Spring 2016 Deerfield Magazine

DE E RF I E LD M A G A Z I N E SPRING 2016

C E N T E R F O R S E RV I C E A N D G L O B A L C I T I Z E N S H I P / C L U B S / B A R T O N ’ 6 7

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/ GRASSRO OTS AMBASSAD OR

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/ COMMON GROUND

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volume 73/3

CENTRIFUGAL FORCES

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ALBANY ROAD

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THE COMMON ROOM

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FIRST PERSON: MARGARITA CURTIS H '57

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IN MEMORIAM

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A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

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CENTRIFUGAL FORCES

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COMMON GROUND

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GRASSROOTS AMBASSADOR

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r. Curtis takes frequent walks to the Rock. I often see her on her way, sometimes with Friday (her unquenchable yellow Lab), sometimes without, sometimes with visitors with whom she wants to share this important rite. I once asked her, “Doesn’t it get boring, walking the same path all the time?” She replied with a tilted, knowing smile: “It’s different every time.”

I have only begun to understand what she means. If you walk to the Rock every day, even if you follow the same route, it is different every time—but only through close familiarity can you notice the changes.

In spring, each day sees the plants grow a little higher, blossoming in waves—taking their turns. The trees bud and leaves broaden . . . and at the height of summer, the branches grow pendulous with green weight. Ripening raspberries signal the looming edge of the season— as bear sightings grow more frequent. Late fall, the acorn mast expresses the trees’ intuition of the coming cold, and the squirrels respond in kind. Winter’s blanket is quilted with animal tracks, and bare trunks and branches allow a penetrating gaze into the forest— until the soft green haze of early buds begins a new cycle of change.

The daily rituals of boarding school share a similar quality. At Deerfield we tread familiar paths, yet glean something new and unexpected with each trip. Inclusion efforts have reframed our everyday experiences to focus on valuing each person. Community service isn’t just a club anymore—it opens our eyes to the urgency of hunger and need lurking just up the road (page 6). Structures as simple as

dormitory and dining assignments have evolved to better connect students with varied perspectives—and those themes of connection are also quietly at work in student clubs and alliances (page 18).

Curricula has been updated to integrate modern methods—and the very notion of curriculum has grown its tendrils beyond the classroom to global studies and even athletics (page 26).

These are face to face, feet on the ground interactions that transform everyday experiences into powerful lessons—and they can only be gotten at a school like Deerfield. Yes, Facetime and Skype have their place—and distance learning offers exciting opportunities—but those technologies are stuck on the thin screen, like flowers pressed in a book. The benefits of boarding school come from the 24/7 cycle of sharing experiences, space, and even basic chores—these everyday tasks are the landscape in which we work and learn.

As Dr. Curtis says, Deerfield students can be agents of hope, optimism, and positive change. They can do well, and do good. When we give them these direct experiences in connecting and empathizing with others—in the everyday, on the well-worn paths of daily life—we help them gain the detailed perspective they need in assessing real world issues and constraints. In helping them to dig in and solve problems with a direct, hands-on approach, we grant them the competencies and attributes they need to grow towards a positive impact in the world. //

David Thiel Director of Communications

Managing Editor

Production Coordinator

Multimedia Specialist

eCommunications Specialist

Art Director

Archivist

Director of Communications

Jessica Day

Cara Cusson

JR Delaney

Danaë DiNicola

Brent M. Hale

Anne Lozier

David Thiel

Editorial Office: Deerfield Academy, Deerfield, MA 01342. Telephone: 413-774-1860 communications@deerfield.edu Publication Office: Cummings Printing, Hooksett, NH. Third class postage paid at Deerfield, Massachusetts, and additional mailing office.

Deerfield Magazine is published in the fall, winter, and spring.

Deerfield Academy does not discriminate against any individual on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, marital status, national origin, ancestry, genetic information, age, disability, status as a veteran or being a member of the Reserves or National Guard, or any other classification protected under state or federal law. Copyright © The Trustees of Deerfield Academy (all rights reserved)

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Cover: Brent Hale / Inside spread: David Thiel

COMMENTS

COMMENTS:

I have just been reading the Winter 2016 edition of Deerfield Magazine. You do an outstanding job. The mountain climbers of the Class of '83 are an inspiration to us all.

Since I retired 20 years ago, I've found time to climb a few mountains, too, including many here in New England as well as a couple of 14,000 footers in Colorado. In the summer of 2013 I joined a group that reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. I remember on the final push to the summit I could hear Mr. Boyden urging us to ‘finish strong!’

Tom Wilson ’48 Hanover, New Hampshire

As a Deerfield postgraduate member of the Class of ’64, I read with great interest the article ‘The Game Changing Year.’ In the same magazine there was an archival photo of a varsity basketball game; I immediately recognized fellow postgrad Jim Dehlin ’64.

I was standing just behind him in the photo.

Jim and I became friends playing football, basketball, and baseball together. It was the combination of reading the article and seeing that photo that brought back many fond memories.

I, too, was blessed in many ways by the Deerfield postgraduate experience. Raised in a family of seven children in a small rural farming town in Minnesota, I had never been on a plane, had a vacation, or traveled outside the state, when through the efforts of Coach Jim Smith (also raised in Minnesota), I found myself on the Deerfield campus about to experience my life changing year. The changing process started early, when I took a beginner’s class in French with freshmen; there were no language classes offered in my rural high school. My classmates called me ‘Pops.’ After graduating from Deerfield, I was determined to return to my hometown, attend Gustavus Adolphus College, and immerse myself in athletics. Things changed, however, when Russ Miller (college placement at Deerfield and a Williams College grad) together with Mr. Boyden, convinced me that—although Gustavus Adolphus might be a fine college—Williams College might be a reasonable choice for me as well.

The Deerfield ‘game changing year’ paved the way for a Williams College experience that included participation in football, basketball, and baseball. It was at Deerfield,

however, that my career path of teaching and coaching was firmly established. Having spent almost 50 years as a teacher/coach/ mentor, I can point to Jim Smith, my Deerfield football coach, as the role model for all that I have tried to accomplish in my professional life. He was a ‘game changer’ for me. As I remind myself quite often, ‘Athletics does not build character, coaches do.’ Thanks, Deerfield. Thanks, Jim. Lowell Davis ’64 Bethesda, Maryland

I noted with interest the photo on pages 80-81 in the Winter ’16 Deerfield Magazine, and thought it would be interesting to see how many people could be ID’d. I see Mr. and Mrs. Boyden, Bart Boyden, Crow, Shell, Hubbard, Poland, Cushman, Bohrer, Smith, Perrin, Hayes, Maher, Hirth, Reade, and Miller. And as I believe the student holding the clipboard is Doug Mills '64, the photo is probably earlier than 1965. Great photo for us old timers!

Larry Heath ’64 Stamford, Connecticut

I read with interest how Dean Peter Warsaw and department academic chairs identified six critical qualities of an ideal Deerfield student (‘Mindset and Methodology,’ Winter ’16). While the six listed are important capacities for students to begin to master in order to become productive members and participants in our emerging world, I'd urge you to consider adding an additional skill such as empathy or compassion, particularly in light of Frank Michelman's (Class of ’53) address to the school community. Being able to ‘walk in another's shoes’ and seeing things from another's perspective sharpen both self and social awareness—critical skills to being able to perform within today's complex systems referenced in your piece.

Being able to learn, think, and judge for oneself are essential capacities to not only understand the liberal principles and conditions Professor Michelman espouses, but they are fundamental to his notion of democracy where there is an underlying sense of ‘fairness’ and an expectation that members of a society ‘have a fair shot at affecting the outcomes.’ I'd submit that a student could become proficient in the skills you list while lacking these critical self and social awareness skills. Our world needs students who can apply design and systems thinking skills. Mastering these skills requires our students to have an open mind, open heart, and open will.

Jonathan Raymond ’78 Lexington, Massachusetts

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[1]

HUMAN IMPACT STUDENT SHOW / von AUERSPERG GALLERY

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—and contained large blocks of ice on the exhibit’s opening night. As the ice—representing the earth’s ice sheet and polar ice caps—melted, it seeped out of the cubes and down the pedestals, filling basins and creeping up silhouettes of major cities around the base of each pedestal. A central fifth column also featured a block of ice, surrounded by iPads playing a video by students about energy consumption on campus on a continuous loop.

“Mercedes Taylor and Lydia Hemphill have a mission, a vision for the gallery that I share completely,” said Trelease. “That is to reach out to the community, and to use the gallery as a teaching gallery; we look for works by professionals and students that have a content and intentionality that can speak to various disciplines.” // [1] Emily Luber '18 [2] Akya Evans '16 [3] Alex Guo '17

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[4] Lucy Beimfohr '17 5] Sophia Do '17

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[4] [5]

From a site-specific installation with symbolic references to climate change and rising sea levels (left), to narrative archetypes (right), the spring student art show, Human Impact, was both gritty and beautiful. Inspired by a fall show of the same name that was curated by Visual Arts Teacher Tim Trelease, both exhibits focused on themes relating to the environmental and sociological crossroads at which the human race finds itself.

Some student artists created imagery to suggest the potential for a symbiotic relationship between human beings and nature, while others intended to inspire questions about gun control, air pollution, water usage, population control, and domestic violence. With only a couple of exceptions, the drawings and photographs in the show were created by students in Advanced Placement (AP) and post-AP studio classes.

Human Impact’s sculptural centerpiece was the collaborative work of about 25 students, including some from Trelease’s videography class. Pedestals topped with Plexiglas cubes held symbols of energy usage—light bulbs, batteries, plastic water bottles, and cattle figurines

View the full exhibit: deerfield.edu/humanimpact

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TWO YEARS AGO. BOYDEN LIBRARY. TENTH-GRADER LYRIC PEROT BUMPED INTO A FRIEND WHO HAD JUST COME BACK FROM THE MOST AMAZING TRIP TO AFRICA. DID LYRIC WANT TO SEE PICTURES? YES, SHE DID. AND SO LYRIC FLIPPED THROUGH PHOTO AFTER PHOTO, ONE INCREDIBLE IMAGE AFTER THE NEXT, ESPECIALLY OF THE SAFARI. THAT LANDSCAPE! THOSE ANIMALS! “I WANTED TO GO,” LYRIC

CENTRIFUGAL FORCES

by Naomi Shulman

RECALLS. “I WANTED TO SEE THOSE THINGS.” BUT HER FRIEND SAID THE SAFARI HAD ACTUALLY BEEN A MINOR PART OF THE TRIP. MOST OF THE TIME, SHE’D BEEN WORKING IN AN ORPHANAGE WITH YOUNG GIRLS. “SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIPS SHE’D MADE WITH GIRLS IN THE ORPHANAGE—STRONG CONNECTIONS SHE’D MADE IN A SHORT TIME,” LYRIC SAYS. “AND I REALLY WANTED TO DO THAT, TOO.”

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THE MISSION: The Center for Service and Global Citizenship (CSGC) invites everyone at Deerfield Academy to live out our school’s mission to “prepare students for leadership in a rapidly changing world.” By moving from ideas to action, the CSGC celebrates and supports student and faculty work, engages in formal and informal conversations about global and local issues, and partners with the Deerfield Academy community, local towns, and places beyond.

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Two years later. Same library. David Miller is looking around a little sheepishly. It smells like new paint in here, and the large windows are spotless, but his office is a bit of a mess: He’s climbing over boxes, the walls are bare, and the lights keep blinking on and off because someone’s testing them down the hall. Miller moved in to the brand-new offices for the Center for Service and Global Citizenship (aka “the Center”) a couple of hours ago. “Nothing’s set up yet,” he says. But that’s not quite true—there are two things on the wall. One is a framed photo from Miller’s own undergraduate thesis project, which focused on a sustainability project in Panama. The other object that’s been unpacked and is ready for use? A globe.

The offices in the corner of the refurbished Boyden Library may be new, but the people collaborating to pull together global studies, sustainability measures, and community service initiatives have been doing this work for quite some time—and the mission undergirding the endeavor is as old as Deerfield itself. “The test of worth of any school is the record of service of her alumni,” is how Frank Boyden put it. It also happens to be one of Head of School Margarita Curtis’ favorite statements. She takes the sentiment a step beyond, however.

It’s not enough to be well intentioned; one has to understand what is needed, and why, before one can truly do good.

“I don’t think you can be a good citizen in today’s world without becoming aware of other people’s beliefs, value systems, practices, and habits on an experiential basis,” Curtis says. “At the very core, I think the Center sees character development as something that requires the ability to understand and see ‘the other’ on their terms.”

Indeed, that layer of understanding is built in to the very mission statement of the school: “…the Academy prepares students for leadership in a rapidly changing world that requires global understanding, environmental stewardship, and dedication to service.”

“This triple helix is embedded in our mission,” says Miller, “because these are the three literacies that prepare students for leadership.” And while the word “character” doesn’t appear anywhere in that mission, it’s nevertheless everywhere. “The school’s commitment to character education in the 21st century is different than in the past,” Miller explains. “Today it’s applied critical thinking. When I have a student come in to the Center, I’m more interested in the process they go through in figuring out how to take on the project than in knowing the specific outcome.”

Miller was hired four years ago as director of global studies, and worked closely with the director of sustainability and the director of community service—two separate departments at the time—to administer Earle/Mendillo Family Fund grants for students’ summer work collaboratively, for the first time. The three different branches worked well in concert. “Global Studies, Service, and Sustainability: ‘GSSS.’ It was our first totally forgettable name,” he laughs. “We’re still working on it.”

Head of School Margarita Curtis takes the sentiment a step beyond:

It’s not enough to be well intentioned; one has to understand what is needed, and why, before one can truly do good.

But what’s in a name? Far more important is the enthusiasm that’s coming from all corners—faculty, staff, and students alike—and once that energy and enthusiasm is focused outward, the impact it’s having on the world.

“The world,” in this sense, is both local—on campus, in Greenfield, or at the outer edges of Franklin County—and far-flung—think the Dominican Republic, Tanzania, or China.

“We have kids from so many places and backgrounds,” points out Dr. Curtis. “We can gain incredibly important skills here at Deerfield because we have created a microcosm that reflects the world. But I think there’s still something about leaving your day-today—your familiar food, where you live. I consider that experience invaluable in many ways.” Curtis isn’t speaking academically; she herself underwent a cultural exchange of a kind when her family moved from Colombia

to Louisiana while she was the same age as Deerfield students. “I remember those days of transitioning—going to a high school where I was one of two people who spoke Spanish. It was very different! And yet I think the skills I developed—and the resilience, and the ability to look at two very different cultures—have been enormously valuable in my life, both personally and professionally.”

The orphanage that Lyric and her friend were talking about was the Janada L. Batchelor Foundation for Children (JBFC), a school for both girls and boys that also functions as a safe home for orphan girls or those growing up in abusive environments—and it was born out of another American teenager’s African adventure. Fourteen years ago, then-fifteenyear-old Chris Gates was looking forward to an exotic safari for his birthday. His grandmother Janada—for whom JBFC is named—

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indulged him, but insisted that he do some service work with the local community first.

It became his life’s work—Gates established JBFC while still in college, and moved to Tanzania shortly after graduation. It’s an example of youthful idealism, energy, and grit being channeled into something real, positive, and lasting. It’s what David Miller would call putting ideas into action. It’s also an example of how much a single young person—a teenager—can accomplish in a rapidly changing world.

Lyric went to JBFC, and she was floored by her experience. It was—to put it mildly— “really different from Deerfield.” Most schools

“I learned not to make assumptions . . .”

Aiden Day ’17

His classmates went in with their eyes open, ready to sympathize and empathize—and then roll up their sleeves and get down to work. there are drastically under resourced, with five or six children per desk, no materials, and no food or water provided by the school.

“And kids would leave halfway through the day,” Lyric says, “to start working.” But Lyric noticed other differences, too: “The most awe-inspiring moment was prayer night.

After dinner the girls all gathered and started singing, and it was such a community experience but also such an intimate experience,” Lyric remembers. “And they let us be part of it . . . It was so beautiful—a lot of them had difficult pasts, and they were all trying to be as happy as possible—or were, really, extremely happy.”

A few months later, the tables turned and some of those same girls came to Deerfield.

“They were basically shocked, since it’s so different from what they’re used to,” Lyric recalls. Different. Not better. Which was a revelation for Lyric. “They don’t necessarily see this as better, which is an interesting concept—and a great one. They love their country.” Just because they have challenges

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in their country does not mean they want it to look like ours.

This is something Kayla Corcoran, a teaching fellow in the History Department who also helps to support some of the Center’s projects and travel initiatives, wants students to really understand—and as she was a Deerfield student as recently as 2010, she may have insight. (“I seem old to them, though, which is a little scary,” she laughs.) As a member of Deerfield’s inclusion team, which works to create a more complex, diverse, and accepting student and employee body on campus, Corcoran is especially sensitive to the destructive impact of the “savior” complex, a well-meaning attitude that can have a negative result, especially abroad. There’s a name for it in travel circles— voluntourism—and it’s not flattering.

“We talk a lot about managing intent versus impact,” Corcoran says. Students travel to help and to learn. Sometimes there can be a delicate balance between the two. Of course, the same can be said of

the Academy’s mission writ large. Consider the word choice in that mission statement: it’s not simply global awareness or global knowledge, but actually global understanding, that puts the onus squarely on the traveler to make sense of the world they are exploring, and of the people who are living in it. “We try to explain that right at the start of a trip,” agrees Corcoran, “talking about the difference between sympathy and empathy in travel.”

Junior Aiden Day understands what Corcoran means; he’d dealt with it firsthand even before arriving at Deerfield, having traveled more than once on service trips to the Dominican Republic. When he learned that Deerfield sponsored a trip where students would build a family a house in a week, he was all in. “I thought it was amazing,” he said. “I was definitely down. I already loved the DR.” He did wonder, though, how some of his Deerfield peers would react to the abject poverty. Day knew how shocking it could be. “On other trips I’d been humbled by the place,” he admits. “I’d had to acknowledge a lot of my privilege.” Would students with more privileged backgrounds than his be up to it? He needn’t have worried. “My main takeaway was never to underestimate Deerfield students!” he says. “People I might have thought would just be playing with the kids did a lot more work—in some cases more work than me. I learned not to make assumptions.” His classmates went in with their eyes open, ready to sympathize and empathize—and then roll up their sleeves and get down to work.

Corcoran points out that issues like this exist not only overseas. The distance between the haves and the have-nots can sometimes be as short as two city blocks—or a few country miles. Tenth-grader Owen MacPhee is learning this hands-on—or hands-in—as he digs in the dirt to help harvest vegetables at Noonday Farm in Winchendon, MA. He’s actually been around farms his whole life, and even attended a farm-based school prior to coming to Deerfield.

“It was literally me and seven other kids in a converted chicken coop,” he laughs. So this was familiar terrain. But his internship at Noonday—which he secured through a Workman Grant and the Center —was actually a

solid stretch outside his comfort zone, too, since it required him to acknowledge the poverty that exists not across the ocean, not even across the state, but here in the Pioneer Valley.

“Noonday has a program called Community Roots, where they grow vegetables and raise chickens and eggs to donate to local families and food banks—to people who struggle with food insecurity,” Owen explains. During his internship, Owen helped three different local families start their own gardens. “Rather than just coming to us to get food, they’ll be able to have their own vegetable gardens and grow the food they want—and get the enjoyment of a garden.”

The programs at the Center help you step back from the bubble of Deerfield and see the big picture.

He came up with strategies to do something about it . . .

Owen MacPhee ’18

WHAT CSGC OFFERS AT DEERFIELD ACADEMY & IN THE LOCAL COMMUNITY Think 80 I 20 Spend a cocurricular term in the greenhouse Be a Big Brother or Sister Get involved in CSGC leadership Team with Cancer Connection to support others Teach apps & technologies to seniors Work with Deerfield employees in DAPP (Deerfield Academy Perspectives Program) Engage with speakers from around the world Be a global ambassador—Help host an exchange student Host teams and youth programs Coach Special Olympics every Sunday Pack meals for the Salvation Army Take classes about pressing global issues Do advocacy work for an international organization such as Save the Children

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To be a leader in the 21st century, you have to understand systems and understand environmental change, and have the cultural competency to reach across difference and connect . . . You have to have the skills not only to find a service opportunity, but to create one.

David Miller, CSGC Director

*DEERFIELD FACULTY-LED

WHAT CSGC OFFERS OFF CAMPUS Travel to Washington, DC, to meet Senators while attending an advocacy summit Travel abroad on one of Deerfield’s faculty-led trips* Spend a semester or a year in exchange at a school around the world • Senior Year Abroad • King’s Academy • Chewonki • Mountain School Apply for one of the many student grants awarded each year to work on solving a pressing problem at home or abroad

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TRIPS

Tanzania China France Spain Dominican Republic Jamaica Colombia Jordan + more!

It can be easy to look the other way, especially when what you see is uncomfortable, but Owen decided not to do that; instead, he came up with strategies to do something about it. “The programs at the Center help you step back from the bubble of Deerfield and see the big picture. We’re so blessed to have these opportunities here, and we can use them to help others,” he says.

Owen’s experience is exactly what Chrissy Kopp is hoping students will have when they come through the Center’s doors. Kopp, who has served as global studies coordinator for the past two years, is quick to point out that sometimes one doesn’t have to traverse the globe to see a different side of it. “It depends on what your definition of travel is,” she says.

“Having community service in this office helps teach us that traveling to Montague to work in a public school can be as much a cultural experience as going to Spain.” Traveling away from home and learning about the world around you is an essential ingredient in gaining leadership skills—how can one learn what makes the world work if you never see any of it? “But I don’t think travel has to be conflated with getting on a plane.

Traveling outside your comfort zone—and sometimes leaning into discomfort—is something that’s important to all our programs, whether on campus or in Tanzania or a neighboring community.”

“We think about students’ goals and ask, ‘What are the soft and hard skills they’ll need?’” says Corcoran. “Public speaking skills are important—and so is being able to empathize. You need to be able to facilitate a group conversation, and you also need to be able to identify when your point is in conflict with someone else’s and then figure out how to move forward.” Giving students the tools to put an idea into action—which Miller describes as the Center’s raison d’être—is a large and complicated goal, involving a mix of the idealistic and the pragmatic.

“We’re thinking about how our students can understand the complexity of the world, but with an eye toward doing academic work,” Miller says. This is not simply a character-building exercise— students are doing their homework, literally and figuratively.

