

On the basketball court, the boys’ team has had a turnaround season, vaulting from a single win last year to an 11– 8 season this year. The team finished fifth in the EIL and won the Pool B championship.

The New England Preparatory School Athletic Council also recognized Erinn Geyer ’12, Izzy Mattoon ’12, Carly Meyerson ’12, and Creighton Foulkes ’13 for their placement in the seasonending tournament.

ATH LETICS

For the fourth year in a row, the girls alpine ski team won the Central Massachusetts Ski League title. Hadley Allen ’12 led the way for the CA girls with a fourth-place finish overall, followed closely by Hannah Therrien ’12 who captured fifth. Teammates Lizzie Cosway ’14, Lucia Millham ’12 , Austen Sharpe ’14, Lucy Hollister ’15, and Liz Gootkind ’13 all finished in the top twenty. The boys alpine ski team grabbed an overall secondplace win, with Peter James ’12 taking home a third-place finish and Matt Deninger ’13 capturing fifth.

The boys varsity squash team continued to dominate, besting every varsity team it played including squash powerhouse Middlesex. The team gave up just five individual matches throughout the season and managed to post an impressive 8–0 season. On the girls’ side, at the New England Interscholastic Squash Association championship tournament, Erinn Geyer ’12 and Izzy Matton ’13 earned second-place finishes in their respective flights. Carly Meyerson ’12 finished third in her flight. As for the boys, Creighton Foulkes ’13 finished third in his division.

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WINTER HIGHLIGHTS

AT H L E T I C S

We Came, We Fought, We Concord

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or the first time in eight years, Concord Academy triumphed over Lexington Christian Academy in a sports competition that has become known as the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The matchup between the two school rivals involves a series of five headto-head competitions in wrestling and basketball. The prize is a coveted red drum and, of course, bragging rights. This year, that drum and those bragging rights are all CA’s. The competition began shortly after the school day ended on January 27. Students and athletes from both schools filled the Student Health and Athletic Center — the SHAC. A tense but eager atmosphere permeated the air. 14

By four o’clock, students and teachers were standing on chairs, and a drum line consisting mainly of plastic buckets and sticks established itself in the basketball court. Vuvuzelas — those loud, plastic horns — were stationed throughout the gym. A thunderous chorus erupted any time CA scored a point or won a match. Adrian Au ’13 was one of the spirited musicians with a vuvuzela.

“We get some good games and we get some bad games,” he said. “I am here to just promote our school spirit.” He then gave a loud, victorious toot on his plastic instrument. Some spectators sported green and white stripes painted across their cheeks. Many others in the audience held up posters of support, carefully decorated with magic marker and stickers. Throughout the stands, students wore T-shirts with “We Came, We Fought, We Concord” emblazoned across their chests. Win or lose, the Battle of Lexington and Concord has become one of Athletic Director Jenny Brennan’s favorite sporting events at CA. “The entire event is exciting. The energy of each school is centralized in this one building . . . once someone shouts, the whole crowd can hear it, and it spreads quickly,” said Brennan. For four hours, a constant drum

beat of support radiated from the bleachers. But the real stars of this show, of course, were the athletes. Most maintained a silent intensity throughout the competition, determined to win at all costs. Stephen Lin ’12, a wrestler, tried to put the feeling into words. “When you get down on the mat, it’s win or lose, live or die. You’ve got to win,” said Lin. And win they did. Concord Academy emerged victorious in Girls JV Basketball, Boys JV Basketball, Wrestling, and Boys Varsity Basketball. by C. Adam Pfander ’12

Sports: Why Do We Bother? by Eitan Tye ’12

Most importantly, however, I began to realize that athletics build the foundation for pride in self and community. When placed in the proper context, athletics can be something concrete to latch onto in an inner-city landscape laden with disappointment and uncertainty. But the power of sports as a catalyst to scholarly accomplishment and enhanced self-pride is not a phenomenon confined to urban communities. This fall, during my first-ever independent season as a CA student, the afternoons felt noticeably empty as I filled my hours with a seemingly endless pile of senior coursework. With no practice to look forward to in the afternoons and no team to lean on as the days shortened and the work intensified, I started to feel increasingly anonymous in the CA community. However, now that the basketball season has finally arrived, I find myself with a newfound vigor in the classroom, and a renewed confidence in my role as a valued member of the school. There are two minutes left on the clock in the third game of the season, and the score is 55 – 45 in favor of Berwick. After enduring the bumpy two-hour bus ride through rural Maine, and watching our captain and enforcer Jack Anderson limp to the bench with a badly

bruised ankle, desperation sinks in. Harry Rafferty, the Bulldogs’ star point guard and reigning Eastern Independent League MVP, has glided through our flailing limbs for an effortless twenty points. Finally, it’s my turn to try to stop him. Usually relegated to short spurts of defensive-minded action, I hear the coach’s stern instructions to “shut him down” ring in my ears. Drive after drive I stretch out my hands and slide my feet, remembering the hours of brick-weighted agony on the SHAC hardwood. But, no matter how fast I pump my legs to keep up with the brawny guard, his shots keep falling. With ten seconds left, Rafferty drives to his sweet-spot on the left side, throwing his shoulder into my chest as I fall to the floor and gaze at the ball sinking through the net. The ref blows his whistle; and-one. Rafferty flashes a beaming grin to the Berwick student section and four hands, dripping with sweat, reach out to pick me up. I have failed in my duty, and the game has now drifted out of reach, but I feel a pat on the back as I stand gasping for air under the hoop. My eyes slowly drift from the bench, to the coaches, to my teammates on the floor. We are still a team. This is why we bother.

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uys, this goes without saying, but you have to stay on top of your work in the classroom this season. School always comes first.” Coach Kilian stands erect and focused, directly eying each of the twelve exhausted students hunched over the tables in the SHAC classroom after the basketball team’s first practice of the season. Wearing a shirt at least two sizes too small that can barely hope to hide his bulging muscles, he lays down the expectations for the year. Each player receives two bricks, which they are to wrap in duct tape and carry to every practice. We don’t know it yet, but these bricks, soon to become slippery with the sweat of a thousand laps, defensive slides, and foot fires, will shape us into a team. “I want to see you on the gym floor every day one minute before practice starts,” Kilian proclaims. “Don’t forget the bricks. No excuses.” Forty minutes to the southeast, in Roxbury, a hulking Amateur Athletic Union coach stands towering over his players in a dusty gym, on the third floor of a dilapidated rec center. “There is no basketball without school. Playing is a privilege, a reward you get for achieving academically. Sports may give you the mindset to succeed, but only hard work in the classroom will get you where you really want to go.” In Concord and Roxbury, among beautifully restored colonial mansions and crumbling projects, the message remains the same. Sports should always take back seat. Why then, do we bother? What’s the point of squeezing out one more rep on the bench press, of sweating through that last suicide at the end of practice? After all, none of us are going to the pros. For most of us, sports aren’t even going to be a ticket to college. What makes being on a team so special anyway? This is the question I set out to answer before embarking on an independent study that would take me from the bustling streetball courts of Boston to the packed football stadiums of suburbia, from locker rooms to community centers, and everywhere in between. Traveling between the vastly different worlds of private school and urban sprawl, I found that sports can serve as an escape, no matter the school or the place, and as a source of stability.

Kellie Smith

“G

PROFILE: TYLER ANDREWS ’08

yler Andrews ’08 took up running almost by default. “I tried a lot of sports but I wasn’t that coordinated, so running seemed to be the only thing left,” said Andrews, who half-heartedly kept at it until one day he ran into CA’s cross country and track coach, Jon Waldron. “He was an inspiration. He told me that the fastest runners weren’t doing anything that crazy. Before one race, he told me just try to keep up with the ones in front. I think that race I came in second and took a minute or two off my time,” said Andrews. “That’s all it took.” Four years later, Andrews is now ranked eighth in New England in the 10,000m. He’s on the varsity cross country and track teams at Tufts University, he’s a cross country and track Academic All-American, and he has set two course records in the last year. As if that weren’t enough, last May, Andrews won Boston’s Run to Remember Half Marathon, clocking a blistering 1:10:36. Not bad for a race he decided to enter on a whim. “It was at the end of track season, I wanted to take some time off, but I thought, I’m in really good shape why not

try it?” laughed Andrews. “It was a ton of fun to run through the streets of Boston.” But as much as he enjoys running and the thrill of victory, there was always something that bothered Andrews about the sport’s single-minded focus on winning or losing. “At the end of the day, athletics is a kind of selfish pursuit.” So Andrews signed up for Service Trips for Student Athletes (STRIVE). It’s a New York-based group that encourages athletes to complete community service projects while continuing their athletic training. Andrews was hired to be the leader and coach for a group of eighteen American, European, and Japanese high school students. On May 29, 2011, the very day he won the half marathon in Boston, Andrews hopped a flight to New York, caught a red-eye to Lima, Peru, and hitched a twelve-hour bus ride into the mountains, eventually winding up in the small village of Pisac, located in Peru’s Urubamba valley. “I think to me having the service element makes the running more meaningful,” said Andrews. “STRIVE’s motto is a

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

Tyler Andrews ’08 in Peru

Brightroom Event Photography

AT H L E T I C S

The Accidental Runner

service program for athletes, not the other way around. Service is the priority.” In Pisac, Andrews spent his days at a school called Cuyo Chico, where he taught basic reading, writing, and arithmetic to students ranging in age from six to thirteen. The days were bookended with training runs that took Andrews up gravel roads into the Andes Mountains and down dirt paths nestled next to the Urubamba River. Training in Pisac involved running at high altitudes. In the mountains, the blood is less oxygen-rich, and that can often slow a runner’s performance — but, Andrews said, he enjoyed the challenge. “It took about a week to get acclimated. I had a basic training plan from my coach, and I kept at it.” This isn’t the first time Andrews has combined service travel with athletic training. After his graduation from CA in 2008, he journeyed to Ecuador where he worked in a children’s hospital during the day and spent his afternoons running over the often challenging terrain. He remains close to the host family he met there. Andrews credits his decision to take a “gap year” and dedicate his time in the service of others to his mentors at CA. “I remember talking to Peter Jennings and Jon Waldron, and they said, ‘You know, CA is an intense place; if you feel burnt out, take a year off.’ It was one of the best decisions I ever made,” said Andrews. “I was so much more ready to go into the academic world. The year in Ecuador helped me narrow my interests and say this is what I want to do.” Andrews eventually decided on a mechanical engineering major and headed to Tufts University. But his bags — and his running shoes — are still packed; he’s already planning his next trip to Peru this summer. You can find more information about Strive Trips at strivetrips.com.

