Putney Post, Fall 2014 by The Putney School

Putney Post Fall 2014

Reunion 2015 June 12-14, 2015

Classes of 1949-51 n 65th reunion Class of 1955 n 60th reunion Class of 1965 n 50th reunion

Classes of 1969-71 n 45th reunion Classes of 1999-01 n 15th reunion Classes of 2009-10 n 5th reunion putneyschool.org/reunion For more info: alumni@putneyschool.org Registration opens in April 2015

Contents 2 Message from the Head of School

12 Printing in Three Dimensions Robert Chave ’68 collaborates with

Here students do

science department and Project Week students

4 Cover Artist: Ethan Murrow ’93 That’s not a photo you’re seeing

18 Culture and Safety C reating and maintaining the

6 News New chairs, Field House on book

cultural norms of a civil society on the hill is not as difficult as some might imagine

cover, study abroad, Earth Day, new trustees, and more

24 For Putney, When the Time Comes P oem by Noah Strauss-Jenkins ’14 25 Alumni News Alumni authors, events, and other news

31 Alumni Notes 60 In Memoriam

21 The Captain Speaks G reenpeace captain Peter Willcox ’72 addresses the Class of 2014 at graduation

theputneyschool

ThePutneySchoolVT

The Putney School Network

<top> “CAPTAINS OF REVISION,” (DETAIL), ON THE COVER: <front> “MOBY DICK,” DETAIL SHOWING PENCIL STROKES

2013 BY ETHAN MURROW ’93 , GRAPHITE ON PAPER, 42

2013

BY ETHAN MURROW

@putneyschool

42 INCHES, SEE FULL IMAGE ON PAGE 4

’93 , GRAPHITE ON PAPER, 48 X 48 INCHES

<back> “MOBY DICK”

We m a k e cl ea r t h a t l e a r n i ng c a n b e s i l e n t a nd s til l , l o u d a n d e nerg etic , solitary or collaborative, but that it cannot be passive.

A Message from the Head of School Dear Putney alumni, parents, and friends, “Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it.” Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics II.i.4.

Emily H. Jones Head of School

PUTNEY POST

Here Students Do. This is the title of our new admissions viewbook. The viewbook is bound in three distinct sections: a general description of our school character and program, a series of student profiles, and the course catalogue. Throughout the book we show the primacy of student action, whether in leadership on campus, in creative work, in jobs, or in the classroom. We make clear that learning can be silent and still, loud and energetic, solitary or collaborative, but that it cannot be passive. We also make it clear that the purpose of all of this is to create active and engaged citizens. It’s an interesting read, and is posted online at putneyschool.org/viewbook.

In this Post you will see stories of Putneyesque action in a wide variety of forms. Peter Willcox ’72 returned home from his incarceration in Russia wearing a Putney hat, and when our students saw this news photo they were beside themselves with delight. They invited him to be our graduation speaker, and were powerfully struck by the way that this gentle, matter of fact, humble man has acted on his understanding of what is needed in the world. Another alum, Robert Chave ’68, has been working with Putney students who are exploring the new world of design through 3-D printing. Robert is one of the extraordinary number of Putney students who were taught and launched into their careers by Ed Shore, and he has been joining Glenn Littledale ’76, our science department chair, in working with students who are learning a way of making things that is

revolutionizing both science and industry—and, as the article points out, economics. The “maker movement” and “maker spaces” are all the rage in schools these days, but our reality is that the whole Putney campus has always been a place where people make things. While our students are making, leading, exploring, growing and otherwise being teenagers, we who care for them here are always alert to the nuances of school culture. We make a thousand tiny decisions a day that in some way shape school climate, but we also know how quickly things can veer off course. My piece on page 18 seeks to explain and explore how the Putney of today thinks about these topics. I will be interested to hear your responses. All the best to all of you,

Putney Post The Putney School Elm Lea Farm 418 Houghton Brook Road Putney, VT 05346 802-387-5566 www.putneyschool.org Emily H. Jones, Head of School

2014–2015 Trustees Tonia Wheeler P’99, Chair Ira T. Wender P’77, ’89, Vice Chair Randall Smith, Treasurer Katharina Wolfe, Clerk Maeve ’16, Student Trustee Molly ’15, Student Trustee Mike Keim, Faculty Trustee Libby Holmes P’15, ’17, Faculty Trustee Lakshman Achuthan ’84 Wilfredo Benitez ’81 Dinah Buechner-Vischer P’14 Lee Combrinck-Graham ’59 Tim Daly ’74, P’07 Freddy Friedman P’12 Joshua Rabb Goldberg ’75 Stephen Heyneman ’61 Dana Hokin ’84 Emily H. Jones Bill Kellett G’02, ’15 Joshua Laughlin ’82 Christopher Lehmann-Haupt ’52 William New, Jr. Franz Paasche ’79 Peter Pereira ’52 Robert G. Raynolds ’69 Marni Rosner ’69, P’04, ’07 Anne Stephens S’54 James Thompson ’74 Iris Wang P’16

Emily

Trustees Emeriti Barbara Barnes ’41 Kate Ganz Belin ’62 Joan Williams Farr ’49 Sarah Gray Gund ’60 Kendall Landis ’42, P’73, ’79 Bici Binger Pettit-Barron ’48, P’77, ’79, G’07