Global studies, community service, and sustainability all hinge upon being culturally attentive. No matter where you go, how much work you do when you get there, and how mindful of the environment you are in as you do it, if you don’t have buy-in from the community on the ground, your project is doomed. And that’s why work like this starts and ends with a vision for leadership—after all, if no one is going to join you in your work, not much will get done. So students are coming to the Center and learning how to write a grant proposal, prepare a good rhetorical argument, or inspire with a meaningful media project.

“To be a leader in the 21st century, you have to understand systems and understand environmental change, and have the cultural competency to reach across difference and connect,” Miller says. “You have to have the skills not only to find a service opportunity, but to create one.”

It’s a particularly potent message for Deerfield students, who may aspire more than the average high school student to do ambitious things. Encouraging students to look at the big picture can help inspire them to take on big projects, but Corcoran points out that last fall the Center took a different, perhaps equally important approach.

During a “day of service” for ninth graders, students took on small jobs around campus and town, and group leaders asked them to reflect on what leadership means. Thinking about leadership while picking up trash from the sidewalk? But that was the point.

“The thing we’ve been reinforcing all year long is how you can be a leader in a community that’s as small as the table you sit at in the Dining Hall,” Corcoran says. “Ninth graders had great responses like, ‘I want to help out the second waiter at my dining table.’ ‘I want to make sure my room is clean.’ That’s a small moment, for sure, but it’s also huge, because we’re asking students to redefine what leadership means.” Sure, there are traditional avenues for Deerfield students to take on formal leadership positions, but ultimately, the Center encourages taking a leading stance in daily life, and model what it means to be part of a community—no matter where you are. //

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Five Minute Interview: JOSH TEBEAU ’16

Josh Tebeau’s film, Picking Up the Pieces, was selected to screen at 23 film festivals across the US and around the world over the past nine months.

From Josh’s hometown of Warsaw, Poland, to San Diego, CA, the film has generated discussion, brought audiences to tears, and won several awards, including Best Documentary Short at the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival, Best Documentary (Student) in a Boston -based festival, and the Filmmaking for Humanity Award in Nevada. Picking Up the Pieces is the result of over 2000 hours of work, 40 hours of interview footage of now-elderly child survivors of the Holocaust, and four years of research, beginning when Josh was a 9th-grader at the American School of Warsaw.

pickingupthepiecesfilm.com for the trailer.

Why did you decide to interview child survivors of the Holocaust?

When I was an 8th-grader at the American School of Warsaw, the school organized Living History Day, where students interviewed Holocaust survivors. After the event, I went home and I told my mother about it. She explained that my grandmother, whom I never knew, had been a child survivor. The project began as an exploration of my grandmother’s wartime experiences. About the same time, I began to volunteer at the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, where I translated museum material from Polish to English. During my time there, I did more research on child survivors and discovered that no English language film had ever been made on their postwar recovery. I decided to make that film.

You interviewed 20 child survivors, and feature nine in your film; what was it about those nine particular stories that you found so compelling?

Every survivor’s story is compelling and unique.

I was limited by the film’s length and also the approach I was taking: The narrative style that I chose to use—‘choral storytelling’—has been

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widely used in Holocaust literature, but had not been adapted to film. I realized, as I began editing, that too many different voices could be difficult to follow. I extracted footage from nine interviews because it allowed for a harmonic balance where I could show diverse perspectives and experiences, while also leaving the audience with a manageable amount of information, and an overarching narrative about the trauma and recovery of child survivors as a group.

Picking Up the Pieces is broken into thematic sections; these include ‘Post-War Conditions,’ ‘Forgiveness,’ ‘Belief in God,’ ‘Where is Home,’ and ‘Mothers.’ In each section two or three survivors drive the narrative, with the other voices working together in harmony to fill out the story with diverse perspectives. Those nine interviews I used in the final film worked best together in telling the story.

You say you used ‘choral storytelling’— can you please explain what that is?

What other techniques did you use?

Choral storytelling is a literary technique adapted from the work of acclaimed Polish-Jewish

author Henryk Grynberg (who appears in the film); it is especially visible in his book Children of Zion.

In choral storytelling, the author links a piece of testimony together so that several different people finish each other’s sentences as they tell a story that progresses from theme to theme.

Survivors’ agree or disagree with one another as the narrative develops; in my film we have these contradictions, which serve as touch points for the audience to consider key themes— for instance, one survivor notes that he could never forgive, while another is willing to forgive.

In order to fully develop this approach, I needed to use only a minimal amount of archival material and no narration. As a result, Picking Up the Pieces creates the feeling for the audience that they are sitting across from nine different survivors as they tell their stories; it’s like they are in an active dialogue with the survivors.

What is the message you would like viewers to take away from Picking Up the Pieces?

I wanted to capture the perspectives of child survivors, and tell the story through the ‘eyes of a child.’ I also wanted to remind the audience that the Holocaust didn’t end with the liberation of the concentration camps. Recovery has been a lifelong process for survivors who have had to rebuild their lives in a profoundly different world.

Finally, I tried to present multiple perspectives on the different themes . . . When the survivors talk about their belief in God, for instance, I feature answers that show different views and perspectives. In this way I tried to represent the diversity of the child survivors and also encourage a dialogue in the audience.

What’s your next project?

As my festival schedule winds down, I have begun to screen the film at universities and community centers, and I’m preparing an educational supplement so it can be shown as part of the Holocaust curriculum at US high schools.

In terms of my next project, I am currently working with a 360-degree virtual reality producer on a short film to explore the narrative and visual potential of this new medium. I am also researching and writing a script/treatment for a full-length documentary that I hope to begin shooting in 2017. //

PETER FISK 6’ 2”/ 215 LB. RUNNING BACK /LINEBACKER

x SIGNING DAY National Signing Day was a banner event for Deerfield’s football program: This year’s gridiron graduation saw the Big Green chalk up its first Big 10 recruit since Steve Neils ’70 went to Minnesota: Peter Fisk, a 6’ 2”, 215-pound running back/linebacker out of Grand Rapids, MI, will play at Michigan State.

“This is like a dream come true—for as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to play football at Michigan State,” admitted Fisk, who grew up just 40 miles from the school’s East Lansing campus.

“Pete’s one of the top two or three football players we’ve ever had at Deerfield—at least during my 18 years here,” said Coach Mike Silipo, who stepped down from the post following this past season. “He’s big . . . he’s strong . . . he’s fast . . . has quick feet . . . great vision . . . and he’s very smart . . . he knows the game.”

High praise from a former mentor, and the stat sheet backs Silipo. Through eight games this past fall, Fisk, who is projected to play linebacker for the Spartans, led the Big Green in both rushing (1140 yards) and tackles (146). While Signing Day marked Silipo’s final act as the Big Green’s gridiron guru, his successor, Brian Barbato, is hoping to oversee this trend for a good, long time.

“I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to be coaching at a great school such as Deerfield Academy,” said Barbato. “Here, you wear the hat of a coach . . . the hat of a promoter . . . and often, the hat of a parent. It’s all a labor of love. As a coach, you give these kids the tools and then open the door and help them to get through it,” said Barbato. //

by BOB YORK Photograph: David Thiel

DEERFIELD'S NEW AD Head of School Margarita Curtis is pleased to announce the appointment of Robertson “Bob” R. Howe as Deerfield’s Athletic Director beginning this summer.

Howe will succeed Charles “Chip” Davis, who was recently named Dean of Admission and Financial Aid and who will continue to serve as head coach of the Deerfield boys lacrosse team.

Howe comes to Deerfield after serving as Director of Athletics at The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, CT, for the past 12 years, where he was responsible for a program of over 62 interscholastic teams. He has also served for six years on the District IV Athletic Directors Council and on the Executive Board of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC), where he will begin a two-year term as president in December of 2017.

A graduate of Hamilton College, where he received the Ned Doyle Athletic Achievement Scholarship in 1983 and the Gelas Award for best athlete in 1984, Howe is also a graduate of Loomis Chaffee, and grew up on the school’s campus as a faculty child. He has a deep appreciation for independent school life and says his most vivid memory of competing as a Loomis student against Academy teams was “the manner in which Deerfield teams walked on the fields and played like true sportsmen.”

Howe will be joined at Deerfield by his wife, Amanda, and their three children. //

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SPRING BREAK IN

by Mark Spencer Director of College Advising

PA

I spent part of my spring break like many juniors in high school do: visiting colleges. It’s a popular time to start the college visitation process, and setting foot on a college campus is one of the best ways to understand a school’s personality and to gain important firsthand knowledge of an institution. As students and their families trek off to visit schools from Boston to Los Angeles, they are likely armed with an abundance of solicited (and unsolicited) advice. We offer our own in the Deerfield Academy College Advising Handbook:

My trip through eastern Pennsylvania included 11 schools in four days. I would not recommend such a packed schedule, but alas, my goals were slightly different from those of a prospective student. As director of College Advising, I would like to share some excerpts from the journal I kept; these excerpts in no way speak to my whole knowledge or total experience at any of these institutions. Neither should they serve as an endorsement; rather, I hope that by sharing my reflections, students and families will be inspired to take their own notes and find their own stories to tell of their college visit adventures.

• Plan early • Talk to current students • Venture off the tour – e.g. sit in on a class, eat in the dining hall • Pick up and read the school newspaper • Take notes!

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FIRST STOP: Ben Franklin’s University of Pennsylvania: Penn quickly points out how their students study with an interdisciplinary focus, having the flexibility to take classes outside their home college. The tour was large, approximately 75 people, and was therefore presented in a more formal style. I learned that Penn holds a lot of firsts: the first business school, the first student union, the first in number of Ivy League students who study abroad. “Actively undecided” is a new term I learned from their admissions office, which defines a student who is exploring possible majors, but is undeclared.

Quick Note: Worth a read is the blog of Eric Furda, Penn’s dean of Admissions, which is published in the Huffington Post and called Flip the List. The house featured in the The Addams Family was designed after Penn’s College Hall.

Whether your college visits are before an application is made or after decisions are released, my spring break college road trip only reinforced for me the importance and value in seeing a college “live and in person.”

NEXT STOP: The Quaker consortium of Haverford, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr: Because of their Quaker roots, Haverford, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr have a clear sense of who they are and their goals as educational institutions. I was impressed to learn that students often take classes at each school, regardless of their home college. All have an honor code that leads to a unique comfort level that includes take home exams and student allowances to set their own exam schedule. At Haverford the honor code is a living document, and each fall there is a plenary session where all students are invited to come together to suggest amendments and discuss them until consensus is found; consensus is the reason why their campus speed limit is 13 MPH, and how their admissions committees are run. The weight of importance on the college interview varies from school to school, but at Haverford, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr that opportunity is encouraged.

Quick Note: Haverford, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr are all easily accessible by train from downtown Philadelphia.

FIFTH STOP: Villanova: One of two American Augustinian Catholic colleges, and perhaps the most recognized one in the world. Villanova is renowned for its far-reaching service-learning community, and offers many popular service trips during spring break. Our tour guide, Sean, was spectacular. It helps to have a lively and informed tour guide, but it should not be the only reason to apply to a college. A favorite weekend of Sean’s every year is when Villanova hosts a major Special Olympics event. As he put it, “There is no way you cannot smile on that day!” Even with 7000+ undergrads, Sean’s largest class to date was 45 students. That’s another reason to visit a school: to see the reality behind the stats. Sean also spoke about the strength of Villanova’s career services center, something I always think is worth asking about on college visits.

Quick Note: Villanova is the only US college that has an internship program with the Vatican. You may also recall that the Wildcats were the 2016 NCAA men’s basketball national champions thanks to an incredible three-point shot at the final buzzer . . .

NEXT STOP: The Pennsylvania countryside: Gettysburg, Dickinson, and Franklin and Marshall Each of these schools demonstrated the value of a small liberal arts college education and the availability of resources, course material, and personal connections to faculty indicative of their learning environment. At Gettysburg, my impression was

that the faculty there would happily meet with any prospective student. Many of these schools also have entryway programs to college, often called First Year Seminars (FYS). These courses are usually writing intensives that may include a housing component—meaning all students in the same FYS live together in the same dormitory, as they do at Franklin and Marshall. All three of these schools also belong to the Centennial Conference—an 11-team Division III athletic conference that is Pennsylvania and Maryland’s version of New England’s NESCAC conference. Each school embraces their surroundings: F&M has the oldest running farmers market available to them in nearby Lancaster; Dickinson has its own organic farm (and offers free samples of Justin’s Almond Butter—Justin Gold is an alumnus); Gettysburg does indeed have a popular Civil War re-enactment club.

Quick Notes: At Dickinson I was able to meet up with two Deerfield alumni, and watched a third pitch for the Red Devils! I find it is always helpful to talk to current students to gain real insight into life on campus.

LAST STOP: The Lehigh Valley: Muhlenberg, Lafayette, and Lehigh.

I continued to discover interesting facts: Lehigh is refurbishing a series of old Bethlehem Steel buildings on its mountain top campus; one is a national engineering research center. I witnessed great diversity in all forms at Muhlenberg (including a circus club!), and admired Lafayette’s multimillion dollar expansion and new Williams Visual Arts facility located in their downtown campus. Each of these schools is positioned to offer their students an incredible four years.

Quick Note: All three talked about their strong financial aid programs and non-need based merit awards.

Whether your college visits are before an application is made or after decisions are released, my spring break college road trip only reinforced for me the importance and value in seeing a college “live and in person.” It was also abundantly clear to me how these visits could help to inform a student answering the “Why College X” essay question that is included in most college applications.

College campuses are alive with laughter, reading, debate, discussion, friendship, sports, art, and more reading, as well as expanded academic and social experiences. We advise Deerfield students to consider location, size, teaching styles, courses of study, social clubs, etc., when looking for goodness of fit in a school. A college visit is the opportunity to hear a school’s story—an essential step in finding that fit. Happy road trip! //

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IT’S A SUNNY AFTERNOON IN EARLY APRIL, AND ELLIE FRIENDS ’17 IS IN THE COURTYARD IN FRONT OF THE DINING HALL, WIGGLING A NEW HANDLEBAR GRIP ONTO A CHARTREUSE BICYCLE. She and classmate Valerie Ma have already

adjusted the seat with an Allen wrench, checked the tire pressure, and added some air. Next up: doing something about the rusty chain. For Valerie, as founder and president of the Life Skills Club, where students tackle the practical, it’s all in a day’s work—or more accurately, in an afternoon’s meeting.

Life Skills is just one of nearly 50 student-driven clubs and alliances on campus, ranging from the expected—think Debate and Public Speaking—to the uncommon—anyone care to join the Napping Club? Some have been active for decades, while others reflect changing interests and attitudes on campus and around the world; the term “alliance” itself is relatively new to Deerfield, and it’s generally associated with groups that are centered around a common culture, race, ethnicity or religion. Something that hasn’t changed over the years is Deerfield students’ enthusiasm for these extracurricular activities—not cocurricular, but extracurricular—meaning that time given to club and alliance activities comes from a precious commodity at Deerfield: “free time.”

And yet, for many reasons, a majority of current students participate in one or more of these extracurricular organizations.

Valerie, who in addition to founding the Life Skills Club serves as an officer of the International Student Alliance, is on the Center for Service and Global Citizenship Student Board, is a member of the Psychology Club, helps out as a peer tutor, serves on the Disciplinary Committee, plays field hockey in the fall, basketball in the winter, and in addition to an art exemption this spring, practiced with the softball team and played with thirds lacrosse for a while, says that Life Skills was a small idea that just grew; she saw a need for students to learn some everyday skills—things that probably wouldn’t come up in the classroom but are nevertheless important. “Stuff that’s helpful,” she says with a smile, “like how to write a check and balance a checkbook or how to change a tire.”

Madisen Siegel and Jack Wood, also members of the Class of ’17, don’t belong to the Life Skills Club, but they do agree with Valerie’s reasoning as officers of Deerfield’s chapter of NextGenVest, an organization whose purpose is to help high school and college students learn what Madisen calls “real life financial skills.” They were part of the award-winning Deerfield team that wrote a script for a NextGenVest video titled “Hedge Funds 101” that is currently in production and soon will be available for students everywhere on NextGenVest’s website. But as much as Madisen enjoys being president of this particular club, she says it’s the Feminism Club (where she’s also an officer) and the Jewish Student Alliance that are integral parts of her identity.

“I was very active in my temple back home in New Jersey,” Madisen explains, “and I wanted to feel that Jewish presence at Deerfield, so that’s why I became involved in the JSA.” “Finding common ground is something that’s true for both alliances and clubs,” says Dean of Students Amie Creagh. And that common ground is often a fertile place for self -awareness and leadership skills to grow. It’s also where community takes root, as students share who they are, where they come from, and what they know in clubs and alliances, and by extension, with the rest of the school.

“It’s bringing part of what you had at home—a connection, a familiarity—to Deerfield.

There are some ways to do this that involve obvious similarities, whether you’re a student of color or an international student, for example.

Those are conspicuous ways to say, ‘You are part of where I come from,’ or ‘You are part of what I know,’” Creagh says. “Then there’s bringing part of who you are from home to this new place that isn’t necessarily conspicuous or immediately visible, but it’s a shared interest you have. It’s trying to import some of where you’re coming from and letting it grow once you arrive here.”

Senior Shane Beard joined the Deerfield Black Student Alliance as a ninth-grader. He came from a school that he describes as “basically the opposite of Deerfield”—located in the heart of Houston, Texas, with a predominately Black student population. “I decided to join because I wanted to see what it was like being me and looking like me at Deerfield; I didn’t have to explain who I was or where I came from, and that was a relief.”

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“FINDING COMMON GROUND IS SOMETHING THAT’S TRUE FOR BOTH ALLIANCES AND CLUBS,” AND THAT COMMON GROUND IS OFTEN A FERTILE PLACE FOR SELF-AWARENESS AND LEADERSHIP SKILLS TO GROW. Marjorie Young, Director of Inclusion and Community Life, echoes Shane’s comments: “First and foremost, alliances are spaces, so to speak, for students to feel safe and to be with a group of people who understand who they are,” she says. “Oftentimes what you find is that you don’t have to explain a lot because it’s a space where you can just ‘be.’” And that goes for Black students or LGBT students or Asian students or any other affinity group on campus.

“It’s the most basic instinct when people join an alliance,” Young says. “It’s like, ‘Phew. Ok. I’m going to be with the baseball players, and we’re going to talk first, second, and third base, and I’m not going to have to explain.’”

Sometimes it’s not just what students bring to the group, it’s what they take away. Imani Goodridge ’17 joined the DBSA as a tenth-grader, and this year is one of two junior officers—in the fall she’ll step up and take over for Shane as a senior leader. “DBSA was a safe place for me to talk about things that were true to me,” she says, “but also a place to key in and learn about things that I didn’t know about within my own community.”

As a first-generation American—Imani’s mother is Jamaican and her father hails from Trinidad—Imani says she felt like she didn’t really know what American Black culture is; “I’m from the suburbs,” she says. “Before I came to Deerfield, most of my friends were white; I gained new perspectives that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t join the DBSA.” “In many ways,” says Marjorie Young, “alliances support the work of inclusion on campus; if you have a group that’s doing the work of speaking out, and they’re sponsoring programs and bringing in speakers, that’s a very important piece of being educators and bringing awareness to campus—of course students are learning about issues in the classroom—but through informal learning—during meetings and alliance-sponsored events—the community is enriched in a different way and the conversation is sustained.”

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Or sometimes, it’s how the conversation begins: “Honestly,” Imani says, “about half the meetings we have aren’t about serious, hard-hitting issues—they’re just us, trying to get to know each other and finding common ground, but as we feel more comfortable with each other, that’s how we can facilitate those tougher discussions.” Such as the one that took place at a recent DBSA meeting that focused on affirmative action, or one at the beginning of the school year where students had a serious discussion about what it means to be a student of color or other minority at Deerfield. And if the conversation extends beyond a Tuesday night meeting or across alliances, so much the better, says Amie Creagh.

“Ideally, when clubs and alliances are functioning effectively, they are distinguished but permeable; and having a group of students who define themselves as invested in a particular identity can be really helpful for other students . . . if you think, ‘I want to know more about x, y, or z . . .’ you know where to go among your peers.”

Senior Valentina Connell started a “gender equality organization” at the end of tenthgrade, but when she and classmate Camille Moeckel, along with Madisen Siegel, attended the Independent Schools Gender Project at the Hotchkiss School that summer, they were inspired to get a group of girls together and rebrand as the Feminism Club. Early this spring, during Women’s History Month, about 30 students—boys and girls—along with members of the faculty stood on stage during a School Meeting and passed a microphone to each other while sharing: “I need feminism because . . .”

“It was really interesting,” Valentina says, “because we got a diverse group of people up on stage; we wanted to break down some stereotypes about who a ‘feminist’ is; I think we really helped our image and encouraged people to come to our meetings.” Close to 50 students—some members of the Feminism Club and others not—showed up to watch

The Women’s List, a PBS series, and The Hunting Ground, a documentary about rape on college campuses, during Women’s History Month this year. Valentina adds that the Feminism Club is evolving yet again, and she and her officers have been thinking a lot about the interplay between human rights and feminism.

“We had a meeting that focused on girls’ education in developing countries,” Camille says. “We’re going to keep trying to move towards a way of understanding feminism in a global way.”

Right around the same time Valerie Ma founded the Life Skills Club, Sarah Dancer ’16 and some friends started the Baking Club. This year they were based out of the kitchen off of the Parker Room in the Dining Hall, and all winter long, every Friday night, they produced a steady stream of cookies, brownies, and even cake pops (although Sarah says those were a bit of a delicious failure).

“I’m proud we made this happen,” Sarah says. “Fun is a constant in the Baking Club, and it’s amazing how many people have participated in one way or another.” It’s the very definition of permeable: 187 students initially signed up; Deerfield Big Brothers and Big Sisters baked and decorated cookies with their “Littles;”members of the club sold their baked goods at hockey games and other events around campus. And since the Baking Club is a self-sustaining group, whatever funds are left over after buying supplies are donated to charity; last year the local food bank was the beneficiary.

“In many ways, Deerfield is a place where we want you to practice the habits of being a good person,” says Amie Creagh. Or in other words, leaving Deerfield with great academic skills, for sure, but also equipped with great personal skills, with cultural competency, and with a sense of awareness. “Those are the lifelong skills I see clubs and alliances providing,” she says. //

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27 YEARS

TOM HAGAMEN

by Nell Lake Photograph: Sophia Do ’17

A high point of Tom Hagamen’s tenure at Deerfield came early, with the on-campus birth of a future student. One day in the fall of 1996, math teacher Sheryl Cabral was laboring in her apartment in Rosenwald-Shumway, waiting for the right moment to head to the hospital.