ARTS

David R. Gammons

CA’s winter mainstage production featured Euripides’ The Bacchae. The play was directed by Adam Stone ’04, and choreographed by Lily Susskind ’04. CA’s production of this ancient Greek tragedy featured a few modern touches, such as wild music, fur, and steel.

David R. Gammons

mma Starr ’12 performed her one-woman show, Fear, in the Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel. The play is an exploration of our fears told through a series of monologues. Emma constructed the text from interviews conducted with friends, family, and Concord Academy faculty. Live music was performed by Mathematics Department Head George Larivee.

white, crackly Raku bottle by Zoe Campbell ’13 was chosen for exhibition from among nine hundred entries in the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts’ high school competition. Campbell’s work will be displayed in Seattle.

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David R. Gammons

Anne-Marie Dorning

n February 25, 2012, eleven dancers from Concord Academy performed in front of an enthusiastic audience of about 250 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. The presentation by CA Dance Company was inspired by the art works on view in the exhibit Figuring Color at the ICA. Each dancer performed a short interpretive dance inspired by a color. With a stunning view of the Boston waterfront behind them, the dancers took the stage as a series of brilliant colors flashed onto an overhead screen above their heads.

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T n December, the Musical Theatre Workshop performed scenes and songs from the musical Hair. The performance was directed by Performing Arts Department Head Amy Spencer and music teacher Keith Daniel.

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his year’s directors seminar production reimagined the Shakespearean classic Romeo and Juliet with a gender-bending twist. The production was directed by Katalina Gamarra ’12.

David R. Gammons

ARTS

oliere’s madcap comedy The Imaginary Invalid opened the Concord Academy theater season in the fall. Directed by theater teacher Megan Gleeson, with musical direction by Keith Daniel, the performance featured a cast of fifteen and original music by student composers Allie Mundel ’13 and Stephen Lin ’12.

by Chris Rowe CR When did you become interested in photography, and how did that interest lead to a career as an artist/photographer? TF As a child I was always making things. I would sit for hours completely entranced by whatever it was that I was drawing, sewing, or building. I was introduced to photography during a summer program between my freshman and sophomore years and was hooked. When I returned to CA, I moved into the darkroom; the joke was that I might as well set up a cot because I pretty much lived there. I always had images in my head, but painting or drawing never quite got me there. With photography I could make those images. With photography I found my voice. I think of it as a form of magic to transform something onto another thing completely. You can take an otherwise ordinary object and make it into something beautiful and meaningful by creating context and harnessing the powers of light and color.

CR What artists have inspired you? TF I love all forms of art, but painting really gets me. I wish I could paint. I could never do with a paintbrush what I can do with a camera. I am inspired by Rothko and Albers among many others. I tend towards the more emotional abstract painters. But I have a deep love for Vermeer as well. His colors are transcendent. CR You were doing documentary photography as a senior at CA, while your work has become more reductive and abstract over the past two decades. In hindsight, do you see points that you now recognize as transitions from one type of image making to another? TF For me it has always been about the story I want to tell. When I was at CA and at NYU Tisch, my stories were about people and situations. I wanted to talk about other people. It was external. As the years went on I wanted more and more to talk about something much more internal. The first transition was to color photogra-

phy. Once I “saw” color I never looked back. Color gave me the ability to speak in another language; it gave me a multitude of new layers to work with. Then I moved into the studio. I wanted to talk about color and shape and form, so I needed to control my light and “subject” and take things out of context. It became less about seeing things within an environment and more about creating an image from my imagination.

CR Photography is increasingly thought of as a digital rather than chemical process. Has the shift to digital image-making affected your work? TF I started printing digitally around five years ago. The things that I love about digital printing are the consistency

in the editions and the ability to print on a much larger scale than I was able to before. I am still shooting film and printing my first print traditionally. I then do a highresolution scan of the print and print from that file. I shoot with an old Hasselblad, a camera I have had for about twenty years. I love how heavy it is in my hands, how it makes a loud and reassuring “clunk” when the film is exposed. CR What advice would you have for the CA student who is passionate about art and wants to pursue after high school? TF Get a job. Seriously. Work in the field. Work for a museum or a gallery. Maybe even for a magazine in the arts department. I think when you are young and a purist it feels like doing something like that will tarnish your work. I feel the opposite. I think that any young artist needs to be in the field and experience the art world as it is. The other thing I would say to a young artist is never stop making your work.

Tapp Francke had more to say than space allows. Check out the full interview at concordacademy.org/francke.

Pink Lotus, The Look of Her Was Emerald

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Tapp Francke ’89

Q&A

AFTER GRADUATING from Concord Academy, Tapp Francke ’89 attended the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and finished her degree work in London at St. Martin College of Art, and in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews. Her photography has been shown at numerous galleries in New York, London, Los Angeles, Miami, and Aspen and is held by corporate and private collections including Cantor Fitzgerald and Barclays Bank. Francke has also been the recipient of a New York Press award and a Penny McCall Foundation Grant and currently resides in Southampton, New York.

CR People expect photographs to offer a literal rendering of the world around them. Your recent work defies that expectation, so what message do you expect the viewer to get from these images? TF My hope is that people will have an emotional reaction to my work. Because I am talking about dreams and memories, I am not speaking literally. The bulk of my work is based in color theory. Color reaches us on a subconscious level. It is a language that is spoken on many levels. Each viewer has a unique response to color based on his or her own life experience. What one person will feel when looking at a particular piece will be different from what another viewer feels. My hope is that viewers will feel the piece in their gut. They will have the multilayered emotional subconscious response.

ALUM NAE I PRO FILES

Emily Thompson Class of 1991

The Power of Flowers

“I have a strong point of view about

BYNANCYSHOHETWEST’84

how I want flowers to look. It’s almost like a philosophy with me . . .”

T H I S

I S S U E

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Emily Thompson Class of 1991

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Sonia Lo Class of 1984

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Ben Carmichael Class of 2001

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Neva Goodwin Class of 1962

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mily Thompson ’91 is having a moment. The kind of moment most floral designers can only dream about. She has been featured in the New York Times, profiled in Vogue, and her au naturel floral bouquets are highly sought after for everything from weddings to restaurant arrangements. Last year, she was invited to decorate two rooms for the White House holiday installation. Always an artist, Thompson expected to find her métier in sculpture, and it was in that medium that she earned her Master of Fine Arts from UCLA. But after a brief stint in a flower shop in Philadelphia during college, she knew she had found her calling. “I was always attuned to flowers, maybe because my mom is a gardener,” Thompson said. “I started doing the flowers for my sister’s and brother’s weddings, and then I decided I didn’t want to work for free. Word spread that I was interested, and it was an easy jump into the field since I was then at an age where lots of my friends and acquaintances were getting married.” Soon Thompson found that her interests were gravitating increasingly away from sculpture and toward floral design. “I have a strong point of view about how I want flowers to look. It’s almost like a philosophy with me, as far as each flower being recognized for having its own identity and character and respecting its uniqueness,” she said. In 2006, Thompson opened her own floral design business, Emily Thompson Flowers, in her home base of Brooklyn, New York. These days, Thompson still covers a large number of weddings— the core of any floral designer’s business, she says—as well as art openings, galas, and other big events, but the pinnacle of her career thus far came last fall when she was called upon to contribute to the

You can find out more about Thompson’s work at her Web site: emilythompsonflowers.com. 21

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Kevin Ryan

White House’s holiday décor. “It was an incredible honor and a thrill,” Thompson said. “I had some really outrageous ideas, although ultimately all I really wanted to do was help the house express its own history. My staff and I wanted to give it wings, and that’s what we did: we put giant wing-shaped garlands over the six windows, four giant mirrors, and five doorways in the East Room, which is the White House’s grand ballroom.” Simply being at the White House for a week as it was decorated for the holidays was fascinating in itself, Thompson said. “We did two rooms, but of course there were all kinds of other designers working on other rooms. There were hordes of people trooping in and out every day, covering trees in billions of ornaments. There were TV crews, and White House staff members who were really nice and helpful. And every now and then an announcement would go out that the First Family was arriving or leaving, and everyone would be shuttled out of the way.” One misconception she frequently encounters is that floral design is all about beauty and art. “It’s also an incredible amount of physical labor,” she said. “We’re always schlepping materials, stressing about how to get what we need to where it needs to be without doing any damage.” She tries hard to support fair-trade vendors among a shrinking field of growers. “We use as many local growers as we can, partly because that’s my taste, but it’s not easy in the Northeast. But the more buying power we have, the more we can bring that to the industry.” Every now and then, between weddings or White House excursions, Thompson dreams of even bigger challenges. “I always have fantasy projects. I recently taught a class where we imagined designs for the Acropolis. And then someone I was working with recently told me about Schachen, a fabulous castle in the Swiss Alps once owned by King Ludwig, for which I started imagining a floral design. Still, what I most want to do now is just keep building our business, establishing a reputation, and taking on ever more interesting projects.”