Suddenly, she had “a couple of really strong contractions,” Ms. Cabral says, and birth seemed imminent. Ms. Cabral’s then-husband ran the short distance to the Health Center and fetched Dr. Hagamen. “I was pretty panicked,” Ms. Cabral says. “But Tom, in his gentle way, calmed me down pretty quickly.” Dr. Hagamen assured Ms. Cabral that all was well. “I think you’re going to have this baby right here,” he said. And she did, just a few moments later.

“It was a joyous event,” Dr. Hagamen says— and just the sort of care he enjoyed, tending to people’s medical needs at all stages of life.

With his trim white beard, wire-rimmed glasses, and kind-yet-authoritative manner, Dr. Hagamen seems the quintessential small-town family doc—which is exactly what he wanted to become after he graduated from Dartmouth Medical School in 1979. Dr. Hagamen and his young family moved to Greenfield, MA, and he worked in a small family practice. But before long, the “managed-care revolution” hapened, Dr. Hagamen says, and he grew unhappy with the way this bureaucratic form of healthcare delivery had changed his profession. “I was overworked and underpaid,” he says; he had less time with patients, and those patients, he says, complained a great deal about managed care.

22 | ALBANY ROAD

Brent Hale

So when the position of medical director at Deerfield Academy opened up, Dr. Hagamen applied.

He moved to campus in September 1989—the same moment the school went coed—with his wife, Susan, and his two small children, Leah and Lindsay.

At the time, he saw himself as “a fugitive from managed care and the medical industrial complex,” and he wasn’t certain, he admits, that the position at Deerfield was going to be a perfect fit. He wondered if the job would provide enough challenge and fulfillment, and whether he was straying too far from his early intentions of serving the medical needs of a small town. But 27 years later, he has no regrets.

“Medically, it is very much like my original goal . . .. [Deerfield Academy] is very analogous to a small town, both in size and in the sense of community.”

As for challenge, he’s had plenty. “My job and the mission of the Health Center has gotten more complex,” he says—a complexity that mirrors national trends. First there’s the increased prevalence of students with diagnoses of mental disorders such as attention-deficit disorder, depression, and anxiety. Prescriptions for psychotropic drugs have increased, too. “It’s just a reality,” Dr. Hagamen says. The Health Center does assessments for such disorders, and diagnoses them, and when necessary, treats them with medication.

Drugs for ADD are potentially abusable, so nurses provide these medications to each student daily, which adds to the complexity of care.

Another challenge to arise during his tenure has been the “concussion epidemic,” Dr. Hagamen says. “When I came [to Deerfield] we had four or five concussions a year. They were significant injuries; they weren’t subtle.

You didn’t have trouble making the diagnosis.”

But with increased interest, education, and awareness around concussions, care of head injuries and response to their symptoms has become more complex, with many more students appearing at the Health Center with concerns they’ve suffered concussions.

“Last year,” Dr. Hagamen says, “we had a hundred concussions.” On the day after a concussion expert had given a talk on campus, “I think we had eight,” he says. “This makes for a complex landscape. It includes so many different things, [like] anxiety—the underlying anxiety that our kids now grow up with.”

Susan LaScala, who worked with Dr. Hagamen as a nurse practitioner in the Health Center for 24 years, says Dr. Hagamen brings enormous “breadth and versatility of knowledge” to such complex care. “He knows a little something about everything.” He also brings great kindness and a deep intellectual curiosity to his work, she says. And “he’s as steady as they come”—a no-drama sort of person.

“He’s the guy you want in the room when things are falling apart.”

Dr. Hagamen has brought his steady mind and hand to a few dramatic Deerfield moments.

The Cabral birth is among the best of these.

Among the worst—thankfully with a happy ending—was the near-death of George Baird ’03.

On April 10, 2000, Mr. Baird was guarding goal at a lacrosse practice. A teammate took a shot; the ball hit Mr. Baird in the chest. “He immediately became dizzy and light-headed and then collapsed,” Dr. Hagamen recalls.

Mr. Baird’s heart had stopped. A boy on the

team ran to the gym and alerted a trainer. “Coach Brendan Creagh had started CPR by then,” Dr. Hagamen says. “In the Health Center we got a call on the radio and a nurse and I got in her car and drove down to the field. The athletic trainer was there by then and we continued to do CPR. An ambulance was on the way. We had some oxygen by that time. (We didn’t have a defibrillator back then.) The ambulance got there and we defibrillated George on the field.

We got a rhythm back but he was still pulse-less. We continued CPR on the way to the hospital.”

Initially, Dr. Hagamen says, it looked as if Mr. Baird was going to die. “It was the worst thing—the worst day of my life.” But in the hospital Mr. Baird’s heart started working well again. Mr. Baird was transferred to a hospital in Boston.

He spent time recuperating at home and returned to school in May that same year.

Mr. Baird himself remembers only jogging down to practice that sunny day. “There is no way I’d be alive today if not for Dr. Hagamen’s life-saving CPR,” Mr. Baird wrote in an email.

“Though I can never adequately thank Dr. Hagamen for his swift actions, I do think of them often.” Mr. Baird works now as a specialist for the Cardiac Rhythm Management division of Boston Scientific. “I run cardiac device clinics and I’m in the operating room assisting with implanting life-saving defibrillators in patients every day.”

As for Ms. Cabral, perhaps the sweetest memory of Dr. Hagamen is of the view she had of him from the ambulance that came after the surprise birth of her new baby girl.

As the ambulance pulled away from Rosenwald on its way to the hospital, Ms. Cabral spied the doctor holding her five-year-old, Justin, in his arms. She knew Dr. Hagamen would look after Justin, keep him safe, and that “everything was going to be OK.” In 2015, almost 19 years later, that baby girl, Angela Cabral, graduated from Deerfield.

Having helped with her arrival, Dr. Hagamen got to watch her grow up—just as he would have in a small town. //

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PAM BONANNO

37 YEARS

RICH BONANNO

by Nell Lake / Photograph: Stephanie Craig

Years ago, Pamela Bonanno, then dean of students, walked into the math class she was also teaching on the first day of school, and realized (as did the students) that just about half of them had previously faced her in a disciplinary committee hearing. “It was a unique situation,” she says. Things might have felt awkward for all, the room filled with unspoken tensions. But Ms. Bonanno closed the door and said, “I am your math teacher. Inside of this room, I am nobody else.”

The students laughed, relieved. Ms. Bonanno, they saw, valued them as students above all else; she could set aside her role as disciplinarian.

In their 37 years at Deerfield Academy—as teachers, administrators, faculty residents, committee members, and more—Richard and Pamela Bonanno have sought to see students as “whole” people, in the class-

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room and outside it—to encourage students in excelling and also to understand them as human beings. As administrators and teachers, the couple has helped to shape every area of Deerfield life—academic, administrative, and residential.

Earlier this spring, they sat in adjacent armchairs in their light-filled living room and reflected on their decades at the Academy. They’ve both taught mathematics throughout their Deerfield tenures. They raised their children on campus—Jonathan ’91 and Clarissa (St. Paul's ’92) both went to Harvard; Jonathan is a consultant in New York City and Clarissa is a high-risk obstetrician there. Most recently, Ms. Bonanno has been Helen C. Boyden Chair of Mathematics and Science. This has meant, Ms. Bonanno said, gesturing toward her husband, that “I’m his

boss.” She smiled. “But I don’t think I’ve ever acted that way.” She turned to Mr. Bonanno.

“Have I?” “No,” Mr. Bonanno replied solemnly, but with a twinkle in his eye.

“OK. Good,” Ms. Bonanno said, nodding.

Garam Noh ’15, who took three mathematics courses from Mr. Bonanno during her years at the school, calls the couple a “dynamic duo.”

More than anything, Ms. Noh appreciated their ability to relate warmly to students.

“Both of them are extremely caring,” she says.

Sometimes, Ms. Noh comments, “I think we fall into the trap of seeing students as sports-playing, achieving automatons.” But Mr. and Ms. Bonanno taught Ms. Noh that she was more than just a hard-working, accomplished student. “They taught me to take care of myself—not just as something to do in my free time, when I had time, but to see [selfcare] as its own thing.” Ms. Noh came to see that all achievement springs from a foundation of self-care. “In an environment that can be very pressuring and demanding,” the couple “really saw us as kids . . .. They taught me to value my own happiness and health.”

The work of their hearts has been in the classroom, the Bonannos say. It’s been their vocation to provide excellent curriculum.

“Rich is a fabulous math teacher,” says Dean of Faculty John Taylor. Every year, Mr. Taylor says, he hears from MIT that several Deerfield alumni, now MIT students, have named Mr. Bonanno as their most influential secondary-school teacher. “Year after year, he’s been cutting-edge,” using an application called Mathematica in his multivariable calculus class. “But he also does the nitty-gritty work— putting hours and hours into grading problem sets and giving students detailed feedback.”

Even with their devotion to teaching, the Bonannos have spent the majority of their hours at Deerfield in administrative work.

Back in 1979 the school hired Mr. Bonanno to design computer systems for the development, admission, and business offices. “We would only come,” Mr. Bonanno says, “if they could find a job for Pam . . ..” Fortunately, a position opened up. Ms. Bonanno became one of the few women teaching on Deerfield’s all-boys campus. Later she became an important role model for the developing female faculty,

says Mr. Taylor. “She was instrumental when the school went co-ed . . .. Pam is just a consummate school person, with endless generosity of spirit. She puts kids’ best interests first, whatever is needed to support them.”

Both Bonannos have helped shape Deerfield through key administrative positions. Mr. Bonanno worked as dean of faculty for more than a decade, and later as associate headmaster, and after that as director of financial aid. Over the years Ms. Bonanno served as assistant dean of students, and then dean of students, and after that assistant headmaster for school life.

Both Ms. and Mr. Bonanno have contributed their visions to the design and “functionality” of new buildings on campus, including the Koch Center and dormitory construction and redesign. In this sense, “there’s much of this place that bears our footprint,” Mr. Bonanno says.

Not surprisingly, “we’ve seen big changes,” Mr. Bonanno adds—including the return to coeducation in 1989; a subsequent, enormous increase in the school’s endowment; a surge in financial aid, and new efforts at global outreach. The result, Mr. Bonanno says, was a substantial shift in the school’s population and culture. “The arts took off,” for example, and “conversation in classrooms took off.”

The Bonannos feel that nevertheless the “essence” of Deerfield hasn’t changed. Instead, they’ve witnessed “a change in the community of Deerfield,” says Mr. Bonanno. Says Ms. Bonanno, “The spirit that exists between kids and faculty here, between faculty and faculty —that did not change. What did change was the face of the kids who were coming in the door.”

Ms. Noh sees herself as one of those new faces. “As an Asian female from Korea,” she says, she found Mr. Bonanno especially welcoming and supportive. “Deerfield is rooted in a lot of traditions,” says Ms. Noh, who is finishing her first year at Harvard. Mr. Bonanno was “genuinely warm-hearted and open to different kinds of students,” she says. “He treats students with so much sincerity and respect that we can’t help but feel inspired.”

Mr. Bonanno believes that “all administrators should keep their hand in the classroom” because this helps ensure that they can truly “relate to kids.” Ms. Bonanno agrees, and says that her teaching helped her to be a better administrator—to bring a “whole-child”

approach to administrative work. Because she saw students in the classroom, “I understood the kinds of pressures they were under, instead of just dealing with a certain aspect of them outside of class.”

Ms. Bonanno remembers four years in Bewkes House with particular fondness. Just nine girls lived downstairs; the Bonannos lived upstairs. It was a homey situation, particularly suited to Ms. Bonanno’s sense for nurturing. If a student got back late from a weekend away, Ms. Bonanno stayed up waiting for her. “They were my children,” she says.

For the last four years, the Bonannos have lived on their own, in a Deerfield house on Memorial Street. They’ve particularly loved living in what’s affectionately called “the Doll House.” “We kind of want to take it with us when we leave,” Ms. Bonanno says, laughing.

They’ve cozied the home with their oriental rugs and heirloom paintings. On the kitchen walls hang woodcuts by former Deerfield art teacher Tim Engelland.

Ms. Bonanno says she’s hardly had the chance to think about how she’ll spend her time after Deerfield. Her days have been so full, as usual—teaching and chairing the math department. “I’m just trying to get to that day of retirement. Then I can think about what comes next!” As for Mr. Bonanno, after a total of 43 years in secondary education, he’s looking forward to some rest, and to enjoying New York City. The couple own an apartment on the Upper West Side near Lincoln Center.

They’ll visit the opera and ballet, they say, and walk with their golden retriever in Central Park.

Ms. Bonanno does hope to find ways to recapture some of the fulfillment she’s found in her time at Deerfield—particularly in her teaching. She and Mr. Bonanno have worked hard, she says, and have been privileged to teach students who work hard, too. No matter what the students have been going through, “whether they’ve just come from a very bad chemistry class, or lost a parent or grandparent, or broken up with their girlfriend or their boyfriend,” they walk into her classroom, she says, and “within a minute, they’re right with me, sucking up every bit of knowledge I can give them.”

In retirement, she says, “I’ve got to figure out how I can replicate that.” //

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BOYS Ever heard of Coquitlam, British Columbia? Didn’t think so.

Neither had Phil Goss ’16, until last June. That’s when he received an invite to try out for the US Men’s National Under-19 Team that will be competing in the Federation of International Lacrosse World Championships this July.

“I had to check it out on the tournament website,” says Goss, in reference to the unheralded city that will be hosting this summer’s tournament. During the past year, however, he’s discovered that finding Coquitlam—it’s part of Metro Vancouver—was a heckuva lot easier than getting there.

Goss’s long-and-winding road to western Canada began with a pair of tryout sessions in Baltimore last June and August, another in Columbus, OH, in November, and a fourth in Bradenton, FL, in January, and he readily acknowledges, “those sessions got pretty intense.”

The Big Green goaltender wasn’t anticipating anything less, however, considering invitations summoned 108 of the best lacrosse players in the country in the Under-19 age bracket to that initial tryout at Johns Hopkins University—including ten goalies. During those tryout sessions the cream of the crop rose to the top, and in the end, nearly three of every four invitees who were hoping to catch on, didn’t. Only 22 players, plus three goalies, did.

When Nick Myers, head coach at Ohio State and the boss of this U-19 crew, announced his tournament roster in late January, Goss was finally able to exhale.

“It got pretty nerve-wracking after each of those tryouts,” admits Goss, who will be tending goal for Brown University next year. “They cut about 50 guys after that first tryout and another 20 following the August session. In November, ten more guys were cut.”

Then, things got really interesting. Heading into that final tryout, five more players had to go—including one more goalie.

“After working so hard to make that team, it’s hard to describe the feeling when you’re told you’ve finally made it,” says Goss. “I think the word ‘exhilarating’ might be a good place to start.”

If he hadn’t made it, well, “just having had the opportunity to play with and against some of the best lacrosse players in the country at your own age level is certainly pretty exciting,” says Goss. “You can’t help but take away a lot from an experience like that.”

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Making the U-19 team did have one negative ramification, however. In April, Goss was named to the prestigious Under Armour All-American Lacrosse Game, “but I can’t participate in it,” he explains. “It’s being played over the Fourth of July weekend in Baltimore and I’ll be in Seattle then, practicing with the US team. It was a nice gesture on the officials’ behalf, however. They knew I wouldn’t be able to play when they selected me, but they felt it would be a nice way of honoring me and some of the other guys on the U-19 Team who couldn’t play, either.”

Reflecting on his tryouts, Goss knew, like everyone, that to make the U-19 team, he was going to have to step up and be noticed; he feels he did just that during that second tryout. “It was the final game of the session and I was playing the second half,” he recalls. “I’m used to starting games, so I felt a little uncomfortable on the sidelines but I took advantage of that time and studied the opposing players. I watched their tendencies —seeing if they’d tip their hand when they went to shoot or pass.

“In hindsight, starting the second half was a blessing,” adds Goss.

“It gave me a chance to watch the opposing players and when I got in there, I felt relaxed—I felt I had a bit of an advantage over the shooters.

Fortunately, I did pretty well. I came up with a few big saves and preserved our lead. More importantly, though, I think I showed the coaches I could handle the pressure.”

The high level of lacrosse that Goss has been playing at over the past year has only helped to sharpen his game, at least in Coach Chip Davis’ estimation. “Phil had an outstanding year for us last year,” says Davis, “and in my opinion, he’s improved . . . he’s solidified every aspect of his game.”

Translated to the score sheets, that means Goss backboned Deerfield to a midseason mark of 9-1, allowing a stingy 6.2 goals-per-game average. “I can only take part of the credit,” says Goss, “my defense has been keeping the opponents away from the goal and the longer shots give me more time to react to them.”

“Phil has everything you need to be a terrific lacrosse goalie,” explains Davis. “He has quick hands and tremendous technique; he anticipates shots extremely well and his quick reflexes allow him to face oncoming shots squarely.

“His size doesn’t hurt either,” adds Davis. “At 6’-3” he’s a pretty big target and even when he’s in a crouch, he still takes up a lot of the goal and doesn’t give an opposing player much net to shoot at.”

Goss isn’t the only Deerfield player sporting star power this season, however. Attackman Joe Manown, a Duke-bound postgraduate, who played in last year’s Under Armour All-American Game, is heading up the offense by averaging five points a game. Nigel Andrews, meanwhile, who will be playing at Harvard next year, is averaging over three points per outing. Michigan-bound Curtis Alexander anchors the Deerfield defense, along with Chris Sullivan (Denver), Jackson Caputo, a junior already committed to Brown, and Zeke Emerson (Middlebury).

As for a secret to success that has taken him from prep school standout to highly recruited college player to the elite of his age level throughout the world, the answer isn’t complicated: “I gotta thank Coach Davis,” said a modest Goss. “He’s an outstanding defensive coach and he surrounds me with great players who make my job very easy.” //

9-1 6.2 MIDSEASON RECORD

GOALS PER GAME AVG.

PHIL GOSS ’16 New member of the US Men’s National Under-19 Team

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GIRLS

MEGHAN HALLORAN ’17 HALLORAN CONTROLLED DRAWS:

43 13 IN

GAMES

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There was no need to fill in the blank on those stick-to-you nametags that say, “Hello, my name is . . .” In fact, there was no need of nametags at all, and spending

opening day of training camp with the Big Green girls lacrosse team this spring was like spending a day at Cheers . . . “Where everybody knows your name.” Eleven seniors and four juniors returned from a team that finished in the middle of the pack of an alwayscompetitive Western New England Girls Lacrosse League last year. So high-fives sufficed—then it was off to the races.

“We should have a strong team and a strong season,” said Coach Allison DiNardo of a Deerfield squad that owned a 5-3 record as it headed into the final two weeks of its season. “I feel as though we have both the experience and the talent in place to make a strong showing of ourselves.”

DiNardo knows what she’s talking about when the subject concerns strong teams and long seasons—she made the most of four of them during her career at Amherst College. During her playing days there, DiNardo earned All-American laurels and helped lead her lacrosse teams to four straight NCAA final-four berths and a 2003 National Championship.

Despite an abundance of seniors on this spring’s roster, it’s a junior who has helped get the Big Green off to fast starts—literally—game after game. Standing in at 5’-10”, Meghan Halloran ’17 uses her height to good advantage during draws. (A draw is similar to a face-off, and comes into play when starting a game or after a team scores a goal.)

“Two opposing players stand in the center circle with the backs of their sticks facing each other,” explains DiNardo. “The referee then places the ball between the two webbings and the two centers push their sticks together, then above their heads, before releasing the ball.

“From there, Meghan uses her height advantage to leap up and pluck the ball out of the air over her defender,” adds DiNardo. “She controlled 43 draws in 13 games last year and so far this spring, she’s winning about 55 percent of her draws.”

Halloran, who is also a mainstay in soccer and ice hockey, where she tallied 21 points on 10 goals and 11 assists this winter, is what DiNardo describes as a “coast-to-coast player,” meaning she plays a crucial part of both the Big Green’s offense and defense “and it requires a great deal of stamina to be continuously running from one end of the field to the other, then back again,” said DiNardo, “but she plays a critical role for us in each zone.”

According to DiNardo, though, there’s much more to Halloran than just her ability to run and jump.

“Meghan’s a phenomenal kid and a selfless athlete . . .she works hard and is a delight to coach,” says DiNardo. “She’s smart, too. She knows the game and understands it and when it comes to showing her how to do something, you only have to show her once.”

Halloran chalked up 20 points through eight games this season on 10 goals and 10 assists; last year she was one of the Big Green’s premier scorers last year with 25 points off 13 goals and 12 assists.

“I’ve played about every sport there is to play,” Halloran comments. “That’s what usually happens when you’re a little kid and you’re always tagging along after your two older brothers,” she adds. And in addition to playing for Deerfield, Halloran spends many Sundays back in her native Connecticut playing for club teams such as the Connecticut Grizzlies (ice hockey) and the Fairfield Stars (lacrosse).

Meghan isn’t the only “coast-to-coaster” on the Deerfield team: Midfielder Elizabeth Growney ’16 also posted 10 goals and 10 assists for 20 points in eight games. Down at the other end of the field, meanwhile, co-captain Elliot Gilbert ’16, is in goal.

Gilbert averaged just over 15 saves a game while owning a very respectable 6.4 goals-against average through eight games, “and she’s proven to be one of the best goalies in the league,” says DiNardo. “In fact, Elliot’s been a constant presence for us in goal throughout her four-year career here.”

The Big Green’s other co-captain, Rachel Sit ’16, was the leader of a strong defensive crew until she suffered a season-ending knee injury just two weeks into the season. With the likes of Emily Yue ’16, Chloe Sweet ’16, Libby Wenners ’17, and Olivia Jones ’18 picking up the slack, however, the Big Green defenders limited five of eight opponents to five goals or fewer.

The familiar look of DiNardo’s offense extends well past Halloran and Growney, as four other seasoned forwards posted points. They were Kathryn Grennon ’17, who chalked up 44 points by midseason on 27 goals— including eight against Westminster—and 17 assists, and Katherine Goguen ’16, Hannah Swinerton ’17, and Katy Gray ’16. In addition to Growney, the midfield staff boasted a trio of experienced players in Nina McGowan ’16, Annie Blasberg ’16, and Kyra Kocis ’16. //

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SHOW YOUR WORK

CREATURE FEATURE

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THE CLASS: POST-ADVANCED PLACEMENT: TOPICS IN CONTEMPORARY ART TEACHER: DAVID DICKINSON THE ASSIGNMENT: Work with a partner to create a humorous or tongue-in-cheek "B" monster movie poster using 19th century archival images of animals as inspiration. //

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1 / Victoria Castellano-Wood '16, Samantha Kuo '16 2 / Lucas Galperin '16 3 / Ahoefa Abita '16, Katherine Goguen '16 4 / Gia Kim '16, Kyle Fox '16 5 / Flaura Xia '17, Kaity Jia '16 6 / Julian O'Donnell '18, Shane Beard '16 7 / Maggie Yin '16, Sevrin Sarachek '17

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BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA April,1993 Sarajevo Photo: bigstock/NorthfotoBP

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Th Gr e Am as ba sr ss oo ad ts or

November, 2009 Sarajevo Photo: bigstock/Orhan

s In over 40 countrie al roles, and in various offici s sought to Rick Barton ’67 ha d advance reduce violence an change, peaceful democratic ble but formulating a hum to conflict effective approach the world. resolution around

OT IA ELLI

BY J U L

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In June of 1994, Frederick “Rick” Barton traveled to Sarajevo on his first official diplomatic trip. NATO had enforced a fragile cease-fire in the Bosnian War, the ethnic conflict in which Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats fought for territory in the former republic of Yugoslavia.

Just four months earlier, he had launched the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) at the US Agency for International Development.

In Bosnia, he was tasked with proposing a program that might bring permanent peace and stability. The problem was, Barton knew very little about the country. “I essentially spent two weeks meeting as many people as I could,” he says, “and asking them what they thought was going on; pursuing the obvious questions, and not accepting any formulaic response.”

By day, Barton interviewed dozens of people at sites such as the Muslim Women’s Association, the Jewish Community Center, and on the front lines. At night, when the city was besieged by sniper fire, he pored over their responses in his hotel. A light bulb finally went off when one of the only remaining doctors on the maternity ward at the Kosovo Hospital mentioned that it was just himself and a couple nurses caring for patients. Apart from a handful of the middle class, Barton realized, almost all of Bosnia’s professionals had fled, but those who remained had talent and energy and were committed to turning the country around; for maximum effectiveness, any OTI program had to be directed toward them.

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ecently, Ambassador Rick Barton stood before a group of students at a high school outside Madison, Wisconsin, speaking about the current civil war in Syria. To illustrate the severity of the conflict, he shared a video of the top Google searches by Syrians in 2015. The most common phrases searched—“hospital,” “treatment of burns at home,” “mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” and “asylum in Germany”—are a vivid illustration of a population plagued daily by devastating violence.

“I believe there is a hierarchy of human needs,” Barton explains, “and at the very top is feeling safe.”

Whether it’s in Sarajevo or Syria or even back in the US, Barton believes physical safety is fundamental to leading a normal life. People cannot go to the market to buy food, send their children to school, or even stay in their homes if they fear being shot at, gassed with chemical weapons, or hacked to death with machetes.

RWANDA

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Mass graves in Butare, Rwanda Photo: Jorg Hackemann

“If you think that you or any of your family members are in danger,” continues Barton, “it absolutely consumes your being. The question is, how to get back to normalcy?”

Answering this question and intervening at these most desperate moments have been the backbone of Rick Barton’s career. In over 40 countries and in various official roles, most recently as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, he has sought to reduce violence and advance peaceful democratic change, formulating a humble but effective approach to conflict resolution around the world.

After that first journey to Sarajevo, Barton remained at the Office of Transition Initiatives for five years, building the office from the ground up and managing a budget that grew dramatically from an initial $10 million.

His primary mission was to advance the US effort to bridge the gap between addressing humanitarian emergencies and engaging in classic development.

Historically, it has not been the role of either humanitarian or development agencies to resolve conflicts. Humanitarians are deliberately apolitical as means to gain the trust of locals. This works well in a natural disaster with an immediate need for aid, but not in the case of manmade disasters, on the rise since the 1990s. Such conflicts can drag on for months or years and require skillful diplomatic maneuvering to resolve. Development workers, whose projects tend to be large-scale, take years to implement, and cost many millions of dollars, typically wait until the politics have been worked out and a country is stable. And in the meantime, a society’s downward spiral continues.

Barton was forced to start thinking about how to bridge this gap early on at the OTI, when he was also called to visit Rwanda in 1994—just one month after the genocide that left an estimated 800,000 Rwandans dead and another two million displaced.

“The country was really a ghost town,” Barton says. “If you hadn’t known about the genocide, you would think there were just not a lot of people and not a lot going on.” In other words, he says, it was almost as if a neutron bomb had hit: people had been the targets, leaving the country’s infrastructure eerily intact and unnaturally quiet.

Barton figured he would do what he had done in Bosnia and start off by listening. He quickly discovered that, this time, the genocide had left survivors too traumatized to even speak. One of his early realizations was that 70 percent of the population was now women

I believe there is a hierarchy of human needs... and at the very top is feeling safe.

January, 2012 The UN Millennium Village, Rwanda Photo: Bigstock/boggy

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SYRIA

What we really need to do is give the people in these countries a fighting chance to make it on their own.

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Barton’s approach at the OTI, his way to bridge that gap between humanitarian relief and classic development, was to find more opportunities for what he calls “catalytic interventions.”

April, 2015 Syrian people in unofficial refugee camp in Reyhanli, Turkey.

Photo: radekprocyk

and girls. He thought that perhaps the best way to build up the country—which at the time was underwater in terms of normalcy— would be to reach out to women.

“The US model is generally ‘let’s find a leader,’” says Barton. “‘Let’s find Hamid Karzai (in Afghanistan), and then everything will be better.’ Sometimes you get lucky and you do find a George Washington—but we made a big strategic choice in Rwanda, which was that we weren’t going to find that leader.

Instead, we were going to pick a large part of the population and see how we could reach them directly.”

Working in partnership with the Rwandan Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, Barton promoted a project called Women in Transition. The program gave women the opportunity to apply for a moderate degree of liquidity to restart their lives; they had to come up with an idea and create a business plan, and in exchange they received small start up grants.

Barton tells the story of three women who pooled their grants and built a humble structure in which to grow mushrooms, which they sold to hotels in Kigali for about $50 a week. When he visited later, they had expanded the small structure to include a tiny store with a Coke machine, making it a natural gathering spot. The three women were simultaneously supporting over fifty dependents, paying taxes to the state, and fostering a sense of community in their neighborhood: a grassroots venture that initiated healing.

Barton’s approach at the OTI, his way to bridge that gap between humanitarian relief and classic development, was to find more opportunities for what he calls “catalytic interventions.” He sought out local “energy centers”—Rwandan women entrepreneurs, Haitians eager to educate their kids, Muslim women providing relief to their Sarajevo neighbors—people who could effect change on the ground. Working directly with an indigenous population, Barton says, allows the US to create models that are expandable and that have the greatest capacity for influence.

“What we really need to do is give the people in these countries a fighting chance to make it on their own,” Barton says.

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ick Barton was born in Buenos Aires, where his father, Robert D. Barton, was an officer in the Foreign Service with his wife, Nancy, by his side. Barton grew up in Argentina, Spain, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Bolivia. Later, as a volunteer election monitor in Haiti, Ethiopia, and Poland for the National Democratic Institute, he “got a little flavor” for promoting peaceful democratic change.

He says his approach to conflict resolution was also inspired by his days at Deerfield, and the example set by Frank Boyden.

“He was a guy on the move,” says Barton.

“He was constantly making something happen.

You had to, with 500 boys. It’s accepting that [change] is a state of life.” Barton recalls how Mr. Boyden was perpetually engaged in catalytic interventions—sending boys out to

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harvest crops in the Valley, keeping close tabs on each and every student, and modeling the kind of behavior where picking up trash on campus was the norm.

Graduating from Harvard in 1971, Barton returned to his home state of Maine, and a job with US Senator William Hathaway. Later, Barton ran for Congress (he ultimately lost), and in 1982 he earned an MBA from Boston University. He helped with Bill Clinton’s Maine primary campaign, and followed the newly -elected President to Washington.

After his post at the Office of Transition Initiatives, Barton served as Deputy High Commissioner at the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Geneva, and later as co-director of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and

the trucks and arrive at the fire, and then they write reports about what’s happening.

Sometimes they suggest that the Defense Department or USAID jump into the fire.

There’s limited enthusiasm in those places for taking that kind of guidance.”

As a means to make the US response to countries facing violent crises more coherent and effective, in 2012 Secretary Clinton created the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations and appointed Barton its first head and assistant secretary of state.

Barton brought along his sensible approach to diplomacy: listening carefully, seeking out catalytic interventions, and “going local.” He prioritized working with “silenced majorities”—those politically underserved populations that nonetheless desire to have a greater

Despite a commitment to action, Barton insisted on being targeted in the number of priorities pursued in each country. “It’s about being aware of the political potential but not trying to build the Great City on the Hill,” he explains. “When I see the US getting excessively ambitious, trying to do too many things, I have a pretty good idea we’re going to fail.”

In Syria, for example, the CSO has taken on modest projects, such as funding 1200 policemen who had defected from the brutal regime of King Bashar al-Assad. A British, Danish, and American coalition provided the police with a modest salary of $100 each per month to protect the oppositioncontrolled portion of Aleppo. Some US government officials voiced concerns that those

Despite a commitment to action, Barton insisted on being targeted in the number of priorities pursued in each country. “It’s about being aware of the political potential but not trying to build the Great City on the Hill,” he explains. “When I see the US getting excessively ambitious, trying to do too many things, I have a pretty good idea we’re going to fail.”

International Studies; it was in 2009 that President Obama conferred the title of “Ambassador”—naming Barton US representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. Among his achievements there, Barton was active in the creation of UN Women and the advancement of the UN Peacebuilding Commission.

While serving as Ambassador, Barton was called upon to comment on the US Department of State Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, initiated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; it led to his most recent set of international efforts. One of the biggest findings of the review was that the State Department’s approach to crises was dated.

Barton likens it to a wayward fire department: “They have some lovely red trucks,” he says, “and they love to race across town in

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voice in bringing about peaceful change—and concentrated 80 percent of the Bureau’s firstyear efforts on four countries strategic to the US interests: Burma because of US business interests and its role in stabilizing the region; Kenya because it serves as the operating base for the international community in Africa; Syria in an attempt to stabilize the Arab Spring and because of its proximity to key allies (Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and Israel); and Honduras because of its proximity to the US Chief among his concerns was marrying policy with practice.

“Secretary Clinton really wanted to be able to convert ideas into action, and that’s why the word ‘operations’ was placed in that name,” Barton says. “If you’re doing policy and it doesn’t land, then you might as well be an editorial writer for the Washington Post.”

receiving funding might be terrorists, but Barton’s response was that each policeman was vetted, they were unlikely to become an international terrorist threat at $100 per month, and that if the CSO were to put off funding the police force due to onerous background check requirements, Aleppo would potentially lose its most effective firewall against terrorists.

“These are imperfect choices,” Barton says. “Anybody who wants to have a perfect environment before they get to work in these countries is really delusional. You have to be comfortable with a degree of chaos because we’re dealing with highly chaotic situations.”

In Burma, a country plagued by long-standing ethnic disputes and distrust between civilians and the military, the CSO works with local organizations to reduce land mines, an issue

Jessica Del Vecchio Photography

that brings warring parties together. In Honduras, the CSO sought to combat an explosive homicide rate—the world’s highest in a non-conflict zone—by working with a broadbased civic alliance that supported local initiatives, taxes, and a campaign against violence. “And they built a unique alliance to fight violence in every imaginable way—from better protection of witnesses to better prosecution of perpetrators,” Barton says. In Kenya, the Bureau partnered with a range of groups including a horticulture program, an AIDS program, university students, religious leaders, and Coke bottlers, among others, to prevent election-related violence. “They all had the same goal,” Barton says, “but hadn’t found a way to work together—we were the glue.”

With each CSO success story, Barton can point to what might have happened in a more traditional US peace-building scenario. For example, regarding Kenya, he says, “We could have sent three Americans there for six months and it would have cost about 600,000 dollars. How would three Americans be better at working toward a solution than 200 Kenyans for the same amount?” The US may take on the role of mentor or coach, but Ambassador Barton is convinced that potential to solve a problem—to bring about normalcy and build a sense of security—comes from within a country’s own population.

For his part, Rick Barton has relished the opportunity to build two new organizations within the US government, first the OTI and then the CSO. But he is quick to point out that the government—and the country in general —suffers from what he calls “obese institutions” with too many layers of bureaucracy and not enough clarity of leadership or vision.

He sometimes jokes that his job at the State Department was “90 percent internal diplomacy and 90 percent the problems of the world”—a job that required 180 percent, but was well worth the effort.

Barton stepped down as Assistant Secretary of State in late 2014, but he continues to advance his vision of peaceful democratic change. He currently serves as a lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, and he advises organizations and new businesses that seek to work on large public concerns.

I fundamentally believe that if the problem is one that a human being creates, then another human being—or that same person—can correct it.

Looking to the future, he predicts that violence will continue to be one of the world’s “meta-problems.” Terrorism, he says, is “too easy right now, and it creates phenomenal insecurity.” Cyber terrorism, as well as the fact that weapons of mass destruction will inevitably be miniaturized and therefore easier to acquire, only deepens the threat of global violence. He also points to climate change as a problem that could generate massive dislocation.

On a national level, Barton believes a great deal of work still must be done to rethink how the US engages in peace-building. “You have these big Washington industries,” he says, “and they need to be thinking about these very complex problems in a more integrated fashion.

The US role needs to be defined as more catalytic rather than ‘we’ll go in and fix it for them or tell them how to do it.’”

Despite these future challenges, and despite having witnessed some terrible things in his decades of service, Rick Barton remains an optimist. “I fundamentally believe that if the problem is one that a human being creates, then another human being—or that same person —can correct it.” He has a high degree of confidence in humanity and trusts in an individual’s capacity to command their own life. Barton sees his role in making the world a safer and more peaceful place as “the person who is most likely to help others succeed”—humble words from a giant of diplomacy. //

39

FROM THE ARCHIVES

1970

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The Common Room 1934 1935 1 9 3 6 1937 1938 1939 1940

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2008 2009 2010 2 0 1 1 2012 2013

2 0 1 4 2 0 1 5 * Re u n i o n Ye a r s

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1951 “I guess it is time to report that I had a stroke on October 31, 2015. I call it a ‘stroke of luck,’ as there was no body paralysis and no speech impairment. The off-and-on dizzy spells lasted for about a month, and now I am slowly gaining back my strength.”—Jim French

Deerfield gave me the best education

and played a critical role in helping me grow up. Our graduation day coincided with the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

My estate gift to DA is a small “payback” for all the blessings it bestowed on me.

Ken F. Clark Jr. ’44 / United States Merchant Marine Midshipman 1944-1946; Dartmouth College ’50; Tuck School of Business, M.B.A. ’51; Yale Law School ’56 L.L.B.

LEARN MORE:

413-774-1872

deerfield.edu/go/ boyden

“Nat Reed and wife Alita have been married for 50 years! They spent a quiet summer at their summer home in Winter Harbor, ME. Nat went salmon fishing in Norway and continues to be active in many environmental organizations. He had the responsibility of forming a team to select from the Alaskan public lands ‘absolutely the best additions to the national park and national wildlife system.’ His children accuse him of trying to save the world; Bill Walker remembers how he and his wife Mary and Dave Findlay each had grandsons at Avon Old Farms and that they attended their graduations in May 2015.

Bill and Mary took a riverboat trip with their grandchildren in April 2015 from Brussels to Amsterdam; George Reformer has retired from being an arbitrator for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority; Pete Meyer has two sons, ages 38 and 36, who are both married to ‘beautiful Texas girls.’ He has two grandchildren: one, a grandson, age five, is named after Peter and likes model trains; Art Drazan now lives with his wife, Sandra, in Jupiter, FL. He has retired from the practice of radiology. He and Sandra have four children and eight grandchildren, and Art is enjoying fishing and golf; Hal Henderson has a major rotator cuff problem. He and wife, Gloria, spent a month in South Africa, including a ten-day safari in Krueger National Park. Gloria continues as a travel consultant and Hal is still with the investment firm he joined 30 years ago; Dave Preston and wife Barbara spent a week hiking portions of the old pilgrimage route that starts at the Spanish/French border and ends in Santiago on the west coast of Spain (Santiago de Compostella). They also visited the new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao; John Bell moved to Tyron, NC, some 20 years ago after selling the family business. He now works with local startups. His wife Mary has been breeding Alpacas for the last 15 years. His continued interest in fly fishing resulted in the building of a lodge in central Patagonia (Argentina). Together they have three children; Jim Webster is spending nine months and the balance at Delray Beach and ‘our legacy St. Lawrence summer compound;’ Bob Yates moved to Richmond, VA, in February of 2013.

He now lives in a gated community but is not sure whether the gates are to keep him ‘in’ or ‘out;’ Earl Fain returned to Dallas after living for 25 years in Santa Fe, where he managed to ski about two months out of the year. He also became proficient flying sail planes. Two years ago his daughter opined that it was time to give up skiing and soaring. Tex observed that the skies and the ski slopes are much safer

since his retirement. He lives in a retirement home but is fortunate in having his daughter living close by. He recently suffered from heart arrhythmia but that problem now seems well under control; Ed Opler is extremely proud of his granddaughter, Sophie, who is a freshman at Deerfield, on the varsity soccer team, and a member of the Student Council; Charlie Grace and his wife Betsy have purchased a house on Lake Cazenovia in New York for summer use ‘and more.’ He is a four-time grandfather and chairman of his USMC 3-56 basic class reunion in Washington, DC, in 2016; Jeff Filman now lives in Boston, after having taught and practiced law in New York for 42 years. He then worked for a company that provides online reports of judicial decisions. Jeff became a volunteer in the Education Department of the New England Aquarium in Boston, where he gave lectures and took pictures of all species in the Aquarium’s collection; he published three books of some of his photos. Jeff has recovered from various ailments and spends his winters in Boston and his summers in his cottage in Lakeville, CT; Rud Barrett has long since retired from the practice of medicine. He and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Dover, MA. Both have pursued musical interests—she on the piano, he on the cello. They are enthusiastic tennis players and enjoy hiking and sailing when summering in Maine. They also enjoy bird watching.

They have two children, a son and a daughter.”—Jim McKinney

Next to trout fishing, golf is my favorite hobby.

Most importantly, I treasure being married to Jeanette since 1959!”

—Whitney (Whit) Evans

1954 “Jeanette and I have resided in the heart of Sonoma Valley since 1991—formerly in Silicon Valley for four years—and previously for 50 years in Cleveland, OH, after graduating from Dartmouth College in 1959. I enjoyed my work along the way from 1976 to 1989 as the founder and president of National Health Watch, a health care consulting firm that ‘focused on hospital marketing programs.’ I’m a past Board member of the Boys & Girls Club of Sonoma Valley, the Special Olympics, and Board member of the Sonoma Valley Rotary Club. I’m also a founding Board member of the Sonoma Valley Fund, a non-profit philanthropic organization founded in 2006. We’re devoted volunteers, and my current passion is seeking affordable housing for teachers in their community, many of whom have to commute 30 miles or more to their schools in Sonoma. In 2012, I was selected by the Sonoma City Council for the ‘Alcalde,’ an honorary mayor award, commending ‘passion and commitment to community.’

We have three married sons and seven grandchildren, four of whom are in college. Next to trout fishing, golf is my favorite hobby. Most importantly, I treasure being married to Jeanette since 1959!”

—Whitney (Whit) Evans

More Class Notes and Photos: deerfield.edu/commonroom

Whitney Evans ’54 (Whit) and Jeanette Evans enjoying lunch

by an amazing trout stream—the Madison—in Montana.

43

RECENTLY PUBLISHED:

Art as Adornment: The Life and Work of Arthur George Smith AUTHOR :

Charles L. Russell ’47

Outskirts Press / 2016

REVIEWED BY:

Jessica Day

Part biography, part autobiography, and part coffee table book, in each genre, Art as Adornment is a tribute to Arthur Smith, who has been called one of the leading modernist jewelers of the mid-20th century. Written by Charles Russell, Smith’s partner for the last eight years of his life, Art as Adornment is the intimate and honest story of a child who emigrated to the United States from Cuba at the age of three, a young man forced to navigate discrimination because of his race and sexual orientation, and the adult artist who became famous for his bold creativity.

Smith’s career truly began when he was awarded a full scholarship to New York City’s Cooper Union, where he was one of six black students in the art school in 1935. As a sophomore he won a contest for the design of a building for the New York World’s Fair, and his faculty advisor at the time encouraged Smith to pursue a degree in architecture; instead, Smith chose to major in commercial art, and later was strongly influenced by two classes in particular: “Sculpture, Three-dimensional Design and Material Study” and “Decorative Design and Color.” Smith credited the two classes and teachers Paul Feeley and Carol Harrison with his becoming conscious of space, form, and abstraction—elements that would feature prominently in his jewelry making.

Smith once said: “There is jewelry that derives from painting, sculpture, weaving, ceramics, and just about every other art form . . .

To me jewelry is not just a pretty object that can attach itself to the body somewhere . . . To me the best jewelry achieves full realization only when combined with the body—when worn—when interacting with a neck—shoulders, face, arm, hand, etc.”

Smith and Russell did not meet until 1973, and the writing of Art as Adornment didn’t begin until after Russell’s retirement in 1998; he calls the project a “labor of love spanning about twenty years.” And while it’s clear that a great deal of love and care did indeed go into the writing, Russell also manages to present a relatively unbiased portrait of a unique and most uniquely talented individual. //

EXCERP T FROM AUTHOR’S FORWARD: As the manuscript began to take shape in my mind, it was obvious that I should explore the

many boxes of memorabilia that Arthur and his sister, Ina, left behind. This produced a skeleton of specific facts about when and where things happened in the lives of the individuals that comprised the Smith family. Faithful to the skeletal outline, and the historical developments of the time, a readable story needed to be developed. In the first three chapters of Part I, the fleshing out of the story required the use of fictional characters and imagined conversations . . . On stepping back to look at Arthur’s life as a whole, I have to marvel at the fact that he became an artist, much less a successful one . . . In Part I, Chapter 5, I faced the reality of writing about my association with Arthur. I opted to use the “third person” approach; it seemed awkward, if not weird, to write as if I were someone else, but it seemed much more readable for others since the book is Arthur’s story, not mine.