Sonia Lo Class of 1984

Multicultural Mogul

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

aving lived in sixteen countries, done business in more than twice that many, and mastered seven languages, Sonia Lo ’84 says she considers her multicultural perspective “as much a part of me as my skin.” Early in her career, Lo found out just what an advantage this could be: she leaped into the global technology sector when her thenemployer, consulting company Deloitte & Touche, put in a bid on the privatization of Korean telecom and put Lo on the project because she was the only consultant in their West Coast practice who spoke Korean. She was given the Bell Labs Engineering Handbook and told to learn everything she could about telecommunications on the thirteen-hour plane trip to Seoul. Of course, mastering things quickly has never really been a problem for Lo. She entered Concord Academy younger than most of her classmates, graduated from Stanford in three years, and found herself on the job market at the age of nineteen before deciding to go to business school. Though she is only in her early forties, Lo has already accrued a remarkable resume as an independent strategic advisor and an angel investor. She has also owned and run several companies of her own, and has twice been selected as a Top 100 Global Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum at Davos. For the past eight years, Lo has overseen her own advisory and direct investment firm. Her clients are global Fortune 200 firms who seek her out when they need restructuring with a multinational aspect. “In this era of globalization, many companies find themselves engaged in international expansion that isn’t going as smoothly as expected,” Lo explained. “I step in to help them think through how to interpret and solve a cultural misunderstanding or mis22

Alexis Maryon Black and White Studios

Sonia Lo ’84

communication that may be hampering productivity or growth.” Though cultural differences between individuals or companies may seem perplexing to those at the nexus of the issue, from Lo’s viewpoint there are certain recurrent issues that typically crop up. “Companies that have seen successful domestic growth often have an inherent desire to hire in their own image. Say you’re a Swedish company that wants to grow in China. You go to China and look for someone familiar with the Swedish language and business culture. The problem is that that person who was selected for his or her cultural characteristics may or may

not have the right skill set to help the company to grow in China,” said Lo. “It’s a mindset that internationalizing companies struggle to grow out of, but need to do so in order to grow successfully.” And sometimes, Lo says, it comes down to the most basic cultural differences. She was once brought on board to help with a British investment in a Korean company. “Everything went swimmingly in the boardroom: we had a great conversation about how the deal was going to be structured, how money was going to change hands, what the postdeal company would look like . . . and then we went to lunch. And this young Korean entrepreneur, who had a PhD in computer science and was clearly brilliant, had some of the worst table manners I’d ever seen. As the meal went on, I could see the British gentleman thinking, ‘I need to rethink this, because this person is so very different from me.’ In the end, the deal didn’t go through, and I’m convinced that lunch was an inﬂection point. Up to then, they’d both been willing to overlook their differences.” Lo writes and speaks about the nuances of multiculturalism in a variety of settings and was recently featured on CNN. She has a customized executive-training system in which she discusses everything from when it’s appropriate in the course of a meal to bring up money, to whether to drink alcohol at a professional lunch. She is also launching a series of country business guides with a major Internet provider. As for herself, Lo—who took off a few years in the early 2000s to pursue her lifelong passion for cooking by working as a private chef—currently maintains a bicultural lifestyle, spending about nine months of each year in California near her parents and the other three months in London, where her company is headquartered. She does a lot of yoga to maintain a sense of inner balance, but has no plans at this point to step back from the global business arena. “I’m very fortunate because I’ve had the luxury of being able to pick and choose in terms of investing,” she said. “The decision my partners and I made was to be focused on impact investing, which means doing well by doing good. We focus on investing for W.E.A.L.T.H.—Water, Energy, Agriculture (Food), Land, Transportation, and Housing. These are the big issues we feel we have to invest in successfully to secure our children’s futures.”

New England’s Advocate

rowing up in Maine, Ben Carmichael biked in the woods, fished in free-flowing streams, and hiked the mountains not far from his home. As the years went by, he saw houses replace the trails he loved and roads bisect the forests where he used to wander. The pristine rivers of northern Maine where he and his father fished together became polluted. “Even then I understood that the narrative was one of an environment in decline,” he said. Though he graduated from Concord Academy believing he would follow mentor Stephen Teichgraeber into a career studying literature— particularly the naturalist themes of poets such as Concord’s own Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau—Carmichael instead real-

ized he had a passion for trying to preserve or restore natural environments like those in which he had been raised. “The environment has always meant so much to me,” he said. “Early in my studies, it became both a personal and a professional commitment.” At Brown University, Carmichael pursued an interest in writing about the environment. He founded a magazine called Watershed, which examined the intersection between humans and the natural environment. “Not the well-covered ground of Audubon or National Geographic,” Carmichael explained, “but the rivers that ﬂow through our cities, the trees that line our streets, the birds in our backyards, the food we can grow on a rooftop.”

Carmichael graduated from college believing he wanted to be a journalist, and he quickly found positions in his chosen fields. But even amidst what Carmichael calls “the hallowed halls” of the New Yorker, he realized that he was neglecting his passion for the environment, and so he moved on to a position as a blogger and speechwriter for the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC). During his time at the NRDC, Carmichael said he had plenty of time to contemplate his future. “I looked at the people doing the kind of work I wanted to do and realized I’d need a master’s degree to take that next step,” said Carmichael. He decided to go to graduate school. He landed a prestigious Marshall Scholarship and spent two years studying at Oxford University. Returning to New York in 2010 with a master’s degree in Environmental Change and Management in hand, Carmichael lent his skills to a number of environmental start-ups and nongovernmental organizations before taking on his current role as senior communications manager for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), which is dedicated to finding innovative solutions to New England’s most challenging environmental problems. With oversight of CLF messaging ranging from press releases to blog posts to Twitter updates to print publications, Carmichael says it is the ideal way to pursue the twin passions that have driven him ever since college: writing and the environment. Finding himself back in New England is an unexpected bonus for this inveterate outdoorsman. “I’m an avid salmon, trout, and salt-water fisherman. I’ll chase anything that swims. It’s pathological,” he said. The environmental initiatives being pursued by CLF are manifold, but speaking just for himself, Carmichael says that sustainable food, as well as river and ocean management continues to be of primary interest to him. “If I could have one goal, it would be to reverse a lot of the trends I see happening so that we could have a New England that is even more sustainable and thriving than the one in which I grew up. How do we get there? The answer involves all the issues that come across my desk, everything from energy to oceans,” said Carmichael. Reversing decades’ worth of environmental damage may seem like a daunting task, but it is one that Carmichael said he embraces: “Sustainability, environmental issues, building a brighter future in a way that is environmentally and economically rewarding but also socially just — it’s a growing area. From both a career and personal perspective, it’s as rewarding as it is challenging. That’s exciting.” 23

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Ben Carmichael Class of 2001

Neva Goodwin Class of 1962

Rethinking Economics

Neva Goodwin ’62 with her daughter, Miranda Kaiser ’89, and granddaughter Geneva Hayes

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

hile Neva Goodwin ’62 was earning her degree in economics, she discovered that she disagreed with some of the most basic tenets of the discipline. In standard economic theory, according to Goodwin, there is an assumption that the goal of all societies should be economic growth. “In the short term, growth can help, but it also means use of ever greater quantities of natural resources: energy, water, raw materials,” she said. “Even when we recycle used materials, the recycling in itself uses energy. What we’re putting out into the environment is degraded resources of air and water and farmland. The inescapable conclusion is one that economists may not want to think about: economic growth cannot be the solution to economic problems for very much longer.” 24

To that end, Goodwin advocates for a realignment of economic priorities, replacing the current emphasis on wealth with a greater stress on well-being. “No one says ‘The GDP has gone up, so I’ll go to bed happier tonight,’ or ‘my children will be better fed,’” said Goodwin. “What we really care about is being able to take care of our families, feeling secure, having lives that feel worthwhile, enjoying pleasures in our lives, being able to exercise our capacities for physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional activity. That’s what matters to people, and those aren’t the things that have been talked about in standard economics.” In light of that schism between her ﬁeld of study and her beliefs, “I could have said, ‘Well, then, I’ll go off and do something else,’” Good-

win said. “Instead, I was sufficiently annoyed with the state of the discipline that I decided to set out on an admittedly audacious goal of reforming economics.” No small task, Goodwin concedes. “The question was where to enter that task. I felt that writing educational materials, particularly for undergrads, was going to be the most practical entry point for me. And so that’s what I’ve been doing.” Since 1993, Goodwin has held the position of Co-Director of the Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufts University. She is the lead author of the college-level textbooks Microeconomics in Context and Macroeconomics in Context, she has also supervised the six-volume project Frontier Issues in Economic Thought, and edited a series called Evolving Values for a Capitalist World. “The basic assumption about human nature in economics has always been that we’re all rational and we’re all selfish. But many people find that an inadequate description. A lot of recent research is discovering we’re far less rational than we thought. And of course selfishness is a significant part of human nature, but not necessarily the only or most important part. Basing an entire science on that is unsound and, to many, repugnant.” Outside of the scope of the institute she directs, Goodwin also pursues an interest in finding ways to get corporations to behave in more socially responsible ways. In that capacity, she studies how shareholders, consumers, and advocacy groups can pressure corporations to become better stewards of the environment and to account for the other ways that their actions affect outcomes beyond their own bottom line. Though not an easy mission, Goodwin believes the building of a different, better economy is something that we can all contribute to in one way or another—and it begins with a willingness to question the issues behind economic growth. “What is most important is to ask yourself what really contributes to a good life for yourself and your family,” she explained. “Don’t let yourself be misled by advertising and media, which try to promote materialism and consumerism as the path to happiness. When people stop to think about the happy moments in their lives, they generally do not think of moments when they were spending a lot of money. Pay attention to what’s real. Use your own experience, your values, and your sense of what matters as a guide. If you hang onto that, your behavior is likely to be in line with a sustainable economy.”

Driven by a desire to conserve, preserve, protect, and restore the environment, an extraordinary number of Concord Academy alumnae/i are traveling on a similar career path. And itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a very green one. They are entrepreneurs, researchers, educators, and farmers. Some are developing electric-powered vehicles, some are building energy-efficient homes, while others are diving deep into the issues affecting our oceans worldwide and the water in our communities. Beyond their environmental efforts and their connection with Concord Academy, these people, in their passion and commitment, all have something in common â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the belief that one person can make a difference.

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James May ‘96

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Making Hydrocarbons History

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

hen James May ’96 peers into the future, he sees a world where automobile drivers have put the brakes on hydrocarbons. “I have no doubt electric vehicles are coming and will replace internal combustion engines . . . there is simply no option for running cars that use gas for the next hundred years,” says May as he ticks off the reasons why. “We own just 2 percent of the world’s supply of oil but we use something like 25 percent; the emissions pollute our environment; there are geopolitical problems in countries that supply us with oil . . . no question, burning gas in our cars doesn’t make sense.” What makes sense, according to May? Electric-powered vehicles. After studying economics at Middlebury and getting two master’s degrees from Duke in environmental management and public policy, May decided it was time to merge his personal and professional lives. “I’ve always had an environmental focus in my recreational life and wanted to merge those, and I decided to focus on energy issues,” said May. That’s what brought May to Wireless Advanced Vehicle Electrification (WAVE), a startup in Park City, Utah that he cofounded. “There’s no question electric vehicles are more environmentally friendly than the gas guzzlers that currently rule the road,” says May, “But there are two big problems — the batteries are extraordinarily large and heavy, and it can take hours to recharge batteries. People who buy electric vehicles equate charging their vehicles with walking their dog; it’s another chore.” May believes his company has a way of solving both of these problems. The company has developed a charging pad which will allow 26

an electric vehicle to charge its battery wirelessly, which eliminates the need to stop and plug anything in. Currently, the application is designed for transit buses. “The bus stops at the charging pad for six to eight minutes and gets a charge of fifty to one hundred kilowatts, and then it can go on its route for forty minutes,” says May. Buses are uniquely suited for this kind of pilot program because they have to start and stop regularly to pick up passengers along their routes. “Buses can operate at roughly sixty-five cents per gallon equivalent compared to the cost of a gallon of diesel fuel which now sits about four dollars,” said May. Because most buses run on regular routes, the charging pad can be installed in several locations along the same route, which will mean a bus can get multiple charges along the way, solving the second problem — multiple charges mean the battery can be smaller. The company has been awarded a $2.7 million federal grant from the Federal Transit Administration, and will be running a pilot program at the University of Utah in the fall. The

WAVE’s charging pad

University was looking to run a new bus route through the heart of its campus, but campus administrators would not allow any bus with an internal combustion engine to circulate so close to campus buildings because of the noise and smell of the diesel fumes. May and his team approached the university about the possibility of electric buses. They won the contract. They’ve also found some electric buses in the Bay Area that they are retrofitting and hope to have them on campus in September. May recognizes that some green energy enthusiasts are critical of increasing reliance on electricity. “They say, ‘You’re not really green — you’re just deflecting energy requirements to the power grid and using coal to power the electric grid, and that’s not green.’ All of that is true, but we are improving our grid all the time by using more renewable energy resources and less coal.” While he recognizes that a few buses on a university campus aren’t going to change the world, May has his eye on a bigger prize. “There are 65,000 transit buses running right now,” he points out. That does not include shuttle buses at airports, college and corporate campuses, and elsewhere. That is a big carbon footprint, and a huge diesel consumption footprint that we could just get rid of.” One greener bus at a time.

Belinda Griswold ’90

E.T. The Messenger

CA has entered the electric age. A shiny, albeit used, electric truck is replacing a 1988 gas-guzzling Ford pickup with 225,000 miles under its (fan) belt in the maintenance department. The vehicle was donated to CA. It will be used within the town of Concord to pick up supplies and transport equipment on roads with speed limits

elinda Griswold ’90 is a program director at Resource Media in Seattle, Washington. It’s her job to make people aware of, and care about, environmental issues large and small. “We work with everybody from mom-andpop groups who are trying to stop a factory in their neighborhood from polluting, to conservation, public health, and international groups who are trying to affect the framework of laws,” said Griswold. It’s a challenging occupation at a time when unemployment remains high, gas prices are up, and the economy remains in rough shape. “It’s difficult to do this work because we are in hard times,” acknowledged Griswold. She earned her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley and then tried her hand as a newspaper reporter. Griswold went on to law school at Northeastern University and finally found her voice working on political campaigns in communications. She brought those skills — and a passion for the planet — to her job at Resource Media. “These are issues about people’s lives and well-being and our safety and families,” said Griswold. “We’re in a moment when the planet’s ability to sustain itself is in jeopardy. People say that can’t be the case, but if you are enmeshed in the data that is actually true.” Most of Resource Media’s funding comes from foundation grants, making it very different from a traditional public relations company. Depending on the issue, Griswold might be involved in public opinion research, polling, or social and digital media strategizing. Her specialties are campaigns involving water and climate change. “In the American West, water is the delivery mechanism for climate change. As the climate warms and dries, we see these catastrophic droughts. We also see unprecedented flooding. The basic chemistry of our climate is

Around the maintenance barn the truck is known affectionately as E.T.— for electric truck.

Carly Nartowicz

Director of Operations Don Kingman and “E.T.”

changing, and it’s causing dry, warm areas and flood-prone areas,” said Griswold. She credits her years at CA with being instrumental in starting her on this path. “Such a value is placed on stewardship, engagement with the community. It is very natural for kids growing up in a context like that to see the impact of the destruction we’re causing. I think it gave us the confidence we needed to go out and make the change,” said Griswold, who adds that her faith — she is a practicing Buddhist — has also played a role in her choice of professions. “It has increased my understanding about the interdependence of all life.” On Twitter, Griswold calls herself a green media strategist by day, Buddhist by night, but the truth is the two are intertwined. “Touching that spiritual wellspring is a big part of my work and my life and helps keep me going.” The other thing that keeps Griswold going is her young daughter, Emma-Tara. “Since I had my daughter, it has changed my attitude towards my work. I know it’s her world that we are trying to ensure is a safe, sane place to thrive and prosper,” said Griswold.

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under thirty-five miles per hour.

Betsy Nicholson ’91

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Protecting Our Oceans

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ife has always revolved around the ocean for Betsy Nicholson ’91. She grew up sailing, married another avid boater and now, with two little kids in tow, cruises up and down the coast of New England in a twentyeight-foot Albin. “Both of my kids have learned to walk on boats. They grew up not being able to see over the gunnel and now they can just about peek over,” said Nicholson, whose love of the sea goes beyond the recreational and extends to the professional. “We live on a blue planet; 70 percent of the earth is water. I believe the oceans are the secret to everything in terms of our ability to survive and thrive.” Understanding, managing, and protecting those oceans is how Nicholson spends her days as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Northeast Lead for the Coastal Services Center. The United States is a coastal nation. Statistics show that a majority of the population lives within fifty miles of the ocean on both coasts. Yet, according to Nicholson, “It is a huge challenge to be able to get people to see beyond the surface of the water, to understand that our connection with the ocean is not only what we get from it but what we do with it.” Nicholson refers to this kind of knowledge as “ocean literacy.” She offers, by way of explanation, that in the 1970s we used to refer to wetlands as swamps because we didn’t yet understand the vital connection these areas had to our ecosystem. As a society, we also lived under the false assumption that we had unlimited resources. Now our understanding of the world and our environment has changed. There is a greater understanding that the health of our environment is connected with our survival. “We need to make that same adjustment in our thinking about the oceans: they’re not just for our own use but for our survival,” said Nicholson. Nicholson worries that we are looking at an “ocean traffic jam” of epic proportions in the coming years because of the increasing demands on our waters. “With the Arctic open28

ing up due to climate change and the Panama Canal widening and deepening to allow larger ships to pass through . . . we will be moving more of our cargo to the oceans, and the stresses on our waters will likely increase,” said Nicholson. At NOAA, Nicholson is tasked with convening federal, state, tribal, local governments and the NE Fishery Management Council to create a comprehensive ocean plan for New England waters. This is in response to the Obama administration’s 2010 National Ocean Policy and will be developed in nine regions across the U.S. “We need a plan that reflects what New England wants from our oceans, and we need better information now so our decisions about where to site wind, aquaculture, shipping lanes, and research areas are made with an understanding that there are trade-offs. Better information and more up-front communication among ocean management authorities will result in better decisions,” said Nicholson. Take the issue of siting a wind farm, for instance. It turns out that the coast off Massachusetts and Rhode Island is one the best places to develop wind energy. But how do you decide where to put the wind turbines? There are shipping lanes to consider, and the migratory

patterns of right whales need to be factored in as well. Aquaculture and tourism are also considerations. Because there is no central database, environmental decisions with the potential for lifealtering consequences are often made in an information vacuum. “The time is now to consider in a more comprehensive light how we use oceans. People in this part of the region have a sense of urgency,” said Nicholson, who is hard at work coordinating state and regional coastal management initiatives for NOAA. “My job is in the realm of policy management. It’s about convening people as different as a tribal member, a government employee, and a renewable energy developer, and getting them to come to an agreement on objectives and a way forward . . . as a result I spend a lot of time in my car,” she laughed. The Massachusetts native credits her years at CA with teaching her how to think in an interdisciplinary way. “I draw on that every day . . . CA shaped the way I think, and taught me how to respect different perspectives. That’s critical if you want to get something done.”