44 | THE COMMON ROOM

Tim Day ’55 and Sandy Day in Israel with

their tour guide Erez Landau (right).

1955 “Our classmate, Charlie Beck, died four years ago after battling cancer.

He was living in Brewster, MA, with his wife, Marian. Charlie was a cum laude student and achieved three varsity letters in soccer, track, and skiing at Deerfield. In retirement he and Marian ‘split our time between Cape Cod, Cincinnati, and travel. We enjoy every day: skiing (fond memories of Art Ruggles’ ski team trips in those Ford station wagons) biking, eating in and out with good friends, and grandparenting. Our main concern is how fast the time goes;’ Tim and Sandy Day traveled to Israel in October of 2015, and shared their memorable activities in the historic and imperiled country with us: they were guided on a ten-day itinerary that included private tours to Bethlehem, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a visit to the Wailing Wall, and to the town of Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee. Their detailed travelogue and photos may be accessed via Tim’s new email address: tday@ dayfamilyoffice.com, requesting the CEO Israel College Trip. Regarding their ‘nonstop activities,’ Tim relates, ‘Many were spectacular once-in-a-lifetime experiences, and it was truly an inspirational, spiritual enlivening, and educational adventure. CEO always puts on extravagant/extraordinary events but I think this was the best trip I have been on;’ in Greenville, SC, Lou and Dee Greer have moved ‘across town to the Cascades-Verdae retirement community. We’ve built a so-called cottage there. We’re looking forward to a leisurely life of leisure.’ Lou continued to coach JV lacrosse at Greenville High School this spring. He relates that his great-nephew is Deerfield’s lacrosse goalie, and looks like he’ll be on Team USA when they compete in the world championship next summer; Charlie and Sharon Thebaud continue to be happily situated in Cummaquid, MA, a village on the bicep of Cape Cod. Summers on the Cape are delightful vacation getaways. John Boyden also lived there in retirement; it was impressive to read in the final report of the Imagine Deerfield campaign that Jerry Rood and Tim Day each contributed $100,000 or more to the effort. In Margarita’s words, ‘Imagine Deerfield has elevated our beloved school, revitalized our program, and sharpened our focus on academic excellence, while sustaining our foundational emphasis on character and our ethos of service.’ Many thanks to Jerry and Tim on behalf of the students and our alma mater. Please read our Class Notes online at deerfield.edu/alumni/class-of-1955/class-notes and feel free to submit your updates and photos while visiting the website.”

Tom L’Esperance: 760-942-2680; tmlski@roadrunner.com —Tom L’Esperance

Dan Butterfield ’60 Received a lifetime achievement award at the West Alabama catfish producers annual meeting, which was hosted by Auburn University’s school of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences.

45

1956 “I was selected to receive the Orange County Bar Association’s Franklin G. West Award for 2015, which is presented to ‘an outstanding attorney or judge whose lifetime achievements have advanced justice and the law.’ The award has been given annually since 1971, and I will be the 18th lawyer to receive it; it will be officially presented at ‘Judge’s Night’ next January. I think it is fair to say that I am not the youngest recipient.”—Dick Millar

1958

Bob Murray ’58 and Meredith Murray will celebrate 50 years of marriage this coming September.

l to r: Brian Rosborough, David Knight, Ellen Barol (Peter Clark’s wife), Lucy Rosborough, Jean Knight, and Peter Clark gathered in Boston.

“After Deerfield I went to Wesleyan, Yale Law, and NYU Law. I married Susan, who I met on her first day at Smith. We have four children and five grandchildren. Susan and I celebrated my 75th birthday with a trip to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. It was a spectacular trip. My youngest daughter currently works in Southeast Asia in an organization dedicated to literacy for young women. Since law school I have been dedicated to providing legal services to deal-makers. The skill set is similar but the projects are incredibly diverse. Currently, I am engaged in activities in which I have little skill but great enthusiasm: singing (glee club in NY), bridge (my talented son is carrying me), mentoring (can’t stop a lawyer from doing this), and politics (Florida, Kentucky, NY, and wherever I can help the Democrats in this election). I dream of a more peaceful world and I despair for the ever growing refugee crisis. The one real positive is that I have tried to live by the positive values of the Boydens. I will always be grateful for the opportunity they provided.”—Wally Epstein “2015 saw some milestones passed: 50 years a member of the Massachusetts Bar, my 50th Reunion at Yale Law school, and my 75th birthday.

I remain Of Counsel at Bowditch&Dewey in Worcester, MA, and I’m still involved with Mechanics Hall, a world-class concert hall and community gathering venue. (mechanicshall.org) My most extensive non-profit relationship is with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.

I serve on the National Area Council Committee representing Area Councils in Massachusetts and northern New England, with frequent meetings locally, regionally, and nationally. I was honored to receive a 2015 Heart of the Region Award at the Northeast Region Annual Conference in Princeton, NJ. The award is in recognition of my service as a ‘Visionary Leader of the Boys and Girls Club of Worcester (and) A Builder of the Boys and Girls Club Movement.’ Margi and I continue to follow the diverse activities of our three daughters and five grandchildren. And we still travel—this year to French Polynesia for a week’s cruise aboard the Paul Gaugin in March and a combo trip in August to Easter Island and then the Napo River in Ecuador’s Amazon Basin aboard the riverboat Amazon Manatee Explorer. All were fascinating places worthy of a lengthy travelogue. Life is indeed full and interesting!”—Erwin Miller “News from The Great ’58: Sackett Cook: Glad to hear Dave Knight kept things on the up and up at one of the New Hampshire polling places! I did that about 30 years ago in Baltimore in one of the tougher neighborhoods. At the moment I am in residence in Boca Grande, FL,

46 | THE COMMON ROOM

where we spend most of the winter months. We get back to our little summer community in Nonquitt, MA, usually in early May. I am still working in the insurance industry as an insurance broker. Although I have clients all over the East Coast and southeast, my office continues to be in Baltimore, where we continue to maintain an apartment. I am in a niche business: We specialize in insuring charter buses, school buses, limousines, and other types of vehicles that are for hire. This all keeps me pretty busy with lots of travel—a good thing as we have 13 grandchildren all over the country who keep us busy trying to catch up to them when we can. Still playing some lousy golf. Hoping another knee replacement this coming summer will get me back on the tennis courts. I guess this about sums it up. Steve Fowle: Betsy and I have been retired and living in Hancock, NH, fulltime since 2008. We have been married for nearly 52 years and have three children and six grandchildren living in three different corners of the country. We love to travel overseas and especially to visit with family, but we also enjoy the quiet life at home in Hancock and the Monadnock region. We are dealing with some health challenges, advancing age, and NH winters but hope to get away soon and be able to travel as long as possible. Meanwhile, I’m off to vote—First in the Nation! Dan Farthing: These days my wife Diane and I get a great deal of enjoyment just by taking our two daily walks in the local neighborhood, totaling about three miles. Keeps the dog healthy, keeps us somewhat healthy, and we usually run into a neighbor or two that we know, since we’ve been doing this walk routine for 25 years or so. Much to our financial misfortune, we have recently discovered that we enjoy ocean cruising. We just finished our second cruise and have three more booked! I am in the midst of reading Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal, which everyone, especially everyone our age, should read.

Bob Murray: My wife Meredith and I are still fulltime realtors with the Corcoran Group in Westhampton Beach, selling luxury homes on the east end of Long Island. We live in Quogue, NY, my old hometown and love every minute of our active life. I still play tennis, golf, and sail, and have recently taken up bridge. Oh, how I wish I had listened to Harvey Webster and taken up bridge when I was a lot younger! We have three wonderful daughters and six grandchildren ranging in age from four to 22! Big events planned for this year include a trip on a chartered small ship—the M.S. L’Austral—to see Bordeaux, Brittany, London, D-Day beaches of Normandy and Guernsey Island. The next event after that is a family reunion to celebrate Meredith and my 50th wedding anniversary. We will be assembling our entire family at Skytop Lodge in Skytop, PA, September 2-5. Life is good! Roger Hoit continues to practice architecture with his devoted wife Nancy from their home office in Hingham, MA. ‘Tending 15 projects, five each in design and schematics, construction drawings, and construction, mostly snappy houses.’ Roger is active in tennis and golf, holding records at the Eastward Ho Club, near their summer place in Chatham, MA. Son Roger Jr. missed the US Senior Open final cut by two strokes, playing while holding an executive director post with a Moelis, NY, investment bank. Entrepreneurial daughter Sarah is building Connected Living, for aging inquirers, having just released her new app with Apple called EVER. Check it out. The Hoits have weaknesses for wildlife and Democratic politics. Jim Guest retired from Consumer International, the advocacy organization affiliated More Class Notes and Photos: deerfield.edu/commonroom

Howard Coonley ’62 Honored by the College Squash Association at a gala for past winners of the Pool Trophy as part of the 2016 College Squash Association Individual Championships; Howard was awarded the Pool Trophy at UPenn in 1966.

Teri Towe ’66 Featured in the Wall Street Journal in an article titled: “Talking Bach With a Radio Denizen.” on.wsj. com/1VOmkMa

47

RECENTLY PUBLISHED:

Crescent Beach AUTHOR :

David J. Mather ’64

Peace Corps Writers / 2016

REVIEWED BY:

Jessica Day

Crescent Beach is David Mather’s third novel, and the first to introduce Rusty McMillan: teen felon turned Vietnam veteran turned state trooper turned under cover cop on Florida’s “Redneck Riviera” in order to break up a drug smuggling ring. But what seems like a fairly straightforward assignment for Rusty turns out to be quite the opposite once he gets to know the people he’s clandestinely investigating, and that’s just the beginning, as everybody’s life is threatened by an unexpected hurricane packing a lethal twelve-foot tidal surge.

Mather’s descriptive writing and well drawn EXCERPT: characters pull the reader into the action and Rusty continued to use live bait with success. In an hour they had caught onto Florida’s Gulf Coast, and that’s probably half a dozen, varying from twelve to twenty inches. After throwing the sixth into because he’s intimately familiar with the the cooler, Jimmy rinsed his hands in the gulf. location; Mather grew up in Sarasota, and he “What say we see what Crystal packed us today?” “You’re on; I’m starved.” and his wife currently split their time between They opened the boxes. Fried chicken, homemade slaw, bread and butter pickles, an off-the-grid cabin in New Hampshire during and a brownie each. The two men ate quickly; both boxes were bare when they finished. the summer and a winter home on the Gulf “That may have been the best cold fried chicken I’ve ever eaten,” Rusty said.

Coast. After Deerfield, Mather attended Bowdoin Jimmy smiled.

College and then served in the Peace Corps in southern Chile for two years. As the most “Crystal’s a mighty fine fryer. She’s always in demand to cook at the church isolated volunteer in his program, those two suppers and the like. Got her an excellent reputation.” years strongly influenced him, and Mather’s Jimmy looked at his watch and checked the bait bucket. previous novels, One for the Road and When the “Think we’ve about fished out this area. Aren’t as many as I hoped.

Whistling Stopped, have a Peace Corps/South We got enough bait left to try one other spot. It’s on the way back.”

American focus and feature a young Peace He pulled up anchor. It wasn’t long before they came around a point and Corps volunteer. could see Crescent Beach way off. The water tower and blimp stood out.

Crescent Beach is a departure from this theme, “Is that a blimp, Jimmy?” although Mather continues to explore the value “Yep.” of bygone eras in the modern world: Rusty “For what? Pretty strange spot for a blimp.”

McMillan expects to “deal with trailer trash” in “Smuggling.” his assignment, but instead discovers “a hard“Marijuana?” working community from an earlier era when “That’s what they say.” life was simple and straightforward. He becomes immersed in the everyday life of shrimping, The Yamaha droned on smoothly. Rusty said, “Guess that figures…” crabbing, and fishing, while at night he drinks “What do you mean?” beer, arm wrestles, and plays poker with the “Oh, the new pick-ups around town, parked in front of houses that really aren’t more locals who become his friends . . . Rusty gets the than shacks. Sort of like where I grew up in the mountains of north Georgia. Lots of evidence he needs, but can he make the arrest? moonshine running up there. You could usually tell who was involved because he’d Either way he’s a traitor: to his job or to the have a brand new pick-up or tractor or something. Owe my start in the road business community.” // because of moonshine.”

48 | THE COMMON ROOM

with Consumer Reports, which Jim led for 22 years, 14 as CEO. ‘We influence the buying choices of about eight million readers.’ He and his wife Penny, a consultant to non-profits, have a teaching son in film and daughter working on Martha’s Vineyard, where they spend summers. ‘I have taken up tennis again, and (surprise) everything works more or less,’ Jim says. John Bales and bride of 50 years, Jane, live in Jenkintown, PA, which allows John two days a week as an active 22-year-trustee of his favorite institution: The Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia. ‘The Academy is now merged with Drexel University, serving as a museum, think tank, and lab for graduate and UG studies 24/7. Our programs reach over 78,000 students each season. In addition, we initiated a new academic major, the BEES program, for Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science serving 140 undergraduate students annually. It’s breathtakingly good!’ John returned from his winter sojourn in Barbados, ‘near Geriatric Cove,’ and celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with Princeton classmates in Boulder, CO. The Bales have three daughters: Trish, a landscape architect in Hingham, MA, (working with the Hoits); Liz, a Philly vet; and Sue, on the University of Wisconsin faculty as a specialist in American Religious Studies. Jeff Urstadt has managed real estate ‘here and there’ from NYC to the woods of Vermont when not sailing to the islands and Downeast. His legs were good enough to climb Mount Kilimanjaro this year, the highest mountain in Africa (19,341 feet). ‘Breathing at altitude was tough.’ Urstadt splits his time between NYC and South Royalton, VT, and the company of his children Jordy, a Zurich entrepreneur with a startup for investors and advisers; Bryant, feature editor for Bloomberg News; and Beth, an arts lawyer in New York. Bill Webster spends three months a year (guess which) in Bonita Springs, FL, perfecting his 28-handicap golf game. The rest is spent in Portland, ME, working on new technologies from his wharf-side office on the harbor. Of late, ‘Harvey’ has been making sense out of scents: designing applications and markets for synthetic smells and scents (think IFF), which engage his talents as lawyer, entrepreneur, developer, and diplomat to fund and launch his next enterprise. He gives time to his three daughters and a son: ‘Nancy is with the Yale faculty posted to Bali and Singapore; Edith and Lindsay are running things in DC, and Chase holds down different assignments for the Chicago Airport.’ Bob Duvall has taken leave from his home in Albany, OR, for some down time in Hawaii. He was bemoaning the wave of political correctness that is washing over the country and particularly our educational institutions. He is upset with the trustees of his alma mater, Amherst College, for unloading their mascot, Lord Jeffrey Amherst, because of his alleged treatment of certain American Indians. He understands that the Lord Jeff Inn in Amherst is in the process of changing its name (the Inn is owned by the College). Bob was wondering whether the Town of Amherst will be getting a new name in the not too distant future. Any suggestions from the Great ’58 would be welcome!”—Bruce Grinnell, David Knight, and Brian Rosborough

More Class Notes and Photos: deerfield.edu/commonroom

Gregor Trinkaus-Randall ’64 and Vickery Trinkaus-Randall

completed the 163-mile Pan-Mass Challenge in 2015. Their daughter, Jennifer, has been battling cancer for four years; this year, in honor of the effort and fight Jennifer is putting up, Vickery and Gregor have again committed to raising money for cancer research by riding in the two-day Pan-Mass Challenge over the first weekend of August. They will join 6200 cyclists in this annual bike-a-thon that raises money for research and care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

5795

Gregor Trinkaus-Randall ’64 Honored for serving 50 years on the National Ski Patrol by Paul Kelly, the New Hampshire Regional Director; included are serving as trainer/ evaluator for both Outdoor Emergency Care and ski and toboggan.

49

FROM THE ARCHIVES

1965

50 | THE COMMON ROOM

51

1967 “I am a clinical professor of neurology, and teaching at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix; I’m building BrainSavers, LLC, America’s healthy brain aging company; and I’m now a grandfather (best for last!) to Audrey Bendheim-Polakow, born on October 10, 2015 to Jessica Bendheim-Polakow and Torr Polakow in Tel Aviv, Israel.”—Paul Bendheim

John Chittick ’66 Continues to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS by educating young people around the world; he is pictured here in West Africa.

Peter Palmedo ’73 Hosted classmates Tuck Whitehurst, Dan Ehrgood, and Scott Kiner with his wife, Brit, at their winter home in Palm Desert, CA, this past February.

“Many wonderful Deerfield memories were shared.”

52 | THE COMMON ROOM

“We took the plunge to consider life out of New York State for part of the year and bought a house in Durham, NC—near many of our daughters. Cynthia continues to develop our property in Costa Rica; we have a small house under construction there. Last summer I finished the Northville Lake Placid Trail; this summer I am going to start the Camino de Santiago in France and Spain. We both still work and continue to add to the nation’s treasury.”—George Lee “Our twins live nearby: our son in Newton, MA, and our daughter in Marblehead, MA. We have four grandchildren. I have been working at my old company, JC Cannistraro, LLC, this past year part-time.

Suzanne and I spent six months last fall and winter in South America, Central America, and Mexico. Although we are only getting to Florida and Mexico for the next five months, we hope to see New Zealand and Australia next year, and perhaps China and India to follow. Hello to all members of the Class of 1967! We wish you all the best of health.”

—William Lyons “I retired from the Town of Wakefield after 35 years in various capacities.

Two children, Amanda, 21, just graduated from Quinnipiac University with a degree in nursing; she’s now an RN at Cambridge Health Alliance.

Son, Michael, 18, just graduated from Wakefield Memorial High School and is now attending Minutemen Technical Institute. Wife, Margaret, is director of Quality Assurance and Risk Management at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA.”—Mike Martello “After eight years as editor of the Washington Examiner, I spent a year collaborating on three books and serving as a contributing editor to National Geographic and Smithsonian Journeys. But I missed the day-to-day journalistic combat, and recently signed on as editor in chief of National Journal.”—Stephen Smith

“Just wanted to let you folks know that Carrie is now a young mother: Matt and Carrie welcomed little Owen Matthew Diana, born on February 1, 2016.

A fine, healthy young fellow. Mother and baby are doing well . . . so are we, the grandparents.”

—Ed “Flick” Flickinger ’65

“During our annual ski vacation to Bretton Woods and the Mt. Washington Hotel, former faculty member Ed Purcell and his wife, Grace, spent an evening with Karen and me. We had a delightful dinner together at Horsefeathers in North Conway, and relived many of the fun moments from our 50th Reunion last June that he was able to attend.

Mr. P continues to recuperate and rehab from hip replacement last December; he sure gets around well and remains a very spry 80-year-old!”

—Ed “Flick” Flickinger ’64 l to r: Karen Flickinger, Flick Flickinger, Grace Purcell, and Ed Purcell

Jonathan Raymond ’78

Jonathan Goss ’77

Named president of the San Francisco

Met Ted Leh ’77 for lunch in NYC. Jon

-based Stuart Foundation, which supports

was visiting from Idaho, where he is a

education programs throughout California

principal of a rural high school, and

and Washington state.

Ted was taking a break from his job at Goldman Sachs.

53

“I’M PRETTY SURE LEIGH GUYER ’83

(SIXTH FROM THE LEFT, WITH THE BEARD AND BLACK HELMET)

PLAYED IN THE IHL, AND WHILE IT RARELY LEADS TO A PRO CONTRACT, THE ‘LOVE OF THE GAME’ WAS DEFINITELY AN OUTCOME FOR MANY. FAST FORWARD MANY YEARS, AND THOSE WHO HAVE KEPT THEIR LOVE FOR THE GAME ENOUGH TO LACE ’EM UP WITH REGULARITY CAN REAP CONSIDERABLE REWARDS . . .”

—JOHN KNIGHT ’83

Josh Binswanger ’80 and his son Colin posed

under the Great Tent at Reunions with 2015 Morsman Award recipient Norm Therien. / Rob McDowell ’81 visited with classmate Win Faulkner ’81 and his son Cole ’15 in Anchorage, AK.

1981 “I reconnected with my classmate Morris Housen, who came to New Orleans for a business conference. We hadn’t seen each other since graduation. When Morris isn’t working as a stunt double for Kiefer Sutherland, he works as CEO and president of Erving Industries, whose holdings include a paper mill in Erving, MA, which is more than a century old and since 1960 has produced high-quality paper products exclusively from recycled materials. I’ve lived in New Orleans since 1988 and I’m director of programs, marketing, and communications for the nonprofit New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation. After a leisurely brunch in the hip Faubourg Marigny neighborhood, we checked out the African drumming circle and costumed Mardi Gras Indians in historic Congo Square. Then we headed into the Tremé neighborhood (made famous by the HBO series Tremé) to catch one of New Orleans’ fabled ‘second-line’ parades, complete with brass bands and lots of dancing in the streets.”—Scott Aiges

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RJ Harrington ’83 Continues to work on his new company: National Car Charging.

He also won a raffle for subscribers to the Deerfield Club of the Rockies blog, and was able to take his son to his first college lax game at defending national champs Denver University.

On the track and on the fields, Deerfield Athletics invigorate campus life and instill core values.

As we take aim to create even greater opportunities for our athletes and coaches, thank you for helping to

Hardie Jackson ’83

build a championship program with your leadership gift.

Attended his daughter’s “letter signing” event; she will play soccer for Vanderbilt this coming fall.

deerfield.edu/give

FROM THE ARCHIVES

1994

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READ

Common Ground

pages

18-21 57

1983 “As part of a recent visit to campus, I was treated to a tour of an exhibit in the new art gallery. Three students walked us around the exhibit, which was the brainchild of faculty member Tim Trelease.