Christie Wilcox ’03

he lionfish is about a foot in length, with red and white zebra stripes and venomous needle-like fins. But there’s a bigger danger. According to Christie Wilcox ’03, this prickly invader is wreaking environmental havoc in our oceans. Wilcox is a marine biologist, an award-winning blogger, and an avid environmentalist who has been studying the lionfish for years. “This is the worst marine invasion we’ve ever seen,” said Wilcox. Lionfish, which are native to the Caribbean, have somehow found their way into the waters off Florida. Now, their voracious appetite and breeding habits have raised alarm bells in the scientific community. “These fish are big predators, so they eat a lot of little fish,” said Wilcox. “They have been known to reduce the number of baby fish arriving and growing on a reef by 79 percent.” The rest of the lionfish’s rap sheet reads just as ominously. “They are also toxic: a sting from a lionfish

can really hurt. Finally, they blow normal breeding rates out of the water — the population in the Atlantic has grown so fast, they’re like cockroaches.” By gobbling everything in their path, the lionfish are dramatically altering the delicate ecosystem of the coral reef. “It’s causing a dramatic shift in ocean communities that, at a bare minimum, has led to beautiful coral reefs being covered in algae,” said Wilcox, who then added ominously, “and at worst could lead to the extinction of some fish populations.” She points out that the lionfish invasion was named one of the worst threats to global biodiversity in 2010. Wilcox is something of a lionfish expert. After graduating from Eckerd College in 2007, she worked as a lab assistant in Florida before moving to Hawaii. She is pursuing her PhD in cell and molecular biology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her research focuses on the genetic underpinnings of native and nonnative lionfish.

“My day-to-day is in the lab, dissecting and looking at the genetics of things. I get to go in the field about one month a year, where I spend my time on the ocean traveling and collecting samples.” For Wilcox, that time in the field is interesting, but some of what she sees there is disquieting for her. “It’s very sobering to go down to a reef and see trash. There is something upsetting on a visceral level. We often dive in and see plastic bags on the reefs. As a marine biologist it’s hard to look at plastics and not see them as harmful,” she says. As if working on a PhD and keeping a marine predator at bay wasn’t enough, Wilcox is also an award-winning science blogger. It started innocently enough. Wilcox was spending a lot of time in the lab with dead fish as her main companions. She began to feel the need to reach out to some fellow humans. “I was cooped up in a lab all day. I felt like I was trapped, and I was kind of looking for a way to communicate and talk in general,” said Wilcox, who had a particular audience in mind. “Part of the big boundary between scientists and nonscientists is that we often use jargon, and nonscientists often don’t get what we do. I think science is so cool. I thought if I just took away the jargon, people would love it as much as I do.” She started writing at “Observations of a Nerd.” Pretty soon, traffic to her blog increased and she got picked up by ScienceBlogs. She now writes as part of the Scientific American blogging network at Science Sushi. For three years in a row, Wilcox’ posts have appeared in Open Laboratory, a collection of the best science blogging of the year. “I get a lot of comments from people who are ‘sci-curious’ — they have a strong interest in science, but they don’t work in the field. I love it when I hear from a mom in Wisconsin who tells me what I wrote was cool.” You can follow Christie on Twitter @NerdyChristie or check out her website christiewilcox.com 29

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Dangers in the Deep

his past fall, Concord Academy students had the opportunity to delve deeply into a critical environmental issue. It was through the course Water Conflicts at Home and Abroad, taught by science teacher Gretchen Roorbach. “Water is one of those resources we take for granted,” says Roorbach. “I wanted my students to understand why somebody would go to war over water.”

Roorbach easily ticks off the alarming statistics: Close to two billion people in the world are without access to clean, potable water, according to Roorbach. In the American West, the issue is one of supply. Several towns in Texas, due to a historic drought, have declared Stage 4 water emergencies and have been forced to truck in water because local sources have dried up. Even in New England, which is water rich, there are stresses on the system.

In Massachusetts in 2010, a state of emergency was declared when a pipe carrying water to Boston sprang a leak, dumping eight million gallons of water into the Charles River. “I feel we are near some sort of tipping point,” says Roorbach. “Energy is important, but water is crucial to survival. To me, water may be the most important environmental issue.” Roorbach is clearly passionate about the topic. A moment of hospitality is telling: She offers a visitor a plastic bottle of water, but accompanies the offer with an exhortation on the benefits of tap water and reusable containers. Ultimately, Roorbach is a committed environmentalist. Part of her campus routine as the CA Recycling Coordinator includes picking up paper and cardboard materials in the various offices on campus, and making sure they get recycled. She holds a master’s degree in civil engineering, with a specialty in water. “We have to understand the global implications of the issues with quality and quantity that the world has with water,” says Roorbach. The fifteen students in her

LifeStraws

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ily Platt ’12 noticed a story in the New York Times about a personal water filter called LifeStraw produced by the Swiss company Vestergaard Frandsen. As a student in Gretchen Roorbach’s Water Conflicts at Home and Abroad course, Platt knew just how vital an effective water purifier could be. “Access to clean water is a daily concern for so many people,” said Lily. Some estimates suggest that 1.5 million children around the world die from diseases that stem from drinking dirty water. That number doesn’t include the millions more whose access to clean drinking water is cut off after a natural disaster. LifeStraw is part of a new breed of small, low-cost water purifiers designed to give people greater access to clean water. Lily

ticks off the numbers on her fingertips, “They cost about $6.50, and one device can filter enough water to last a person about a year.” As part of a research project for class, Platt starting investigating the effect of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake on its water supply. What she learned wasn’t encouraging. Haiti’s already shaky water infrastructure was devastated by the earthquake, and the number of people dying from water-borne disease had skyrocketed. Lily decided she could make a difference. With a little pizza and a lot of support from the CA community, Lily raised almost six hundred dollars. The money will be used to send LifeStraws to Haitians in need.

class did just that. The course explored case studies that focused on water tensions in the Jordan River, the Ogallala Aquifer, China, the Middle East, and the Colorado River, among other places. Students visited the local wastewater treatment plant in Concord. They also learned how customers of the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority were able, through a combination of efforts, to reduce daily water consumption from 320 million gallons to 220 million gallons. Roorbach’s is a class full of energy and curiosity on the subject of water. As long as it’s not in plastic bottles.

Anne-Marie Dorning

Gretchen Roorbach, faculty

Ben Wolbach ’93 and Hannah Hobbs Wolbach ’97

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The Real Dirt on Organic Farming

or most farmers, environmental issues are as real as the dirt under their fingernails. That is certainly true for Ben Wolbach ’93 and Hannah Hobbs Wolbach ’97 of Skinny Dip Farm. The married couple are co-owners of the soon-to-be-organic-certified three-acre farm, in Westport, Massachusetts. “It is something we think about constantly — farming has changed the way I think about sustainability and my actions,” said Hannah Wolbach. “It is a much more direct relationship to the earth, but it is also a more practical relationship with the earth.” Practical, because the decisions the Wolbachs make throughout their day on the farm have real environmental consequences: Should they drive their diesel truck an hour away to sell organic produce at a market, given the amount of fuel they will use to get there? Should they grow a cover crop next to a stream on their property to prevent runoff, given that the stream

runs into the Westport River and the agricultural runoff — even though it’s considered “natural” — could be toxic to the river? “It is really easy for people to sit in an office all day and talk about how agricultural run-off is a bad thing, or erosion is a problem or climate change is a problem, but then they go to the grocery store and buy food,” said Hannah. “We see the direct connection between how we work and what we do on the farm and what comes out of the ground.” For the Wolbachs, this past year has been a lesson in the hard compromises necessary in trying to “do good,” while running a business at the same time. “Sometimes I think people believe organic farmers are going to save the world. The reality is, I just want to make enough money to be able to farm again next year,” said Ben. The Wolbachs did not know each other at Concord Academy. Ben graduated in the spring

of 1993, just before Hannah entered CA as a freshman. But they both agree that their environmental roots were nurtured at CA. “Farming and environmentalism were definitely put on my radar at school,” said Ben. In some ways, it seems positively fated that these two CA alumni with green thumbs would eventually meet. The two first encountered each other in Marin, California, as Hannah was leaving a job as a teacher. Ben had just arrived to fill the position. “Someone suggested I go down the hill to meet this girl Hannah. So I did. During our first conversation, I discovered she was from the East Coast, then I learned she was from Boston, then she said she had gone to a prep school in Concord, Massachusetts. I thought, wait a minute here, it can’t be . . .,” said Ben. The two quickly discovered they had a lot of other things in common as well — a love of the environment, backpacking, and swimming in glacier melts in the mountains. And, of course, farming. After moving back East, the Wolbachs worked for five years as comanagers at Holly Hill Farm in Cohasset, Massachusetts, before striking out on their own last year. “Our to-do list was kind of crazy last spring,” laughed Ben. “We had things on it like, ‘Buy a tractor.’” They also had an ambitious crop schedule last year, regularly working long days to plant, weed, and harvest. The end result was a bountiful crop of produce that included thirty varieties of vegetables, fifteen different kinds of heirloom tomatoes, eight different kinds of lettuce, and seventy-five varieties of cut flowers, from asters to zinnias. The produce is sold at area markets and restaurants. And who produced the farm’s somewhat unusual name? Ben takes full, if fanciful, credit. “The name was an attempt to have fun and hopefully have a built-in reminder to keep things light,” he smiled. “It’s hard to take yourself too seriously if you say, ‘Skinny Dip Farm,’ every time you pick up the phone.” An ability to keep things light has become an essential tool for the Wolbachs, as the spring planting season turns into the summer harvest, when the twelve-hour days seem to stretch on forever. “It’s not always a mystical relationship with the earth,” concedes Hannah. “Sometimes, though, we stop and think of the beautiful sunrise and sunset and it seems magical, and we do feel that we’re the luckiest people on earth.”