Called Human Impact, the show highlighted examples of the interaction between humans and nature and features a central sculpture created by two local artists. The student in the white sweater is the daughter of Jeff Louis ’81! Student photographs and writing line the exterior of the walls of the art gallery; the writing was created in response to the gallery show, and is further evidence of the myriad of ways that classes beyond the arts can use art as a writing prompt or new perspective. (Editor’s Note: the spring exhibit in the von Auersperg Galley was also called Human Impact, but exclusively featured the work of current students; see pages 4 and 5 for details.) Following in the footsteps of previous member (and former president) PB Weymouth, I am pleased to announce that I have been added to the Executive Committee of the Deerfield Alumni Association for a three-year term. The EC consists of up to 26 alumni, distributed across the decades, who work to engage their fellow classmates with information about DA and excuses to congregate—such as the Day of Service and Choate Day. It’s fun to be with other rabid Deerfield supporters from across the years—especially Paula Griffith Edgar ’95, Dave Hagerman ’64, and Syd Williams ’85. We heard from Director of Inclusion Marjorie Young about her role in helping all students and faculty create a positive learning atmosphere for everyone. On the face of it, it sounds a little contrived, but as we know from the media, the definitions of typical roles in society seem to be blurring. At the end of the day one thing seems clear: If a student is feeling out of place at DA, it’s important for them to know there is support nearby— either on the corridor or in an office. I’m pretty sure that was just as important back in our day.”—John Knight Craig Pattee ’83 traveled with his family to King’s Academy in Jordan (affectionately known as “Deerfield in the Desert”) this past Thanksgiving. / Benjamin Patton ’83 spoke at an Omega Institute conference that was attended by several hundred veterans and caregivers entitled: “Veterans, Trauma, and Resilience: What’s Next” at the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

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7

Mountains

11 Days

5000 Miles

100K Vertical Feet

Nate Nourse ’83 enjoyed a last-minute ski trip to Colorado, where he and a friend skied seven mountains in 11 days, driving from central PA and back; they logged 5000 miles driving and almost 100,000 vertical feet. The goal for next year is ten mountains in 14 days.

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M A R K B E AU B I E N ’ 8 3 / by Jessica Day

NASA WB-57 62,000 feet 450 mph

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Photographs courtesy of Mark Beaubien

Stormy Skies

While other people were hunkered down last October, trying to avoid the wrath of Hurricane Patricia—the second most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded—engineer Mark Beaubien ’83 was in a Houston, TX, control room helping his team in the air in their efforts to drop his stateof-the-art sensors (“dropsondes”) into the storm. He says there were many “firsts:” “For example, we caught 190 mph winds in a 69 mph updraft—there was basically a tornado at her center! And lining the plane up with the storm was kind of like shooting a bullet with a bullet.

It was extremely stressful.” That alignment was key because every 15 seconds, an automated system in the WB-57’s bomb bay released a dropsonde, specifically designed by Beaubien and his company, Yankee Environmental Systems, Inc., to gather data in high-altitude hurricane flights. What follows is an abridged account by Mr. Beaubien of his scientific adventure.

“Last fall, after a very quiet tropical storm season, a small hurricane named Erika approached Florida. By the time our WB-57 was outfitted with a High Definition Sounding System (HDSS) and deployed from Houston to MacDill AFB in Tampa, they had closed the base, forcing us to scramble to Warner Robbins AFB in Georgia. From there, we made our first flight to the western coast of Florida over the remnants of the storm. An aerial photo (right) taken 12 miles up by the system shows relatively few clouds (Note: we caught a dropsonde exiting at 420 mph, which can be seen in the top center). The next week, Hurricane Marti formed in the eastern Pacific and we deployed to Brownsville, TX, where we flew two flights over Mexico. A week later, Hurricane Joaquin formed

Our Dropsonde exiting at 420 MPH while cruising at 62,000’ with light clouds 10 miles below us

we caught 190 mph winds in a 69 mph updraft— there was basically a tornado at her center! And lining the plane up with the storm was kind of like shooting a bullet with a bullet. It was extremely stressful. in the Atlantic and it was back to Warner Robins AFB, where this time we flew four flights over that Category 4 storm. Just when we thought the season was over, we deployed to a fourth storm, again in Brownsville.

From there the WB-57 flew four flights over Patricia, where one dropsonde sensor caught 195 knot winds in a 60 knot updraft. In terms of sustained wind speeds, cloud top temperatures, and minimum pressures, this storm was soon called the strongest ever observed in our hemisphere. Hunting hurricanes in October was like a ping pong game: first a storm in the Atlantic, then the Pacific, then the Atlantic, and finally back to the Pacific.

The High Definition Sounding System is a robotic dispenser that releases expendable weather sensors, called dropsondes, from a NASA WB-57F high altitude research aircraft. This former nuclear bomber, a relic of the Cold War era, has been retooled by NASA to make flights at extreme altitudes—venturing into the lower stratosphere. Within the former bomb bay, advanced scientific payloads including radars, gas samplers, and radiometers probe the atmosphere. Often, future satellite prototypes are flown to certify their performance prior to sending them to space. The two engine WB-57 is a single pilot aircraft with a navigator in the rear seat; there are only three remaining in the world. Payloads are generally automated or operated from the ground via satellite communications link.

Our initial engineering challenge was getting the HDSS prototype to work reliably in the low pressure, extreme cold (-80F) encountered at 62,000’. It is simply not possible to simulate the flight environment on the ground, and many painful design lessons were learned (such as the fact coaxial cables shrank, pulling out of their internally-soldered pins).

And while dropsondes themselves have been around for a while, they have been manually deployed via ‘low and slow’ C-130J and WP-3 manned aircraft. It’s quite costly to fly over a hurricane at high altitudes, and the HDSS was designed to operate autonomously with redundant hardware to overcome jamming. Obviously, this technology will eventually migrate to high altitude, long endurance unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the Global Hawk or Predator/Reaper.

It costs society about $1,000,000 per linear mile of coastline when we mis-predict landfall of major hurricanes. Moreover, improvements in the accuracy of the intensity forecast (that is, how severe the storm will be when it arrives at the predicted track location), have been elusive. The US Navy funded development of the HDSS primarily to collect very high spatial and time resolution pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed/direction, and sea surface temperature data in the central core of major hurricanes. The Office of Naval Research’s goal is to improve forecast models by using the HDSS data to initialize them and to study how they perform vs. reality.

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This particular research and development project has multiple Deerfield connections . . . Todd Allen ’80 and MIT Professor Kerry Emanuel ’73 have been involved; working alongside me at Yankee Environmental Systems in Turners Falls, MA, Todd engineered major portions of the HDSS hardware and wrote the firmware.

Meteorology Professor Kerry Emanuel first asked our Office of Naval Research sponsor for a measurement of the air-sea thermal and wind coupling under the eye wall of a hurricane.

Me with NASA WB-57 pilots after return from flight (who fly up in space suits while I sit on ground pushing buttons)

This particular research and development project has multiple Deerfield connections.

Although their paths did not cross at the Academy, Todd Allen ’80 and MIT Professor Kerry Emanuel ’73 have been involved; working alongside me at Yankee Environmental Systems in Turners Falls, MA, Todd engineered major portions of the HDSS hardware and wrote the firmware. Meteorology Professor Kerry Emanuel first asked our Office of Naval Research sponsor for a measurement of the air-sea thermal and wind coupling under the eye wall of a hurricane. This critical energy exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere is quite difficult to measure, primarily due to the lack of access to that violent area. As Kerry describes it, directly under the eye wall, the surface of the ocean generally ceases to exist and is more of an emulsion.

My older daughter Lily ’17 took the photo of loading under the NASA WB-57 aircraft at Johnson Space Center in Houston, while she assisted during test flights. That particular day it was a heat index of 105�F and the test flight was a disappointment, as only half of the sensors survived ejection. However, that taught us how to modify them to help them survive; in the fall we successfully dropped 840 dropsondes on 11 flights, spread over four hurricanes with only a half percent failure rate. My younger daughter, Madeleine ’19, also pitched in by helping to assemble dropsondes prior to field deployments.

Accurately predicting the path and intensity of a hurricane just a few days in advance turns out to be quite difficult. But, if we are eventually able to reliably predict them, then in theory, no one would need to die during a hurricane—everyone could be safely evacuated. Only time will tell whether the data HDSS takes will improve our forecast abilities, but being lucky enough to catch Hurricane Patricia was definitely a step towards reaching that goal.” // Me loading dropsondes under WB-57 in 105° F heat index day in Houston . . . my remote “office” while we chase storms.

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Gregory Delts ’85 serves as social action chair for the Bronx Alumni

Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi. In 2015 he was responsible for the creation and implementation of over 50 acts of community service, benefitting numerous community programs, and providing food to several thousand community residents via food pantries. Since November 2015, he has received numerous honors in recognition of his hard work: He was honored at the New York City Veterans Day parade; received a certificate of recognition from Senator Ruth Hassel Thompson; was presented with his second consecutive Brother of The Year Award for Meritorious Service from Kappa Alpha Psi; received the President’s Award from Keller Graduate School for obtaining the highest GPA in his MBA program; was honored as an American Hero by the Brooklyn Nets; received the Jonathan P. Hicks Memorial Award for service and leadership to the community from Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr; was given a citation for Community Service and Leadership from Bronx County Chair Assemblyman Marcos Crespo; and received proclamations from NYS Senator Jose M. Serrano and NYC Councilmember Vanessa L. Gibson. Gregory’s response to all of these honors is simple: “You do the work because it is desperately needed. If you get acknowledged, that’s nice. If not, that’s life. Either way you have the opportunity to positively affect someone’s life . . .”

Andrew Starr ’87

Andrew Bonanno ’87

Andrew and his son

Caught up with classmate

Jeremy say, “Thank

Matt Countie in NYC, where they

you for the shirt!”

had an opportunity to sample fellow alumnus (Class of ’79) Paris DuRante’s famous Old Fashion at Campbell Apartment.

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1993 “My first book, Broad Influence: How Women Are Changing the Way America Works, came out on January 5! The idea started with a story I wrote for TIME magazine about the women of the Senate coming together during the government shutdown to restart the negotiations to reopen the government when none of the men would talk to each other. What interested me about that episode is it was the first time that women made up 20 percent of the Senate and they ended up producing 75 percent of the major legislation that passed the Senate that session. Turns out, there’s a huge body of research that shows, whether it’s a legislative body, a corporate board, a Navy ship, or an appellate court, that when women reach between 20-30 percent it’s a tipping point and they begin to really change how things are done. My book looks at where we’re reaching that tipping point—in all three branches of the government—and the areas where we are falling short such as Silicon Valley and Wall Street and why it’s important for us to get to critical mass across the board.

My whole life, I always thought I’d never live to see parity; turns out women don’t need to get to parity to be heard—to make a difference—and we are on the cusp of attaining that powerful milestone in so many areas of the workforce. The book includes interviews with Hillary Clinton, Carly Fiorina, the women of the Senate, Nancy Pelosi and many women in the House, former Justice Patricia Wald, cabinet secretaries, CEOs, generals, police chiefs, Hollywood producers, and many more.

Plus, the intro has a Deerfield cameo!”—Jay Newton-Small

Garrett James ’93 married Olya Kisseleva on June 27, 2015 in Deerfield, MA,

in a backyard ceremony and reception. Deerfield alumni in attendance were Chris Pennock ’93, Ed Hammond ’93, Matt Cadarette ’93, Tim Blanchard ’93, and Griffin James ’97.

Garrett works in the Quantitative Investment Strategies group at Goldman Sachs. Olya, an Electronic Production and Design major at Berklee College of Music, is a singer-songwriter/producer and has recently released her latest album “Utopia.” Garrett and Olya frequently perform together as “Olya” in and around New York. Garrett and Olya share a live-work studio in Brooklyn, New York. (Olya and Garrett performing in Montreal)

64 | THE COMMON ROOM

“We are happy to announce that on August 15, 2015 we eloped off the coast of Long Island, NY! When we set out late Saturday morning from Sag Harbor for a day cruise aboard Midnight Rambler, a stunning 70-foot Hinckley Sou’wester sailboat owned by our friends Andrew and Wendy Fentress—our families were blissfully unaware that our wedding would occur that day. There was a photographer and a producer on board because, everyone was told, they were tech scouting for an up-coming catalog shoot. About an hour into our sail, we sneaked below deck to change outfits before we set anchor for lunch off Shelter Island. That was when the ‘producer’ announced that she was, in truth, the Reverend Dr. Janine H. Burns, an interfaith minister, and that everyone gathered was actually there to witness our marriage. Michael’s parents, Sue and Len, were the most visibly shocked, but we think everyone was quite surprised (except maybe Ben Butler, Michael’s brother-in-law, who thought something might be up, and expert sailor Charley Cooper, who was suspicious about a dress code for a day sail—what he didn’t know, however, was that he would be asked to serve as best man.) The ceremony took place at the bow of the boat, and as part of it, the maid of honor, Demitri’s sister Stefanie Sgourakis, performed the traditional Greek custom of swapping ‘stéfanas’—crowns joined by a ribbon—which symbolize unity and signify that we have become ‘the kings of our newly created family,’ which we will ‘rule with wisdom, justice, and integrity.’ Michael’s nephew, Hamlin Butler, was our ring bearer and his niece, Clementine, our flower girl. Beautiful readings were given by Wendy, Stefanie, Charley, and Michael’s sister, Laurel ’94; ‘cold reads’ Wendy pointed out, as no one was given the readings in advance, of course. After we exchanged vows and were pronounced ‘a married couple,’ we raised glasses of champagne to toast our union and spent the afternoon swimming, sailing, eating, drinking, laughing, and loving. It was a truly emotional, gratifying, and memorable day for us, and we are grateful for all the love and the support we enjoy from you.”—Michael Sucsy ’91

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

2000

67

Photographs courtesy of John Harthorne

Refreshing the Soul of the Economy J O H N H A RT H O R N E ’ 9 1 / b y S a r a h Z o b e l

In 2009, John Harthorne needed to come up with $50 million in just a few months. Yet until then, his only real experience soliciting funds had been the time he’d raised $2000 for an AIDS charity bike ride. The money would allow Harthorne to meet his ultimate goal: the establishment of a startup accelerator to help high-impact businesses get off the ground. Spoiler alert: he succeeded, though, in the end, the timeframe was a little longer.

Today, MassChallenge, which bills itself as the “most startup-friendly accelerator on the planet” thanks to its no-equity, nonprofit approach, has helped its startups raise more than $1.1 billion in outside funding and generate more then $520 million in revenue.

It was an idea borne of Harthorne’s frustration and disappointment in the global economy, amplified by his ill-timed entry into the business world in late 2007. With a Massachusetts Institute of Technology MBA in hand, he planned to work as a strategy consultant at Bain and Company just long enough to pay off his student loans. But when the economy collapsed the next year, Harthorne, by then a married father of two, feared he would never be able to realize his long-time goal of establishing a startup, despite careful planning.

68 | THE COMMON ROOM

MASSCHALLENGE, WHICH BILLS ITSELF AS THE “MOST STARTUP-FRIENDLY ACCELERATOR ON THE PLANET” THANKS TO ITS NOEQUITY, NONPROFIT APPROACH, HAS HELPED ITS STARTUPS RAISE MORE THAN $1.1 BILLION IN OUTSIDE FUNDING AND GENERATE MORE THEN $520 MILLION IN REVENUE.

“I thought, how did this happen?” says Harthorne. “It’s just greed that brought the whole system down—too many people extracting short-term profit and not enough people creating long-term value: solving problems, bringing clean water to people, educating people, curing diseases, and building products that we need.” At the same time, he had hope. “I also thought, someone’s got to fix that so people like me can create businesses. I wanted to create a new business that solves problems, creates jobs, creates growth, creates optimism and hope, and maybe could break that vicious downward spiral that we were in.”

It turned out the someone was Harthorne himself.

Writing up what he believed to be a viable accelerator business model—in hindsight, he says it was “all wrong”—Harthorne approached MIT connections to seek their guidance and their backing. He first had the idea for MassChallenge in December 2008; by May 2009, he had both a revised business plan and some funds.

Just under a year later, in April 2010, Harthorne launched the first accelerator program, with $1 million.

MassChallenge has grown exponentially in just six years. Already fulfilling its mission to “catalyze a startup renaissance,” it has graduated 835 startups that are responsible for some 6500 jobs. But the reach goes further, thanks to the Moretti multiplier effect: 35,000 jobs have been created indirectly, at all levels of the socioeconomic ladder.

“As a startup accelerator, we have an even greater impact on the non-startup economy,” says Harthorne, adding that MassChallenge’s “metrics are legitimately off the charts.” An MIT-based study backed that assessment. Comparing the data of two equivalent startups, one of which went through MassChallenge, the study found that the MassChallenge–supported company would be twice as likely as the other to receive funding of more than $1 million and twice as likely to hire at least 15 employees. And MassChallenge startups are diverse, with 39 percent claiming at least one female founder—a rate about three times the industry average.

The four-month programs provide mentorship, office space, education, networking opportunities, and financial backing for its winners, courtesy of worldwide sponsors that include many Fortune 100 companies. Startups are welcome to apply as early as the idea stage, and there are no restrictions on industries, which have included clean tech companies, pharmaceuticals, nonprofits, and consumer products, among many others.

“Our emphasis is on: are you solving a big problem? Are you creating value for humanity? What’s the impact that your business will have on society? And within that, is it

ALREADY FULFILLING ITS MISSION TO “CATALYZE A STARTUP RENAISSANCE,” IT HAS GRADUATED 835 STARTUPS THAT ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SOME 6500 JOBS. BUT THE REACH GOES FURTHER, THANKS TO THE MORETTI MULTIPLIER EFFECT: 35,000 JOBS HAVE BEEN CREATED INDIRECTLY, AT ALL LEVELS OF THE SOCIOECONOMIC LADDER.

sustainable?” says Harthorne. “Our focus, which is unique relative to most accelerators, is we emphasize impact more than ‘investability’ or ‘profitability.’

I’m not opposed to profit, but our interest is in restoring creativity to the soul of the economy.”

Today, MassChallenge has about 75 employees located in Boston, London, Israel, Switzerland, and Mexico. The strategic plan is to have in place no fewer than a dozen accelerators worldwide by 2020, with at least one on all six populated continents, stretching toward Harthorne’s current goal of reaching every person on the planet.

“If we can restore the creative impulse to the global economy,” he says, “if we get people refocused on creating impact and solving problems rather than simply taking profit—and we can do that globally, at a time when the world is more interconnected than ever before in history—then we have the opportunity to really change the way people interact with business, the way people experience their lives, the opportunities that they have to succeed and fulfill their dreams, and to have a more positive impact on the world.” //

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1994 “The Patriot League is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and decided to name in August a 25-member 25th Anniversary All-Star Team in men’s swimming with selections from all the Patriot League schools, including Bucknell, Colgate, Lafayette, Lehigh, American, Holy Cross, Army, and Navy. Named one of the top 25 swimmers over the past 25 years was Alex Johnson ’94, one of three Bucknellians so named, who captained the Bucknell team his senior year, was a First Team Patriot League selection all four years swimming freestyle and butterfly, and was a Patriot League Champion in the 50 Free, 100 Free, 200 Free, and anchored every possible relay to Patriot League Championships during his career. Alex and his family—wife Andrea, son Gabriel, and daughter Victoria—now live in Groveland, MA, and Killington, VT. Alex is a partner at Ernst & Young in Boston.”

—Jotham Johnson P’94

1996 Wally Tomenson ’95 Welcomed, with his wife Virginia, a daughter on November 7, 2015: Ashby Reid Tomenson. The family is at home in New York City, and Ashby is looking forward to being Deerfield Class of 2034!

“Tom Johnson ’96 graduated from Princeton in 2000 and accepted a teaching/coaching position at The Hill School in Pottstown, PA, where he teaches history and coaches girls’ water polo. In 2011, he was also named dean of Hill’s faculty. He has been coaching girls’ water polo now for 15 years; won a New England Championship in 2001 and Eastern Championships in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2010, and again this year, defeating Episcopal Academy on November 8, 2015, 19-17 in OT! He was delighted when former DA faculty member and water polo coach Steve Murray was named as the new headmaster at The Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and they had a chance to salute one another when Hill played (and defeated) Lawrenceville at Lawrenceville in November. Tom has a wife, Leigh, who teaches at Hill, too, and a daughter, Harper. They are looking forward to attending Tom’s 20th DA Reunion!”—Jotham Johnson P’96

2002 “In July, after three years at the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, I left my position as an assistant state’s attorney in the Major Investigations Unit to accept a position as an assistant United States attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Lindsey and I are settling into Pittsburgh and really enjoying the city!”—Ryan Hart

70 | THE COMMON ROOM

Lauren Cvinar Franklin, Lindsay Elliman Falvey, Liza Hinman Stewart, Lael Cragin Bilzor, Kathleen Cowan, and Kate Whitman Annis, all Class of ’95, gathered for a girls’ weekend in Healdsburg, CA. / Welcoming the next generation: l to r: Spencer Cherry ’98, Nicholas Leibowitz ’98, Thomas O’Mara (born July 1, 2015), Cameron O’Mara ’98, Christopher Wallace ’99. (Not pictured) Clay LeConey ’98, Ian Franke ’98, and Christian O’Mara ’01 / Alexander Mejia ’99 (center) presented Walter Tomenson ’95 and Mack Ewing ’99 with the winning trophy

for the Alberto Butler Mejia Memorial Tournament, an event Alexander hosts each year in memory of his brother Tito ’03. The event is held at National Golf Links of America in Southampton, NY, and is well attended by Deerfield alumni.

You might remember a class field trip on the first warm day of spring, a barbecue at the river, or ice cream novelties in the Dining Hall.

Thank you for keeping the tradition of small treats and special surprises alive with your gift to the Green and White.

deerfield.edu/give or use the envelope in the back of this magazine.

Thank you for your support!

71

tête-à-tête: AMY SIUDA

’93

Amy Siuda ’93, associate professor of oceanography and program director for the Sea Education Association’s SEA Semester: Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, recently spoke with Deerfield Magazine’s Julia Elliott as she prepared to lead one of SEA’s spring expeditions in the North Atlantic. Dr. Siuda has been affiliated in various capacities with SEA since 1997; in 2007 she joined SEA as teaching faculty. She also actively continues her own research, has presented her findings in several academic journals and reports, and was awarded the Jim Millinger Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Siuda is a graduate of Middlebury College and earned her PhD at the University of Connecticut. This fall Dr. Siuda and her family will move to Florida, where she will join the faculty at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg.

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DM: I read that your interests span the organismal population and community ecology of plankton, and that your current research projects include distribution and diversity of Sargassum, and its associated community, and copepod-microplastic interactions . . . All of that is way above my head. When you’re at a cocktail party with non-science-y people, how do you describe what you do?