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David Kukla ’82

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Today’s Lesson: Saving the World

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

avid Kukla ’82 teaches a precalculustrigonometry course at Sabino High School in Tucson, Arizona. A few years ago, Kukla decided there might be a more meaningful way to educate his students, rather than just teaching to the test. “I was looking for ways to make my students’ experience of mathematics something more than just, ‘Now, do forty of these problems,’” said Kukla. Then, it hit him. Kukla decided his students could learn about math by analyzing their classroom’s energy consumption. For the past year, Kukla’s class has been working in small groups on an energy plan project to see where money can be saved and energy conserved at their school. Saving the planet seemed an ideal way of making math accessible, so Kukla encouraged his students to study energy consumption at the school and devise ways to reduce it. “I wanted my students to be working on solving the problems of the world,” he said. But there was one problem: sometimes solving the problems of the world means recognizing them. “Many of my students don’t believe in the existence of climate change,” said Kukla, who realized that the idea of reducing a carbon footprint wouldn’t be meaningful to a majority of his class. “I’ve learned to phrase the problem differently to allow those students access to the problem: How can we reduce energy consumption at the school so that more money can be spent on the classroom?” Kukla’s students have learned that their school’s electricity usage costs about a thousand dollars per day and have looked at ways to reduce it. Kukla challenged his students, working in groups, to calculate and compare a variety of costs: using hand dryers in the bathrooms versus buying paper towels, installing solar panels on the roof, tinting the windows, even changing the light bulbs from the standard fluorescent bulbs to LED lights. The groups have been gathering data on the savings from each of their plans. They have calculated both the costs of change and the 32

potential side effects. After analyzing all aspects of the school’s operations, they will start making presentations to school district officials as well as local business leaders. “The best, and by best I mean most feasible, we will present to the board of our school district,” says Kukla. One project is already saving money. All the high school’s light bulbs have been switched from fluorescent to LED. It’s that kind of out-of-the-classroom thinking that has won Kukla accolades. In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching. Radio Shack named him Teacher of the Year and, most recently, ING selected Kukla as one of its Unsung Heroes and awarded him funding to augment technology in his classroom. It’s technology that is sorely needed. Recently, Kukla took his class to a local Star-

bucks where, via Skype, they chatted about climate change with students in Kyrgyzstan. After all, Starbucks has free Wi-Fi. Improbably enough, Kukla discovered that he wanted to teach while working as a buyer at Macy’s. “I was a literacy volunteer, and I ran into a woman who wanted to learn how to read so she could understand her TV Guide. Her goals were very simple, but I realized that by teaching her to read, I could help her radically transform her life,” says Kukla. “I came to realize that it was time to step up.” At precisely that time, a friend encouraged Kukla to commit himself to teaching. His friend’s words still resonate with Kukla more than twenty years later. “He said, ‘You know, there is this thing we have in the United States called public schools. There is this amazing dream where we provide our young people with a free education. People give grief to public schools, but the only way it’s going to get better is if good teachers join up.’ “I thought, ‘Well . . .’” said Kukla. After graduating from Teacher’s College at Columbia University, Kukla taught in East Harlem for several years before moving to Tucson. He has modeled his teaching style after two of his favorite CA faculty: Deanna Douglas and Clare Nunes. “I learned at CA the notion of dreaming and working to make your dreams real,” said Kukla. “It was an environment where everyone was happy to talk about new ideas and try to bring about change.” In turn, he’s passing those notions along to his own students. “I am looking to help them be problem solvers rather than people for whom the world happens. I want them to be active in their world as opposed to passive.” Even if that action is as small as changing a light bulb.

t CA, sustainability is not just a theoretical concept; it’s part of the curriculum. In science teacher John Pickle’s Sustainability Management course, students were asked to come up with ways the school might be able to conserve energy and cut costs. All the projects were presented to Director of Operations Don Kingman for consideration and possible implementation. Kevin Cho ’12 tackled the energy cost and power consumption of CA’s desktop computers and servers. Kevin installed power management software called Granola on five different computers around campus. After estimating the total power consumption of CA’s PCs and the cost of power per kilowatt-hour, Kevin estimated that the school could save more than $3,000 and up to 15 tons of carbon dioxide every year. His presentation concluded this way: “Installing software to reduce power consumption of desktops and servers is one of the most efficient ways to reduce energy consumption and to reduce harmful

environmental effects.” Even the lowly faucet was subject to scrutiny by two of Pickle’s students, Adam Ting ’12 and Quinn Sweeny ’12. They tested the water flow rates on fifty-one faucets around campus. The duo discovered that the water flow rate for the average faucet is 3.7 gallons per minute (GPM). By installing inexpensive ultralow-flow faucets, Adam and Quinn calculated the school could save 1,247 gallons of water a year. The faucets work by adding air to the flow of water, reducing the amount of water used. In their final report, Adam and Quinn wrote, “Through these ultra-low flow aerators, CA can do its part in conserving water and money.” Adam and Quinn also conducted an inventory of all the trees on campus. The tally showed that dogwoods and maple trees make up nineteen of the forty trees around the main campus. Trees provide shade for campus buildings, cooling them down and thus saving money on energy costs. According to Adam and Quinn, as the climate warms,

The Sustainability class sporting near-infrared goggles.

many experts believe some of the trees in the Northeast may not thrive. “Since the climate is warming, it would be unwise to start planting trees that die in hot weather, but smart to plant trees that are more durable and offer the same shade and energy-saving function of CA’s current tree population,” said Adam and Quinn. Mehreen Khan ’13 studied how much money and electricity might be saved by installing light sensors in the CA library. It turns out the savings could be substantial. To measure the light intensity levels, Mehreen installed sensors in both the upper and lower library and monitored light usage for twenty days. Using a light intensity measure of 70 as a suitable baseline, Mehreen calculated how many hours lights were used above this set level. In public spaces, lights are often left on even though ambient lighting may

be sufficient to illuminate a room. Light sensors automatically detect occupancy and ambient light levels and switch on or off according to those conditions. Mehreen calculated CA could save $500 a year on its electricity bill by installing sensors in the library. Jazmin Londono ’12 discovered that the current skylight in the library is poorly insulated and allows heat to escape because of its low R-value. Thermal infrared images of the ceiling and the skylight demonstrated just how much energy is leaking through the skylight on a daily basis. Jazmin concluded that a new skylight could conserve energy and save money. The last time John Pickle taught this course, one student suggested eliminating plastic trays from the dining room in an effort to reduce costs and water usage. That change has already been implemented.

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John Pickle, faculty

Katie Eberle ’04

C A

E A R T H

The Environmental Designer

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

or most college students, getting through those four years with good grades and a degree are enough. But Katie Eberle ’04 had a few other things on her mind at Colorado College. In her freshman year, she joined an environmental group called EnAct, and realized to her shock that the college, at the base of the Rocky Mountains, wasn’t as environmentally progressive as it should be. “I knew we had a base of students and alumni who would be in support of an environmental outlook for the campus,” said Eberle. “So I put together a ‘green roundtable’ and a campuswide sustainability summit.” It took three years and multiple meetings with the president of the college, but the administration eventually signed a climate commitment that included a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on campus by a certain timeline. The college also created a sustainability management plan. “This actually happened my senior year,” said Eberle. “I felt it was a huge accomplishment for the school.” All that, and she still somehow found the time to graduate with a self-designed major in architecture and sustainable design. Eberle knew she wanted to continue down a career path that incorporated her passion for environmental design. She moved to San Francisco and joined a sustainable architecture firm as an intern. The small firm focused on single-family homes and new construction. “I got a real feel for the green architecture movement,” said Eberle. Along with a feel for the movement, however, came a sense of disillusionment with the profession. “Buildings have the largest impact on emissions, there’s no question about it,” said Eberle. “But as an architect you build one to two 34

homes a year if you’re lucky.” She began to focus on the building code which, in her words, is “really behind the times” both in California and across the country. Eberle says, only half-jokingly, “Cutting-edge design is technically illegal — I can’t even design the stuff I want to design.” A serendipitous boat ride with a couple who own an energy consulting company landed Eberle a job as project manager at the Heschong Mahone Group, a San Francisco firm which focuses on Net-Zero Energy building technologies. The concept behind a Net-Zero Energy building is that it should produce as much energy over the course of the year as it uses. “It is achievable but really only for certain building types, like single-family homes,” said Eberle. “It is far more difficult for commercial buildings.” Eberle often walks building owners through the process required to achieve Net-Zero status — a combination of reducing energy use through added insulation, efficient appliances, and upgraded building systems — and adding renewable generation like solar panels and wind turbines. “Hopefully by the end of the year you balance,” said Eberle. Eberle has always loved the outdoors. She

grew up sailing with her family off the coast of Maine. “Every year we would pile into our sailboat and live on it for two weeks in the summer.” She credits her CA junior fall semester at Chewonki, an environmental education program based on the Maine coast, with raising her awareness of environmental conservation. “That experience really led to my getting involved in causes related to sustainability and the environment,” said Eberle. Even now, Eberle is considering new and different ways she might be able to have an impact. “I do have a larger perspective on the industry and just how much goes into changing the building code; it has led me to think about what a more effective position may be.” For Eberle, clearly, all options are open. “I may go into politics to work more on the policy side of things.”

Louisa Bradford ’69

he unrestrained use of fossil fuels has always been a concern for Louisa Bradford ’69. But this Virginia-based residential designer is also a realist. “It is going to take time to ramp up affordable technologies to generate energy from alternative sources,” says Bradford. “While we are busy developing alternative energy sources, why not focus on reducing the demand for energy in the first place?” Fortunately, with a master’s degree in architecture, Bradford is intimately aware of just how easy it is to build houses that are more energy efficient. In Charlottesville, Virginia, Bradford designed two houses using sustainable building materials, “green” landscaping techniques, and a focus on site orientation. When completed, both houses were 34 percent more energy-efficient than required by code. That experience changed the way Bradford thought about her profession. “I feel we need to change the building industry, which is a little like turning around the Titanic, but it needs to be done,” she says. The question was how. Bradford’s answer? One house at a time. And she started with her own. For over one hundred years, Bradford’s family has vacationed in the seaside town of Westerly, Rhode Island. In 2010, Bradford decided to build a “Passive House” on a plot of land less than a mile from the ocean. She hopes to retire in the house one day. Bradford describes a Passive House as one using a “performance-based building standard, developed in Germany, that leads to dramatic reduction in energy use in buildings.” How dramatic? 75 – 90 percent, according to Bradford who became a certified Passive House consultant two years ago. “I estimate that it will cost about 400 dollars a year to heat and cool this house. We will not have a central heating system because we don’t need one. Our heating unit has the same energy output as a toaster oven.”

Louisa Bradford ’69 in front of her Passive House in Westerly, RI

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Building Better

With her plans in hand and a local builder on board, Bradford set about her project. In order to achieve Passive House standards, a house has to be extremely well insulated. Doors and windows are high performance and generally triple glazed. A critical component of Passive House design demands a house to be airtight. Thermal bridging is minimized. Appliances must also be energy-efficient and all mechanical systems are small. “You calculate all of your heat gains and losses,” says Bradford. “In the end, by my calculations, the amount of supplemental heat we will need is about equal to a 1000-watt hair dryer. Because there is no central heating system, the supplemental heat is circulated through the ventilation system.”Of course all of this costs money. Bradford estimates her upfront costs will be about 10 percent higher than normal. That’s a price she is willing to pay because she believes the cost of building houses the old way will be much, much higher in the end. “If we don’t figure it out, people are going to be huddling in small rooms because they can’t afford to heat or cool these McMansions. The cost of fossil fuels is going up, and the damage done to planet earth from the unrestrained use of fossil fuels is enormous,” she points out. She already has at least one convert — her Rhode Island contractor, Stephen Goodman. “I can never build the same way again. It is unbelievable to think it will only cost a few hundred dollars to heat this house — no matter what happens with the cost of oil or gas,” said Goodman. Bradford and Goodman have worked hand in hand on this project, working out the details as they go along. “The thing about Passive Houses is, they tell you what standards to meet but they don’t tell you how to meet them,” says Bradford. “So, to a certain extent, everything we are doing here is an experiment.” Like any good experiment, there needs to be measurable data to confirm its success. Bradford intends to install monitoring devices in the house to determine how much energy is actually being used. The house is scheduled for completion this summer.

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

hen the unmistakable sound of Led Zeppelin pierced the whisper quiet of the eighteenth floor of the Yale Club in New York City on the evening of February 9, it was the first indication that this gathering of Concord Academy alumnae/i, former faculty, and Head of School Rick Hardy was going to be different. And it was. More than seventy alumnae/i from the 1970s filled the room for a night of dining, discussion, and reminiscing about their years at Concord Academy during what was a transformative decade for the institution. The event featured remarks by the head of school and a panel discussion moderated by Puddie Hauge Sword ’75, with teacher emeritus Bill Bailey, former house parent and Spanish teacher, Monica Hayes, (known at Concord Academy as Monica Benjamin), and teacher emeritus John O’Connor. Before dinner, the alumnae/i guests—men and women now in their fifties, clustered in small groups and exchanged information on their lives since high school. But that kind of catching up was quickly overtaken by an animated sharing of “remember when?” anecdotes. Walking around the room one could hear, “Remember gnoming?” or, “Who started that protest—do you remember?” as the former students engaged in discussions about what it was like to be a student at Concord Academy in the 1970s. As they talked, they were bathed in the silvery glow of a slideshow that shuffled through photographs depicting their younger selves. For most the hair was a lot longer and the pant legs decidedly wider. But there was no mistaking the faces—youthful, eager, full of promise.

From left to right: Patty Chao ’73, Wendy Powers ’74, Robin Gosnell Travers ’73, and Laura Powers-Swiggett ’75; John O’Connor; Anne Dayton ’72 and Linden Havemeyer Wise ’70; Karen McAlmon ’75; Irene Chu ’76 and Robert Forbes ’76; Stow Kelner ’75; Jared Keyes ’79, Laura Drachman ’79, Richard Oh ’79, and Carey Mack Weber ’79; Wendy Klemperer ’76

After dinner, the group discussion began in earnest. Sword opened the conversation by providing some context about the challenges Concord Academy faced in the 1970s. CA was an all-girls school in 1970—the female alternative to Groton or Andover, but by the end of decade it was a coeducational school that included 105 boys. In 1973, the energy crisis forced some classes to be held in dorm living rooms. Throughout the decade financial pressures mounted. It was perhaps no coincidence, then, that there were a total of four heads of school at CA during the seventies. Faculty emeritus Bill Bailey reflected on the enormous effect that the influx of male students in 1971 had on the school. “Very few girls’ schools went coed on their own terms . . . Concord did,” said Bailey. The change in student enrollment prompted an enormous upheaval on campus. There was a need for new facilities; a new athletic building and a student-faculty complex were planned. At the same time the old model of house mothers in the boarding houses was replaced by house families. Whether it was the era or the shifting landscape on campus, rather than seek leadership from the faculty or heads of school, students at CA started to challenge authority in ways big and small. To cite one example, Bailey said a group of young journalists took issue with building a new gymnasium on campus. “The future Woodward and Bernsteins began publishing twice a week and interrogating members of the Board about this new building,” said Bailey, to much laughter from the crowd. “I look on this as an

extraordinary experience.” And so did many of his former students, who stood one by one to share their memories. “Concord was one of those places that showed me about taking action,” said one attendee. O’Connor, who started teaching at CA in 1972, marveled at how different the relationships between faculty and students seemed at CA. He shared a story about a student who “dismissed” then-head of school Russell Mead from his role in the play Anything Goes because Mead had the temerity to miss several rehearsals. “What I learned is that there is another way to run a school. I learned it is all about you—the students,” said O’Connor. Amanda Zinsser Moffat ’79 talked about the bonds formed with her friends. “I came to appreciate CA because of the women around me. They were all so deeply supportive.” Peter Michaelis ’74 shared some of the life lessons he learned during his years at Concord Academy. “I became a network television producer because of my experience in the media department at Concord . . . We all know there are other schools where there is no chance for experimenting, no chance to make mistakes, and no chance to step up into leadership roles as a student. My experience at Concord Academy was very empowering.” Throughout the evening, the theme of student leadership and action was a constant thread. “One of the things that distinguished the relationship between students and faculty back then was the ability to have an intellectual dialog,” Beau Poor ’75 said. “We were not fearful of the teachers, and I think that was very different from most prep schools.” As Monica Hayes rose to her feet to speak

Photos by Karen Culbert

From left to right: Elizabeth Hillyer Parker ’73 and Susan Coleman ’73; Markley Boyer ’78; Monica Benjamin Hayes; Isabel Fonseca ’79, Andrew Herwitz ’79 and Amanda Zinsser Moffat ’79; Bill Bailey; Jesse Cohen ’75, Sarah Hewitt ’75, Puddie Hauge Sword ’75, and Elizabeth Emmons ’75; Renee Amory Ketcham ’75 and Beau Poor ’75

Q and A with Rick Hardy Concord Academy’s Head of School Rick Hardy attended the gathering of alumnae/i and faculty from the 1970s at the Yale Club of New York City on February 9, 2012. Afterward, Hardy answered a few questions for CA Magazine.

Q What did you learn at this event about Concord Academy that you didn’t know before? Tonight has been truly wonderful. What I had understood as school history to some extent was brought into relief tonight: coeducation and a shift from boarding to day students led to a change in our identity. Those changes, together with some outside economic pressures, created a challenging period for our school. What I didn’t fully understand, until tonight, is how the progressive element at CA may have helped us to navigate the changes of the ’70s more easily than some of our peer schools.

Q What are some of the differences that you see between CA in the ’70s and now? In this room we have some of the first male graduates at Concord Academy. CA is now fully coed with 171 boys and 192 girls; 24 percent are students of color and 10 percent are international students. We offer more courses now than we did back then, 156 compared to 114 in the late ’70s. We currently have 63 faculty members, 87 percent of whom have advanced degrees. Last year, we had 760 applications for 101 spots. Those numbers make it clear to me that the institution has weathered the storm of that rocky period. Q In your opinion, what is the thread that links the Concord Academy of 1970 to the campus you see today? The themes that were repeated tonight in one story after another about engagement—with academics, with teachers—are what remain at the core of Concord Academy. I hear them in my travels as well: one alumna in London recently told me that twenty-five years ago her teachers at Concord took her intellect seriously, with the result that she began to take it seriously too. That kind of interaction between students and faculty continues on a daily basis today.

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to the group, a quiet fell over the room. Hayes, who was known to this group as Monica Benjamin, was a Spanish teacher and CA’s ﬁrst African American house parent. She recounted her impressions of Concord Academy upon her arrival in 1972. “The seventies were among the most important years of my life. My son was a baby in 1974. My daughter, Nyla, was born a short time later. CA didn’t really look very different then than it does now. You look around the room. You will get a sense of what CA was like for me,” said Hayes, who went on to describe the students in her house as “family.” She thanked the alumnae/i for their role in helping her raise her children. “They are warm and loving because so many of you laid hands on them . . . I am here to say thank you.” During her years at CA, Hayes was known as a calm and loving presence during a tumultuous time. “There were gifts that you believe you got from me that I didn’t know I gave,” said Hayes. “There was a spirit of what CA was in the seventies. We planted seeds in you. We didn’t know at the time what we were doing. But when I look at you now I believe that’s what we were doing.” Rick Hardy, head of school, rose to close the evening, “I am really grateful to have the opportunity to hear your stories—stories that resonate quite strongly with what I know about today’s school. I want to thank you because it’s clear you hung on through a rocky period in our school’s history . . . You kept the ship aﬂoat . . . your energy and curiosity, together with that of your teachers, kept the heart of our school beating,” said Hardy. The gathering didn’t end with the last guest leaving. While Facebook was still far in the future in 1970, it has now allowed the former friends and classmates to continue the discussion that started over dinner that night. Minus the Led Zeppelin.

y primary goal when I became president of Concord Academy’s Alumnae/i Association was to get more graduates involved with the school, and I am excited to report that our efforts have been successful. We have modified events to be more tailored to specific activities or generations in recognition that not all CA alumnae/i have the same interests, and as a result event attendance has increased as has the number of alumnae/i trying out a CA event for the first time.