AS: All of my research these days is applied science research; asking scientific questions for which the results will have some sort of impact beyond the scientific community—answering questions that are useful to managers or conservationists as they’re trying to solve bigger problems in the global ocean.

DM: So what is a copepod?

AS: A zooplankton. It’s a small animal that drifts in the ocean, that can’t swim against the current. That’s the definition of plankton; copepods are the most abundant multicellular plankton out there—if you do a net tow out in the ocean looking for microscopic plankton, they’re the most common thing that you pick up. They look like grains of rice to the naked eye, maybe even a little smaller.

They’re one of the predominant grazers that are feeding on the primary producers (plants) that are out there in the ocean; they’re the connection between the plants and the fish, or the larger organisms in the ocean.

Courtesy of Amy Siuda

When I joined the faculty at Sea Education Association (SEA) in 2007, right around that time the science of plastic marine debris research was starting to get recognized as a valuable line of inquiry. One of my colleagues, Kara Lavender Law, started working on analyzing our long-term data sets of Sargassum from our surface nets. At the same time, I was looking at our zooplankton data from those same net tows; she started looking at the distributions of microplastics in SEA’s 40-year data sets… The questions that have come forth, and that still need answers, are: ‘What’s happening to the plastic after it enters a marine system; how does it break down; and how small does it get?’ Essentially, ‘What is the fate of the plastic?’ Part of that is also ‘How does it interact with the food web?’ So she sort of roped me in (laughs) because of my experience with plankton and my ability to run these experiments; we started thinking about ways we could ask questions of plastics and plankton and their interactions.

I’m interested in seeing if copepods are eating plastics—whether they will eat the plastics that could be available out there in the marine environment as larger plastic debris breaks down or as some of these plastics enter the ocean at much smaller sizes (a tenth of a millimeter) from face and body washes that people use, for example.

If the copepods are able to eat these, and choose to eat them, there’s also the potential for these tiny plastics to have absorbed contaminates, that could bio-accumulate in the marine food web. The research I’m doing right now is sort of the initial steps to understand whether copepods could mediate bio-accumulation . . . If they’re eating these contaminated plastics, do those chemicals stay in the copepod? And then when the copepod gets eaten by something larger, do those chemicals then stay in the larger organism with potential implications for food contamination or population decline of larger organisms because of toxins . . .?

DM: Are copepods and Sargassum connected?

AS: No. They’re separate lines of research but it’s all applied research in the effort to support conservation. Sargassum is a seaweed—it’s a macroalgae and there are hundreds of different DM: That’s amazing. They’re the size of a grain species of Sargassum that exist throughout of rice and they can digest plastic? the global ocean. The North Atlantic is unique AS: They’re not digesting the plastics. The in that there are two species of Sargassum that plastic will sit in their gut and pass through are never attached to the bottom; they drift at their gut, but there’s potential for those toxins the ocean surface, so that’s how it fits into my to leave the plastic and enter the copepod—to research—they are plankton, too. The Sargassum stay in the copepod. drifts around, forms large mats of multiple We hear about large pieces of plastic in the individual plants, and they collect together guts of sea birds or large marine mammals, when there’s not a lot of wind. Sargassum and there’s evidence that large marine mam- ends up being—the way I describe it—this oasis mals have bio-accumulated toxins in their fats of life out in the open ocean where there’s not . . . We’re wondering at what point in the food a lot of nutrients available for plant growth, web does that start? and not a lot of food sources for larger organThe current understanding is that if you isms; the open oceans are pretty depauperate have smaller pieces of plastic, they have more compared to coastal oceans. Sargassum surface area, so more potential to absorb provides an oasis and there are hundreds of toxins from the environment, more potential smaller organisms that live their entire lives to carry microbial pathogens; there’s more on the Sargassum, and then those organisms surface area for transfer, and they’re more are a source of food for larger fish, and then easily consumed by much of the marine food up to migratory fish that are economically web… But the debate is still going on, and important, such as tuna and Mahi, that come studies are ongoing to understand bio-accu- to these Sargassum mats to feed out in the mulation of toxins from plastics. middle of the open ocean. we’re just seeing if the copepod even will eat contaminated plastics as a first step. The next steps are to really get into the chemistry of it and the accumulation potential.

DM: And you are also studying Sargassum?

AS: Yes—that’s one of the primary focus of my research; it’s a seaweed.

DM: Is that what you mean by ‘bio-accumulation?” The effects accumulate over time?

Or as they go down the food chain?

AS: Actually, as they go up the food web— building up these toxins in the bodies of organisms. So right now we’re not testing the accumulation in the copepods themselves;

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tête-à-tête: AMY SIUDA ’93 DM: How does Sargassum fit with your interest in conservation?

AS: The Sargasso Sea and the Sargassum is at the center of the North Atlantic gyre. Sylvia Earle, an oceanographer who has turned toward conservation, gave a TED talk—I think it was in 2009—she described these ‘hope spots,’ as she called them, around the world— places of unique biodiversity that really needed conservation attention. The Sargasso Sea was one of those spots.

Currently, there is an international effort led by the Sargasso Sea Commission to secure protection measures for the Sargasso Sea. I’ve been involved with that effort since the Commission’s beginning because of where I work—because of SEA’s historic record—data collection—in the Sargasso Sea; we’ve been sailing through the Sargasso Sea and collecting surface net samples of Sargassum and of plastics since 1971. So I’ve been really digging into and analyzing our long-term data sets and then collecting new data and asking new questions about these Sargassum communities.

DM: I read that Sargassum started washing up on the shores in the Caribbean a few years ago; why?

AS: It’s pretty exciting! So I have an interest in the Sargasso Sea but then, in 2011, there’s the first inundation event of Sargassum into the Caribbean. It was massive amounts of Sargassum coming into harbors, onto beaches . . . anecdotally, nobody remembers this much Sargassum coming into the Caribbean. So it was an episode from 2011 to 2012; concentrations went down to background levels in 2013, and then a new event started in 2014 that is just starting to subside now.

The scientific community is looking at this and wondering if they’re going to be continuous episodic events; we’re trying to figure out what’s causing them and how to predict them.

Something that my colleagues and I were able to contribute is direct observation of the Sargassum. The SEA vessel Corwith Cramer was sailing across the Atlantic in the fall of 2015 with my colleague, Jeff Schell, on board as chief scientist; they were in the middle of all these massive mats of Sargassum down in the tropical Atlantic—sailing from the Canaries across to the Caribbean. He noticed that the

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DM: Is this ‘bloom’ a climate change issue?

AS: That question’s still out there. The current Sargassum looked different than what he was hypothesis, which has not been tested, is that used to seeing in the Sargasso Sea . . . We dug there’s been a change in nutrient input to the a little deeper and we actually just published Equatorial Atlantic. Seaweeds need light and a paper in Oceanography magazine; it reports nutrients to grow, so if there were just really that the Sargassum inundating the Caribbean low concentrations of this Sargassum out in the fall of 2015 was dominated by a previ- there because they only had a certain amount ously rare form of Sargassum—not from the of light and nutrients, if you suddenly add a lot Sargasso Sea. of nutrients, then you have the potential to have a big bloom. Those nutrients could come DM: Where is it coming from? from the Amazon River or from a change in the AS: Satellite evidence and some back-track equatorial circulation that allowed more nutrients models of oceanic currents point to the Equa- to come up to the surface from deep water. torial Atlantic. What I think is happening is this I’m trying to understand the circulation and rare form of Sargassum had been there at low distribution of Sargassum for bigger picture concentrations and then there’s been a shift in questions, such as the impact on fisheries and upwelling or nutrient input—something to conservation management. But then, also, I’m allow that Sargassum to bloom. And then it’s trying to understand the finer scale interactions just following the normal currents from the on a single clump of this seaweed.

Equatorial Atlantic toward the Caribbean.

DM: How does the SEA program work DM: Is there a concern about these large mats and what is your role? washing into these islands?

AS: Sea Education Association is an educaAS: There is. A major concern is economic: tional nonprofit institution. We’re based in The tourism industry has been pretty severely Woods Hole, MA, and we work with undergradimpacted. They’re having to do a lot of beach uates, primarily. Students come to us for a clean up; beaches are covered in seaweed, semester of college—they have an opportunity and that seaweed is dying, and it smells. to focus on the marine environment and Ecologically, there is potential impact on conduct their own oceanographic research, sea turtle populations; if the adult turtles can’t and we take them out to sea for half of the get to the nesting beaches through the Sargas- semester. There’s one vessel in the Atlantic sum, or if the hatchlings can’t get back to the and one in the Pacific, and we’ve combined water because of the Sargassum . . . One paper this undergraduate education work with a even described the potential for the Sargassum number of research themes—such as plastic to heat up sea turtle nests—sea turtles’ sex marine debris research, Sargassum conservation, is determined by temperature of their nests— marine conservation, sustainability . . . the faculty so there’s potential to shift the population are conducting research along these lines and towards males. If that happens, it could have incorporating that into our semester programs. significant impacts on sea turtle abundances My primary focus—SEA Semester Marine and populations in the future.

Biodiversity and Conservation—is wrapped And then I describe this as two ecosystems around and parallels the professional work colliding: where the Sargassum is coming in that’s going on to conserve the Sargasso Sea. and covering up coral reef areas. Previously, these two ecosystems have not interacted; DM: So students aren’t just doing research with the Sargassum coming into the coast and —they’re thinking about how it can affect covering coral reefs, it cuts off light to the conservation? reefs. It’s adding lots of nutrients, and there’s AS: Yes. The Marine Biodiversity and Conserthe potential for hypoxia or low oxygen con- vation program is a 50/50 science and policy centrations because of degradation of the program, so students are conducting biodiverplants and use of oxygen by bacteria . . . so sity research to inform policy and then they’re there’s potentially some severe impacts for also conducting policy research and making coral reefs as well. recommendations. And we share all of this with the Sargasso Sea Commission.

This is the fifth year we’re offering this particular program; students come out of it feeling so empowered.

I say from the beginning that it’s not an academic exercise: They’re working in a professional effort during the semester and their contributions are being shared.

This is the fifth year we’re offering this particular program; students come out of it feeling so empowered. I say from the beginning that it’s not an academic exercise: They’re working in a professional effort during the semester and their contributions are being shared; we end the program with a symposium where students share the results of their work, and invite experts in conservation and commissioners from the Sargasso Sea Commission.

I, as one person, cannot make tons of contributions; working as a team with the students, we can make a better contribution. I tell them independent research is not the way it’s done in science—it’s done collaboratively— we collaborate and work together to solve problems. Our goal is to give students an interdisciplinary perspective on the marine environment.

DM: Can you describe a typical voyage?

What’s it like? You talked a little bit about the net tows and observations . . .

AS: It’s absolutely amazing. I’m a SEA Semester alumna; I did a semester when I was a junior in college, and it’s an incredible teaching and learning environment, which is sort of why I came back here to teach. We’re sailing 24-hours a day, so students are rotating through a watch schedule that keeps the vessel and research lab running; the captain and I are on call, and I’m the chief scientist on the voyage. I have three assistant scientists that help with the day-to-day management of the lab on the ship. The scientific mission drives the voyage, and that’s driven by what the students have decided on for their research projects.

Being out there at sea, it’s about working really hard but also taking a moment to realize where you are and how incredible it is to be out there with four thousand meters of water under you . . . and enjoying those incredible sunsets that are not masked by lights from the city . . . It’s an amazing environment.

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tête-à-tête: AMY SIUDA ’93 DM: When did your interest in biology start?

AS: It’s hard for me to pinpoint . . . I only went to Deerfield for my senior year. I had been happy with my public school education, but I wasn’t feeling as challenged as I could be. I had the opportunity to pursue AP Bio at Deerfield, and it really helped to reinforce my love of biology.

I ended up as a biology and French major in college—probably because I was able to dive deeper into both of those disciplines at Deerfield; the opportunities that were available, including building relationships with faculty outside of the classroom . . . I think that set the stage for how I work with my students today.

DM: When you look to the future, what do you think are the most pressing questions oceanographers are going to have to answer?

AS: Climate and climate impacts. We’re working on them, but almost everything comes back to climate, and human impact on the climate, and then how that impacts the environment. I think about my work with Sargassum and understanding its distribution and growth DM: Why is it important to you, personally, and the communities associated with it—you that you’re addressing real world problems? can always tie everything back to climate AS: It’s evolved over time; originally I just wanted issues. Continuing to provide support from the to answer questions—contribute to our scien- scientific community to give managers and tific knowledge—but through my research and decision makers the correct story of those my teaching, my goal has evolved to also try to impacts so that we can do our best to mitigate have an impact on conservation of the marine the problems that are arising—that is an urgent environment. I want my kids to have a lovely part of our jobs. place to live when they grow up. We need to start thinking more carefully about how humans DM: Do you feel hopeful? are impacting the environment; oceans cover AS: At times. There’s so much good science three-quarters of the world, and we’re just being done to impact policy and to help ensure now thinking carefully about marine systems that we have a healthy planet and healthy and our impacts on them. I hope it’s not too late. oceans in the future. But there’s also a lot of One of the reasons I want to teach under- work that has to be done pretty immediately to graduates is that I hope those students are stave off some problems that could occur. going to be able to make a difference . . . If one That’s why I teach. I hope my students can help or two of them can have an impact on the make a difference, and I really do hope that my marine environment or in conserving the marine kids have a comfortable planet to live on in the environment, then I feel like I’ve done my job. future. //

Learn more about SEA Semester and Amy Siuda at: sea.edu

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Innovation happens at the intersections between disciplines, people, & ways of thinking about the world.

JULY 10-AUGUST 6, 2016, APPLY ONLINE TODAY: deerfield.edu/experimentory

This summer, come join other middle school students at The Experimentory on the campus of Deerfield Academy, where you will be guided by teachers who will help turn your ideas into reality.

left & bottom: “In November I married Jim Cappadona in my hometown of Southampton, Bermuda. Joanna Dove, Kat Sweet, Megan Moreland, Julia Filip, Liz Tocci, and Matt Kniaz (all Class of ’01) and Eri Nosaka ’04 were there to help us celebrate with a couple fun days of sun, sand, and lots of Bermuda Rum Swizzles!”—Jenny Dodwell ’01 / right: Sheryl Stevens ’03, married Zachary Pleiss on August 22, 2015 in Minneapolis, MN.

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“Elizabeth Hendee and I were married in Stonington, CT, last August. We had solid DA representation with my brother Chip ’00, Dennis Kim ’02, Chris Kelley ’03, and Joe Norman ’03. All put on solid performances both at the wedding and during the bachelor party three months prior down at Kiawah Island.”

—James Canner ’02

Kristin Drouin ’08

Enjoyed a “mini reunion” at the wedding of Soye Lee Kettering ’08 last summer in Boston.

L to r: Joanne Huang, Kristin Drouin, Soye Lee Kettering, Kimi Goffe, and Francie Alexandre, all Class of ’08.

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SAN FRANCISCO ROCKIES LOS ANGELES WA S H I N G T O N D . C .

San Francisco: CM Howard Photography; D.C: Jessica Del Vecchio Photography; LA: Kovac Photography

REGIONAL & CLUB EVENTS

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SEE MORE DEERFIELD EVENT PHOTOS HERE: flickr.com/photos/deerfieldalumni/albums

UPCOMING EVENTS:

deerfield.edu/alumni/events/

MAY 29 Commencement

JUNE 9–12 Reunions (1s and 6s)

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CONCORD, MA Gaining Ground

BROOKLYN, NY BloomAgainBklyn

DENVER, CO Food Bank of the Rockies

HARLEM, NY The Bowery Mission

DEERFIELD

DAY OF SERVICE

SHELBURNE FALLS, MA Mary Lyon Foundation

PROVIDENCE, RI Southside Community Land Trust

CHICAGO, IL DRW College Prep

THANK YOU TO ALL OF THE VOLUNTEERS WHO CAME OUT TO THE 2016 DEERFIELD DAY OF SERVICE! SEE YOU IN 2017.

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SEE MORE DOS PHOTOS HERE: flickr.com/photos/deerfieldalumni/albums

RECENTLY PUBLISHED:

Listen to Me AUTHOR :

Hannah Pittard ’97

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / July 2016

REVIEWED BY:

Danaë DiNicola

Mark and Maggie have the perfect Chicago apartment, a beloved dog, and plans for a summer road trip out of the city. Their life is tidy and their arguments are limited to ordinary domestic issues: overflowing recycling bins or who should walk the dog. At least that’s what Hannah Pittard allows us to believe—for all of one page.

We learn quickly, however, that life is far from perfect. Nine months before, Maggie was mugged at gunpoint—an event that left her depressed, neurotic, and darkly obsessive. Mark would often come home from work to find her reading stories of kidnapping, murder, and dismemberment on the Internet. For months he tried to comfort and distract her. He would close the computer, take her hand, lead her to the living room, and read aloud to her. He had a magnificent reading voice. Sometimes he chose a bit of poetry. Sometimes history or philosophy. They both liked Augustine and stories of war. Yeats was also a favorite.

Pittard’s attention to detail is what allows us to approach these characters, making us want to know them, despite the darkness surrounding their lives. It is the thing that keeps us with them, as their road trip leads them through a dangerous storm and into an even more dangerous situation in a remote hotel with no electricity.

It would be easy to assume, by the end of Listen to Me, that there is no hope left for Mark and Maggie’s marriage. But against all odds, the story ends on a note of hope that is subtle but potent. We may not want to embark on another road trip with these two, but we definitely want to know what the future holds for them. //

EXCERPT:

“The question is what were you thinking?” she said.

“You left us in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere.”

“We’re not in the middle of nowhere.”

“With the doors unlocked.”

“With the doors un —“ Mark stopped himself. He couldn’t believe it. After everything he’d been trying to do for her.

While she was comfortably asleep. After the six hotels and the imbecilic desk clerks, after all that, she wasn’t even a little bit thankful? She wasn’t grateful? Why was he surprised? She was exactly as she’d been for the past three weeks: scared. And scared, he was realizing now, perhaps for the very first time, of everything. That was it. He was finally starting to see. It wasn’t just nighttime; it wasn’t just the man in the alley and the man in the college girl’s apartment. She hadn’t simply turned scared of the dark. She’d turned scared of life.

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Continuing the March B RYA N S E L L S ’ 8 9 / b y L y n n H o r o w i t c h

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Courtesy of Bryan Sells

It’s fitting that Bryan Sells launched his law practice, a firm specializing in civil and voting rights law, on March 7, 2016. That was the 51st anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when civil rights marchers clashed with armed police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, as they started their journey to Montgomery. It was also one year to the day after President Barack Obama stood on the same bridge and declared, “Fifty years from Bloody Sunday, our march is not yet finished.”

Through his work, Mr. Sells continues that march. His firm, the Law Office of Bryan Sells, focuses on two areas: counteracting what Mr. Sells refers to as the chipping away (in recent years) of broad protections (arising from the Tea Party revolution of 2010, followed by a Supreme Court ruling in 2013 that struck down a key provision of the Voting Rights Act), and empowering people in “out of the way places that haven’t been revolutionized.”

After the Supreme Court’s ruling, Mr. Sells says, “A number of states enacted more restrictive voting laws, and we have seen pernicious effects.” He points to news reports of long lines, where voters waited for hours and hours at the polls, during the Presidential primary in Arizona.

“These are the ill effects of the laws,” Mr. Sells says. “There is a need for people like me to keep an eye on rollbacks.

“The Voting Rights Act caused a revolution in representation of minorities in halls of power,” Mr. Sells continues, but from his perspective, despite these gains many are still not adequately represented. “In smaller areas, remote areas, rural areas that fly under the radar . . . that’s where I see the need for involvement.”

Mr. Sells currently represents the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana. He is helping tribal members gain equal access to an early voting site and late registration. Given the vast size of the Reservation— about 1000 square miles—better access will enable more members of the community to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

Working with those who are underrepresented in securing voting rights has been Mr. Sells’ passion for many years. He traces his interest in voting rights and issues of equality loosely back to his time at Deerfield: “When I had the opportunity to be a Big Brother to a child from Franklin County, it got me started on a path of community service—public service,” he recalls. After Deerfield Mr. Sells went on to Harvard University, earning an AB in psychology, and graduating magna cum laude in 1994.

It was during his college years that he became a “civil rights history buff” and began a more active interest in the causes of equality. He taught for a year after Harvard, and then enrolled at Columbia Law School.

“A lot of leaders of social justice organizations taught there at the time, including Jack Greenberg,” says Mr. Sells. Mr. Greenberg had succeeded Thurgood Marshall as the director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and was involved in arguing Brown v. Board of Education. “It was a good fit,” he says.

While Mr. Sells was studying, the United States Supreme Court made rulings in two cases that rolled back broad civil rights. One case, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, involved affirmative action; the other, Shaw v. Reno, specifically related to voting rights. “These rulings energized me (and others) to focus on those areas,” he says.

WORKING WITH THOSE WHO ARE UNDERREPRESENTED IN SECURING VOTING RIGHTS HAS BEEN MR. SELLS’ PASSION FOR MANY YEARS. HE TRACES HIS INTEREST IN VOTING RIGHTS AND ISSUES OF EQUALITY LOOSELY BACK TO HIS TIME AT DEERFIELD: “WHEN I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE A BIG BROTHER TO A CHILD FROM FRANKLIN COUNTY, IT GOT ME STARTED ON A PATH OF COMMUNITY SERVICE—PUBLIC SERVICE”

Mr. Sells began his career as a clerk to the Honorable Myron Thompson of the United States District Court in Montgomery, Alabama. From there, he moved to Atlanta to take a position at the national Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. And for nearly a decade he represented many different clients, including African American and Native American groups, in their efforts to secure voting rights and ballot access.

In 2010 Mr. Sells moved to Washington, DC, to take a position as special litigation counsel in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. He was a member of the team that worked on a Texas redistricting case, a Texas voter ID case, and a South Carolina voter ID case.

While Mr. Sells was proud of the work he did at the Department of Justice, there were forces at work pulling him back to Atlanta: First, his wife, Dr. Deneta Howland Sells, is a pediatrician with a practice in Atlanta. Five years of commuting home on weekends was enough.

Second, Mr. Sells feels he has a greater role to play in representing those who are underserved. He likens the Justice Department to an aircraft carrier—much less able to “turn on a dime” than a solo practitioner.

“I can be more nimble (in a private practice) in bringing ‘smaller’ cases involving 5000 people, even 1000 people, where the Justice Department doesn’t pay attention,” he says.