Here are some highlights from the past year: • The Alumnae/i Community and Equity Committee held its third annual event to connect with current students of color. This year, alumnae/i and students gathered at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square to watch a private screening of the HBO production the Latino List, afterwards sharing their stories and common experiences. • An event for 1970s alumnae/i in NYC had over seventy attendees, who, led by a panel of former faculty and an alumna, engaged in a lively discussion about their experiences during this transitional decade in our school’s history. • The CA Young Alumnae/i Committee’s (CAYAC) annual winter gathering, now in its sixth year, has become one of the most popular alumnae/i events. Over 120 graduates from the past ten years met at

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

• The Local Alumnae/i Committee, which sponsors activities to engage alumnae/i in the Boston area, hosted a very successful tour and lunch at Mount Auburn Cemetery led by Meg Winslow ’77, Curator of Historical Collections at Mount Auburn Cemetery and a tour of the Whistler House Museum’s exhibit of John G. Wolcott’s paintings, with special commentary from his daughter Patty Wolcott Berger ’47. I am thrilled that more people are ﬁnding their way to CA alumnae/i events and back to campus with the choice of more diverse ways to reconnect with former classmates, current students, teachers, and staff. The CA community both on- and off-campus is made stronger by these connections. With increased use of technology and a greater repertoire of gatherings, I look forward to this trend continuing beyond my term as president of the Alumnae/i Association.

Kelsey Stratton ’99

ALUMNAE I ASSOCIATION UPDATE

Meg Winslow ’77 at Mount Auburn Cemetery with CA alumnae/i

Tavern on the Square in Porter Square over winter break and mingled into the late hours of the night with each other, current faculty, and Head of School Rick Hardy.

IN MEMORIAM

Mitchell Asher, father of David Asher ’15 John Barnard, husband of Helen Purves Barnard ’50 Celena Dean Bradlee, mother of Susan Bradlee Grant ’66, aunt of M. Loring Bradlee ’66 and Celena Kingman ’75 Louise Smith Bowman ’57, sister of Deborah Smith Leighton ’55, aunt of Julia Leighton ’77 and Anne Leighton ’79 Margaret Warren Brainerd ’46 John Brooks, father of Miriam Brooks Hall-Wunderlich ’57 and Sarah Brooks ’67 Charles Brookes, husband of Joan Barry Brookes ’47, brother-in-law of Angela Barry Smith ’43 Jane Servais Brown ’43 Mary Burlingame, grandmother of Maya Luckett ’14 Joan Ames Burr, mother of Evelyn Burr Brignoli ’62 Mary H. Causey, mother of Beth Causey ’87 Anne O. Chase, mother of Helen Chase Trainor ’67, Edith Chase Keller ’70, Lucy Chase Osborne ’73 and Mary Chase Nicholson ’73 Charles Colson, grandfather of Beck Colson ’11 Henry Cutter, father of Nathaniel Cutter ’84 and Rebecca Cutter ’92 Jane H. Dewey, mother of Margot Dewey Churchill ’60 Jacqueline Dresden, mother of former head of school Jacob Dresden T. L. Feininger, father of Charles Feininger ’84 Michael C. Fender, father of Emily Fender ’09 Sarah Crocker Garrison ’52 Charles Haar, father of Jonathan Haar ’74 Jane Heyward, mother of Louisa Heyward ’72 Dr. Lawrence E. Hinkle, Jr., father of Janice Hinkle Gregory ’68 Susan Hinkle Murray ’73,and Catherine D. Hinkle ’75, grandfather of Janice Kitchen ’09 and Michael Ciociola ’12 Deborah Hubbard Scott ’33 Miguel Junger, father of Sebastian Junger ’80 and Carlotta Junger Luke ’82

Rushworth Moulton Kidder, husband of Anne Davidson Kidder ’62, brother-in-law of Jane Davidson Kopp ’64 Marian Cameron Korbet ’49, sister of the late Evelyn Cameron ’43 and the late Isabelle Cameron Patten ’45 Amy Gerson Kynaston ’84, cousin of Elizabeth Ruml ’70 Phil Lovell, brother of Amy Lovell Fay ’51 Ann Bradford Mathias ’47 (continued)

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Joan Bigelow Kennedy ’42

(Continued from page 79)

IN MEMORIAM

Glover B. Mayﬁeld, father of Heather Mayfield Kelly ’74 and Karen Mayfield Seymour ’76, uncle of Tamasin Foote ’71, and great-uncle of Tully Foote ’02 and Tudor Foote ’05 Paul Micou, husband of Ann McKinstry Micou ’48 Thomas Miller, grandfather of Benjamin Miller ’08 and Samuel Miller ’12 James Parker, former faculty, father of Jamie Parker ’75 Lydia Cobb Perkins ’38, sister of Emily Cobb ’40, cousin of Susan Lawrence Hazard ’32, aunt of George Perkins ’75, great-aunt of William Perkins ’13, and sister-in-law of Anne Perkins Mitchell ’36 and the late Louise Perkins Crawford ’39 Norman Paul, father of Marilyn Byfield Paul ’70 Robin Randolph ’82 Catharine Ruml, mother of Elizabeth Ruml ’70, aunt of the late Amy Gerson Kynaston ’84 Cecilia Bessell Rauch ’59 Albrecht Saalﬁeld, father of Catherine Gund ’83 and Jessica Saalfield ’86 Inge Stafford, grandmother of Lena Stein ’11 and Audrey Stein ’14 Elizabeth Plimpton Tilton, mother of Anne Tilton Jalali ’69 Cornelia Pratt Van Bommel ’46 Lavinia Wadsworth, mother of Mary Wadsworth Darby ’68 Anne O’Melveny Wilson, grandmother of Bennett Wilson ’07 Ledlie Laughlin Woolsey ’34, mother of Mary Woolsey ’75, grandmother of Benjamin Loring ’97

CONCORD ACADEMY MAGAZINE SPRING 2012

Emma Kate Fritschel ’14 Batik, Fall 2011

Gabriel Cooney

Every student. Every teacher. Every day.

he impact of a donation to the Annual Scholarship program is felt throughout Concord Academy. Creative, bright students from a variety of backgrounds bring excitement about learning and diversity of thought to every corner of Concord Academy’s campus, ensuring that the entire community remains strong and vibrant.

“

We will always be grateful for the exceptional learning environment that Concord Academy provided for our son. Supporting the Annual Scholarship program says thank you in a concrete and meaningful way.”

—Erin Pastuszenski p’10

“

I got an enormous amount out of my years at Concord Academy, which were among the happiest of my life. I was lucky that my parents could afford to send me and I am pleased to be able to give this opportunity to another person. CA taught us to grow as individuals and to appreciate the contributions of others. I feel strongly that education is the most important thing you can give, and equips students to contribute to the community in positive ways.”

“

Our need-blind admissions process identifies students who are ideally matched for Concord Academy, without regard to their ability to pay full tuition. However, our financial aid budget can support only approximately one out of three admitted students who qualify for aid. Your annual contribution helps us make progress toward our ideal goal: offering financial aid to all admitted students who qualify for it, thus ensuring that we select, yield, and retain the best students for CA. Doing so ensures that all CA students will work side-by-side in classes, on teams, and in performing groups with other first-rate students.”

—Pam Safford Associate Head for Communications, Enrollment, and Planning

—Martha Taft ’65

For more information about becoming an Annual Scholarship donor, please contact Director of Annual Giving Ben Bailey ’91 at (978) 402-2246, or email ben_bailey@concordacademy.org.

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

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Upcoming Special Events

Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy Meet the Artist Performance Series 2012

June 1

July 12

Commencement Chapel Lawn, 10:00 a.m.

Joan Shaw Herman Distinguished Service Award Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, 2:00 p.m.

“Two Alike” A collaboration between choreographer performer Jack Ferver and sculptor Marc Swanson. 8:30 p.m. Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Massachusetts $20 ICA members and students, $25 nonmembers

June 25

July 26

Concord Academy Summer Camp opens

“How to Pass, Kick, Fall, and Run” Choreographed by Merce Cunningham Staged by Concord Academy alumnus Rashaun Mitchell ’96 8:30 p.m. Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Massachusetts $20 ICA members and students, $25 nonmembers

June 15–17

Reunion Weekend June 16

Memorial Service Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel, 11:00 a.m.

August 26

Kyle Abraham, Photo by Steven Schreiber

CA at Fenway Park Boston Red Sox vs. Kansas City Royals, 1:35 p.m. Fenway Park Visit concordalum.org for more information September 4

Convocation First day of classes October 5–6

Parents’ Weekend October 20

Alumnae/i Association Fall Meeting Ransome Room, Math and Arts Center, 9:30 a.m.

November 2 Celebrating CA’s 90th Keynote address: Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust ’64 Main Campus, 1:00 p.m. Dedication of the Concord Academy Athletic Campus 3:00 p.m.

Watch for upcoming alumnae/i events in your area at concordalum.org.

July 28

“Choreographers’ Project Showcase” 3:30 p.m. Featuring work by Seán Curran and Summer Stages Choreographers’ Project Fellowship recipients Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA

Concord Academy will host an array of informal performances, open rehearsals, and conversations with resident dance artists. Visit summerstagesdance.org for more information.