And while Mr. Sells is dedicated to improving voting rights throughout the United States, his goal is to make himself obsolete. “It would be great if something good happens that makes my services unnecessary,” he says. “In this area of the law, I’d like to put myself out of business.” //

bryansellslaw.com

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CLASS CAPTAINS & REUNION CHAIRS

1940 1946 1950 1952 1952 1953 1953 1954 1955 1955 1956 1958 1959 1961 1961 1962 1962 1963 1963 1963 1963 1964 1964 1965 1965 1966 1966 1966 1967 1967 1967 1969 1969 1970 1971 1972 1972 1972 1972 1973 1974 1974 1975 1975

David H. Bradley Gerald Lauderdale R. Warren Breckenridge John Robin Allen Richard F. Boyden Renwick D. Dimond Hugh R. Smith Philip R. Chase Michael D. Grant Tom L’Esperance Joseph B. Twichell Bruce D. Grinnell George Andrews Fonda Jon W. Barker Thomas M. Poor Peter W. Gonzalez Dwight E. Zeller Richard W. Ackerly Peter A. Acly Timothy J. Balch David D. Sicher Neal S. Garonzik Robert S. Lyle Edward G. Flickinger Andrew R. Steele David H. Bradley Peter P. Drake Richard C. Garrison Douglas F. Allen John R. Bass George W. Lee John W. Kjorlien Douglas W. Squires G. Kent Kahle K.C. Ramsay Bradford Warren Agry Joseph Frederick Anderson Michael C. Perry Robert Dell Vuyosevich Lawrence C. Jerome J. Christopher Callahan Geoffrey A. Gordon Dwight R. Hilson James L. Kempner

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Captain Captain Captain Class Secretary Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Class Secretary Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Reunion Chair Reunion Chair Reunion Chair Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Reunion Chair Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain

1975 1976 1976 1977 1977 1977 1978 1978 1979 1980 1980 1980 1981 1981 1982 1982 1983 1983 1984 1984 1984 1984 1984 1985 1986 1986 1987 1987 1988 1989 1989 1990 1991 1991 1992 1992 1992 1992 1993 1993 1993 1993 1993 1993

Peter M. Schulte Marshall F. Campbell David R. DeCamp James Paul MacPherson J. H. Tucker Smith Wayne W. Wall Paul J. S. Haigney Stephen R. Quazzo Daniel F. Goss Augustus B. Field John B. Mattes Paul M. Nowak Andrew M. Blau Kurt F. Ostergaard Frank H. Reichel William Richard Ziglar John G. Knight J. Douglas Schmidt Gregory R. Greene B. Barrett Hinckley David W. Kinsley Christopher S. Miller David A. Rancourt Sydney M. Williams Henri R. Cattier Michael W. Chorske John D. Amorosi Andrew P. Bonanno Oscar K. Anderson Gustave K. Lipman Edward S. Williams Jeb S. Armstrong J. Nathaniel Arata A. Alexander Arnold Elizabeth B. Cooper Kristina I. Hess Jeffrey Morrison McDowell Clayton T. Sullivan Kimberly Ann Capello John T. Collura Christopher T. DeRosa Michelle Lin Greenip Charlotte York Matthews Sarah D. Weihman

Captain Reunion Chair Reunion Chair Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Reunion Chair Reunion Chair Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Reunion Chair Reunion Chair Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Reunion Chair Reunion Chair Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain Captain

1993 1994 1995 1995 1996 1997 1997 1998 1999 1999 1999 2000 2000 2001 2002 2002 2002 2002 2002 2003 2003 2004 2004 2005 2005 2005 2005 2006 2006 2007 2007 2007 2008 2009 2009 2010 2010 2010 2011 2011 2013 2014 2015

Marjorie Maxim Gibbons Widener Captain Daniel B. Garrison Annual Giving National Chair Paula Taryn Edgar Captain Daniel D. Meyer Captain Leslie W. Yeransian Reunion Chair Amy Sodha Harsch Captain Margot M. Pfohl Captain Ashley Muldoon Lavin Captain Alexander Hooker Mejia Captain Christopher Colin Wallace Captain Michael P. Weissman Captain Lisa Rosemary Craig Captain Emily D. Battle Captain James Dorr Dunning Reunion Chair William Malcolm Dorson Captain Terrence Paul O’Toole Captain Dorothy Elizabeth Reifenheiser Captain David Branson Smith Captain Serena Stanfill Tufo Captain Eric David Grossman Captain Tara Ann Tersigni Captain Nicholas Zachary Hammerschlag Captain Caroline C. Whitton Captain H. Jett Fein Captain Anne R. Gibbons Captain Bentley J. Rubinstein Captain Torey A. Van Oot Captain Kevin C. Meehan Reunion Chair Davis A. Rosborough Captain Matthew McCormick Carney Captain Elizabeth Conover Cowan Captain Jennifer Ross Rowland Captain Robert Haldane Swindell Captain Elizabeth Utley Schieffelin Captain Nicholas Warren Squires Captain Emily Fox Blau Captain West Dauphinot Hubbard Captain Emilie Ottaway Murphy Captain Campbell Thomas Johnson Reunion Chair Sergio Arturo Morales Reunion Chair Nicholas Morgan Rault Captain Alexandra Torrey Tananbaum Captain Heidi Bergen Hunt Captain

1’s & 6’s

June 9-12, 2016

deerfield.edu/reunions

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C A I T LY N F OX ’ 0 3 / by Lori Shine

THE CHILDREN’S VILLAGE in Tanzania and the offices of a management consulting firm may be worlds apart, but they’re adjacent steps on the career path that led Caitlyn Fox to her new position as Chief of Staff at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). Founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan, CZI received a lot of attention when it was announced this past December, much of it about the Initiative adopting an LLC (limited liability company) instead of a traditional nonprofit structure. Fox, however, finds a hybrid organization a perfect fit.

“I really enjoyed the culture, the pace, and the level of innovation that I found in the private sector, and the big social issues I was working on at the Rockefeller Foundation—education, healthcare, and job creation. I wanted to find a place where nonprofits and the private sector overlapped: Now I’m getting to work on enormous issues in a startup environment.”

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Not every startup receives such a bright spotlight, however.

“Because of the scale of resources and the profiles of the founders, people sometimes assume we’ve got it all figured out, but we’re young, we’re scrappy, we’re figuring it out as we go,” Fox says.

“It’s a little terrifying that we have so much work to do.” She laughs and adds, “No pressure!”

Fox credits Deerfield with the mentorship and care that empowered her to listen to her instincts as she navigated the private and philanthropic sectors. “I was primed to tap into what mattered to me and what I found meaningful. That was always treated as very important.” She notes the strong community and culture of service at Deerfield as influences, too, with “so many opportunities to exercise social impact on a day-to-day basis.”

Fox knew early on that she wanted to have an impact in the social sector, particularly in education, but when she graduated from Brown in 2007, “If you wanted to work on pressing social and environmental issues, the options were to work for a nonprofit, become a lawyer, or become a doctor. Now the social sector is much more robust—there are social enterprises, corporate social responsibility within businesses, and philanthropy itself has a million different versions. But back then I had no idea what that could look like.”

So she jumped in on the ground, living and working at the Children’s Village outside Karatu, Tanzania, through the Tanzanian Children’s Fund. The Village features homes for orphaned children, a school, a healthcare clinic, and a microfinance component. Fox lived in one of the houses in the Village with twelve children. She made breakfast for them and walked with them to the village school, where she taught English. On weekends she traveled with the group’s doctor to remote Maasai villages, helping out with medical supplies and triaging patients at the traveling clinic.

“I really got to do a little bit of everything,” Fox says, “which made me have so much respect for people who make that their life’s work. It has stayed with me.” In philanthropy, she notes, “you can get so removed from the work that’s being done on the ground. Having experienced how complex it is to get things done in highly resource-constrained environments, I realize that sometimes when things aren’t getting done as quickly as you’d like them to, it matters to be a little more patient and creative.”

James P. Blair/National Geographic Creative

Social Impact at Startup Speed

Because of the scale of resources and the profiles of the founders, people sometimes assume we’ve got it all figured out, but we’re young, we’re scrappy, we’re figuring it out as we go.

Fox knew she wanted new tools to tackle the kinds of problems she’d seen in Tanzania, but she didn’t have a road map yet for that kind of career—that part had to evolve step by step. “I had a stint in traditional management consulting,” she says, “which let me build up a broad skill set in project management and research and problem solving.” Later, when she was recruited to work at the Rockefeller Foundation, she saw that philanthropy provided a bird’s eye view of big issues. “Philanthropies are in a position to oversee a lot of potential solutions, and they can coordinate across organizations.” Fox helped set up partnerships with NGOs, universities, and other organizations working directly on the foundation’s focus areas, so they could stay current on developing problems and solutions in those areas, thereby creating connections that continue to hone the foundation’s responsiveness to conditions on the ground.

From her Deerfield experience, Fox knows how important it is to be listened to—and now she is doing the listening. In the startup phase at CZI, she says, “the vast majority of my time is spent listening, in an effort to find what practices we could emulate that have worked well for others.

We’ve also been diving deep and meeting with experts and practitioners in our funding areas to really understand the needs and opportunities, and to decide where we could be uniquely helpful.”

To start, CZI is planning work in personalized learning, curing disease, and building stronger, more equitable communities. There’s no such thing as a “typical day” at the office yet, but that’s not a problem for Fox. “We’re such a young organization and there’s so much work to be done.

Once we have processes in place, I suspect I’m going to miss the craziness of the beginning, so I’m trying to be present and soak it all up.”//

chanzuckerberg.com

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FROM THE ARCHIVES

1971

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FIRST PERSON: MARGARITA CURTIS H’57

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PREPARING TO SEND THE CL ASS OF 2016 INTO THE W ORLD, I FOUND MYSELF THINKING ABOUT T W O SENIORS WHO GRADUATED AT THE END OF MY FIRST YEAR—NEARLY TEN YEARS AGO NO W. THEY WERE MY GUIDES THE VERY FIRST TIME I VENTURED FROM THE MAIN SCHOOL BUILDING TO THE ROCK, AND AS I BRISKLY MADE MY WAY UPHILL RECENTLY, I COULDN’T HELP BUT COMPARE THAT FIRST HIKE—MADE IN EARLY FALL—WITH THIS SPRING OUTING; T W O SEASONS OF CHANGE—ALIKE IN THAT RESPECT ONLY.

P h o t o b y A l e x a n d e r K l e b e / Va l l e d e l C a u c a , C o l o m b i a

On that fall hike it was apparent that my guides were on a mission to show me Deerfield— the town and the school—from the unparalleled vantage point of the Pocumtuck Ridge.

They were excited and proud, and their enthusiasm was contagious as we headed down Old Main Street and quickly cut across Routes 5&10, making a beeline for Eaglebrook and the ridge above. Our conversation flowed freely and although the Pioneer Valley landscape was quite different, the company and the incline reminded me of afternoon hikes I had shared with my grandmother and cousins as a child in the Cauca Valley of Colombia. Tradition and change walked side-by-side: My grandmother told family stories as we ambled along, while my cousins and I exchanged lighthearted remarks about the previous evening’s I Love Lucy or Lassie episodes.

At the time, my guides wanted to ensure that I would uphold distinctive school traditions as Deerfield’s new head of school, and I was eager to share with them some aspirations for the Academy’s future. But all conversation stopped when we reached the summit. As generations had done before us, we stood on the Rock and marveled at the view. Early fall had tinged the hills and amid streaks of pale yellow, spots of vermilion, and some tenacious green leaves, the white spire of the Brick Church steadfastly signaled the center of the village. It was possible to just glimpse the Deerfield River winding its way along the far edge of campus and the village; beyond that, the foothills of the Berkshires gently rose to meet their larger brethren. I was enthralled.

That first excursion to the Rock marked the beginning of a personal tradition, and few days have gone by since then when I haven’t managed to steal away for the hourlong brisk walk from Manse to Rock. Sometimes it is a solitary venture—particularly when the temperature dips below freezing— but sometimes I am joined by students or alumni at Reunions. No visit to Deerfield seems complete for our graduates unless they make a pilgrimage to the Rock. As for new students and faculty, I have happily led groups of each up the now-familiar trail, eager to share the awaiting vista.

ON THAT FALL HIKE IT WAS APPARENT THAT MY GUIDES WERE ON A MISSION TO SHO W ME DEERFIELD—THE TO WN AND THE SCHOOL—FROM THE UNPARALLELED VANTAGE POINT OF THE POCUMTUCK RIDGE. THEY WERE EXCITED AND PROUD, AND THEIR ENTHUSIASM WAS CONTAGIOUS AS WE HEADED DO WN OLD MAIN STREET AND QUICKLY CUT ACROSS ROUTES 5&10, MAKING A BEELINE FOR EAGLEBROOK AND THE RIDGE ABOVE.

On campus, the Deerfield Door—stalwart symbol of the Academy’s colonial past—and the Hess and the newly renovated Boyden Library all stand within yards of each other, heralding Deerfield as a place for both tradition and innovation. In this valley, our day-to-day work constantly gains perspective as we follow Mr. Boyden’s advice to “look to the hills”—and the mundane is framed by majestic permanence. Facing the tension between permanence and progress throughout its long history, the Academy owes its success to its ability to affirm traditions while making them relevant to changing contexts. Like the Rock, our traditions and community rituals serve as unshakeable bedrock as we prepare our students for the modern challenges they will face.

Life constantly challenges us to balance the centripetal pull of tradition—that grounding, stabilizing force—with the centrifugal energy of adaptation and growth.

Tradition represents one part of the equation, but so does translation of those very same traditions to changing realities.

It is my hope that all of our graduates, including the most recent class, internalize the importance of this sense of balance as they leave behind the daily, physical reminders of it on and around campus.

I have found that my sojourns to the Pocumtuck Ridge not only energize my mind, but remind me of the necessity of pausing and reflecting. I, like my students—although probably not quite as much as my students— appreciate and utilize modern technology

and the 24/7 electronic accessibility it provides, but conversely, it seems that because of this constant accessibility the benefits of solitude increasingly elude us. Thankfully, the village of Deerfield and the ridge above it are gifts to the spirit—restorative places.

The tranquil beauty of our surroundings gives us access to the “serene and blessed mood” the poet Wordsworth so eloquently extolled. The fields, hills, river, and sky that frame this valley draw us out and allow us to suspend analysis and reason—the tools of teacher and student—in favor of metaphor and emotion—the tools of the poet.

When we transport ourselves to this intimate, reflective space, we generate cohesion and meaning from the different and disconnected experiences that fill our days. In this inner space, we can process the nuance, complexity, and possibility of the world, and meditate on our responses.

No matter what the season, the view from the Rock, on which generations of Deerfield students have stood, is an invitation to put things in perspective and to find equanimity and balance amidst the bustle of our fastpaced, device-filled lives; it always provides a new perspective from an ancient location, and symbolizes permanence in the midst of today’s seemingly constant changes. I owe a debt of gratitude to those two seniors who first shared the view from the Rock with me, and passed along the gift of Deerfield—river, valley, and Rock—and I salute the Class of 2016 as they take Deerfield out into the world. //

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O B J E C T L E S S O N (S) W I L S O N P R E S S O F F I C E / O l d D e e r f i e l d , M A / by Peter Nilsson

UPPER “ C AS E ” > > > > TYPE

lower “ c as e” <<<< type

Inside an unassuming house at the southern end of Historic Deerfield sits the Wilson Printing Office, the home of a replica 18th century Isaiah Thomas printing press. The press office itself was founded in 1816 and was only in operation for a few short years, but the building has remained, moved several times, and was restored in 1951 by Henry Flynt, president of the Academy’s Board of Trustees from 1943–1970, and cofounder of Historic Deerfield with his wife Helen.

Uppercase/Lowercase: in the days of printing presses, printers carried cases for the tiny letters that they used. Different sized letters were stored separately, with the Roman capital-style letters laid out, quite literally, in the upper of two cases, and the smaller letters rested in, you guessed it, the lower case. These names, an artifact of the era of printing by hand and machine, carry on today.

Deerfield students taking the class Literature and Form recently visited the Wilson Printing Office and took turns printing broadsides, pulling the bar, and setting type. //

94 | THE COMMON ROOM

1933

1942

Donald James Brennan

John Edwin Friedlund

April 19, 2014

February 9, 2015

February 8, 2014

Allyn Larrabee Brown, Jr. 1937

James Warren Fowle July 24, 2015

Richard Chapin Read

Earl Wayne Bruhn

Ralph Alwin Gebhardt

November 28, 2015

January 31, 2016

1943

Franklin David Herdeg

Edmund Roslyn Dewing, Jr.

December 2, 2014

September 8, 2015

Malcolm Dennison Vail, Jr.

Robert Holmes Jones

November 19, 2013

August 14, 2014

1938

1944

Dandridge Murdaugh Gray

James Edward Echols Ewing

February 25, 2014

August 15, 2015

Frank Cameron Ludwig

David Henry Gray

June 8, 2014

December 25, 2010

1939

Daniel Wolf Greenbaum

John Fraser Andrews, Sr. December 1, 2014

John Clarke Dewey III

November 13, 2015 1945

Leroy Edward Mentor

January 20, 2013

June 25, 2015

Peter Dexter Johnson

Peter Vought

May 6, 2015

April 13, 2015

1940

1946

Robert Richardson Bensen

March 13, 2014

David Gordon Ashton, Jr.

January 31, 2013

William Orr, II

Laurence Pierce Benedict

November 9, 2015

January 10, 2007

James Wilson

Philip Williams Cranshaw

Date of Death Unknown

December 27, 2015

1941

Edwin Baldwin Bruce

October 18, 2009

William Line Elder II September 26, 2012

Norman Dickinson Jamieson March 31, 2011

David Lee Williams November 6, 2014

Herbert Johnson (Tim) Louis February 16, 2016

James Edward O’Donnell February 26, 2005

John Thomas Booth* December 13, 2015

1958

Ralph Lewis Smith, Sr.

November 2, 2015

July 9, 2013

William Emil Wrang, Jr. January 20, 2015

1962

1948

Cameron Bleloch

April 3, 2015

Silas Keehn February 13, 2016

Samuel Hathaway Rugg

Donald Braman Wing

November 14, 2015 1969

David Musgrove Herron

November 26, 2014 1975

Ronald Jay Husted

January 11, 2016

February 14, 2015

1977

1951

September 8, 2013

Charles Luckman, Jr.

David Morgan Firestone, Jr.

March 22, 2013

Mark Daniel Johnson

1952

June 5, 2015

Paul William Buckwalter February 16, 2016

Paul Spence Doherty January 30, 2016 1953

Leo Robert Gilson

August 1, 2015

Richard James Massey January 24, 2016 1955

Frederick William Tiley

February 20, 2016 1956

Timothy Platts Brown 1947

In Memoriam

October 23, 2014

Erik Spro McWilliams January 9, 2016 1978

Willard Bailey Arnold, IV

April 10, 2014 1979

John E. Halliwell March 26, 2016 1981

Jefferson Boyce Hood

Date of Death Unknown 1989

Sean D. Lynch

January 1, 2016 2010

Edward Robb Barrett

January 30, 2016

Michael Cudahy, Jr. April 17, 2015

* Boyden Society Member / In Memoriam as of March 30, 2016.

Please go to deerfield.edu/commonroom for the most up-to-date information on classmates, including obituaries.

95

Find the key words in the jumble below. The remaining letters, read row by row (left to right, starting at the top), will reveal a famous saying. Send the lines to communications@deerfield.edu or to Puzzle, Communications Office, PO Box 87, Deerfield, MA 01342, and you’ll be entered to win a Beach Bag Bonanza! (The winner will be chosen at random from all correct answers received by July 15, 2016.) *Tips: Circle only the key words listed below, and do not circle backwards words.

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KEY WORDS

Fill in the blanks to reveal the hidden phrase: “_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ / _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _ / _ _ / _ _ _ _ / _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .” _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

96 | THE COMMON ROOM

Congratulations to Tom Quinn ’80 whose answer was drawn at random from all the correct answers we received for the Winter’16 puzzle: “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like, design is how it works.”—Steve Jobs

SENIOR DESSERT

C h o co l a te S t r awb e r ry G a n a ch e Ta r t

T h i s s p e c i a l D e e r f i e l d d e s s e r t i s o n l y s e r v e d a t t h e P r o m a n d t h e S e n i o r/ F a c u l t y Dinner each year. It is a detailed recipe , but we think you will find it well worth the extra time and attention—because this dessert is truly delicious!

INGREDIENTS Crust 6 tbsp. Unsalted butter

½ cup ¾ tsp.

1/8 tsp.

3/8 cup 3/4 cup

White sugar Vanilla extract Salt Cocoa powder Flour

Ganaches

¼ cup

Heavy cream

4 oz. Bittersweet chocolate

¼ cup

Heavy cream

4 oz.

White chocolate

Brent Hale

1 pint Strawberries, hulled and quartered Garnish Milk chocolate, shaved into curls with a carrot peeler

DIRECTIONS Cream butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt until smooth.

Add cocoa powder; mix to a paste.

Add flour; mix until a dough is formed.

Form into a disk between two sheets of plastic wrap; refrigerate 10 minutes.

Roll dough (between the plastic) until it’s about 1/8” thick by 11” in diameter.

Remove one piece of plastic and invert the dough into a 10” removable-bottom fluted tart pan.

Press the dough into the pan, then refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Prick the bottom with a fork, then bake in preheated 375 degree oven until set around the edges, about 12-15 minutes.

Allow to cool before filling.

Chop chocolates and keep separate.

(Two ganaches will be made. Semi-sweet chocolate may be used in place of the bittersweet.)

For each ganache, heat the cream over medium-high heat in a small saucepan. As soon as a boil is achieved, remove the pan from the heat and add chocolate.

Stir with a whisk until all chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. (Tip: make the white chocolate ganache first and you won’t have to wash your whisk between ganaches.)

A S S E M B LY Spread the bittersweet chocolate ganache in the cooled shell, and refrigerate long enough to harden slightly.

Spread the white chocolate ganache over the bittersweet chocolate. Cover the surface with strawberries, pushing them lightly into the ganache. Garnish with milk chocolate shavings.

Refrigerate until set.

97

DE E RF I E LD M A G A Z I N E

Deerfield Academy | PO Box 87 | Deerfield, MA | 01342 Change Service Requested

1964