“TO HAVE OLD AND YOUNG WORK TOGETHER IN A TRUE COMRADESHIP RELATION, STRESSING THE COMMUNITY AND ITS NEED FOR THE COOPERATION OF ALL.” —CARMELITA HINTON

founder: carmelita hinton

The Putney Post is published twice yearly for the alumni, parents, and friends of The Putney School. We welcome your comments and ideas. Please direct your correspondence to: The Editor, Putney Post, Elm Lea Farm, 418 Houghton Brook Road, Putney, VT 05346; 802-387-6238; email: putneypost@putneyschool.org

Editorial Board: John Barrengos, Don Cuerdon, Alison Frye, Emily Jones, Hugh Montgomery Publisher: Don Cuerdon Director of Communications Editor: Alison Frye Alumni Relations Manager Alumni Relations Manager: Alison Frye Photographs: Justin Altman, Don Cuerdon, Matt Culbert ’14, Aurea Kasberg ’14, Flannery McDonnell ’14, Lynne Weinstein The Putney School archives

New Ground Creative Please send address corrections and new phone numbers to: Alumni Office, The Putney School, Elm Lea Farm, 418 Houghton Brook Road, Putney, VT 05346; phone: 802-387-6213; fax: 802-387-5931; email: cfogg@putneyschool.org

Ethan Murrow â&#x20AC;&#x2122;93 Cover Artist

By Don Cuerdon

PUTNEY POST

<right> ON THE RIGHT IS “WATERGUARD,” GRAPHITE ON PAPER, 2014,

X 68 INCHES; AND TO THE LEFT, “EXPANSION,” GRAPHITE ON

PAPER, 2014, 36 X 36, 2014. THESE ARE EXAMPLES OF ETHAN’S LATEST FOCUS ON THE EXAGGERATION OF HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL LANDSCAPES.

<left> “CAPTAINS OF REVISION,” GRAPHITE ON PAPER,

2013 BY ETHAN MURROW ’93 ,

42 INCHES

I knew Ethan Murrow [bigpaperairplane.com] as a student— not at Putney, but as a member of the Brattleboro Union High School cross-country ski team, where I coached him in his freshman year. Elements of that boy remained in the man I saw waiting for me outside his loft studio in the South End section of Boston last summer. He’s now a graduate and undergraduate faculty member of Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts, an artist who has shown in Europe and major U.S. venues, a husband and father of two. In other words, Ethan is a success. Not much of it has to do with being the grandson of broadcast journalism icon, Edward R. Murrow, or the son of education specialist Casey Murrow and book author Liza Ketchum, though he’ll freely admit that they’ve influenced his work. He’s also adamant that “None of this [gesturing to his work] would have happened if I hadn’t gone to Putney.” Here are Ethan’s insights on his work. The summer before I came to Putney, I did the Summer Programs. At Putney, I worked with Eric Aho and Brian Cohen doing painting, printmaking, etc. In college and graduate school I was really kind of honing in on painting.

I did a series of residencies where I was traveling internationally and moving around a lot. I needed to work really small, and I started getting back into drawing. I started to love the simplicity of the tools: pencils, eraser, sharpener, paper. Every year, I think, “Well, maybe I’ll start transitioning back into painting,” and then I find something else that I want to toy around with. When I’ve had people do studio visits, they’ll say something like, “You have such inherent genetic talent.” And I say, “No. I just learned how to be a professional cross-hatcher.” There is a lot of redaction. You can see that this is five, six layers of pulling it up, pushing it down, pulling it up, pushing it down. I want them to look like photographs from a distance of, say, 20-30-40 feet away—if you can get that far away. Up close, they are actually very loose. I want them to kind of disassemble and I want to expose the drawing. I want, up close, the drawing—the markmaking—to be really present, so that you know it’s total fiction. I’m not trying to give you a hyper-real portrait.

The whole point of the work is that it’s about a lot of the fiction, and also the ability of fiction to have important, real stories to tell underneath. I want it to kind of crumble and come together, and crumble and come together. I’m using Hudson River School painting to influence a project that’s intended to talk about the moment of environmental idiocy that we’re in right now. One of the things I’m intrigued by is how the Hudson River School painters exaggerated everything: the gluttony of mountains and water and sky and storms and weather. I’m trying to partner that with this moment of what’s happening in the environment, where things are spiking. I was drawing even bigger than this in 2005, when the economy was doing really well, and a couple of my galleries said, “Give us a 14-foot drawing.” I thought, “Wow, that’s possible. I can do that.” I had a part-time job, and I could work till two in the morning. So there’s still, occasionally, the thrill of making something that over the top. It feels like it’s worth pursuing

because, partially, what I’m trying to talk about is situations that are over the top, individuals who are over the top, environments that are over the top. I don’t want to make so many so huge that it feels like they’re unobtainable unless you have a gargantuan mansion or you’re a public institution. For this show [opening December 6 at the Slete Gallery in Culver City, CA], I’m working with an engineer. We’re toying around with the idea of building a joke 3-D printer. It would be a huge refrigerator that pops out a huge ice cube—almost like an ice clock—into a big pool. It’s a total, kind of, harebrained dream that probably will be a lot of money spent on something that’s really inefficient and ridiculous, but it’s the antithesis of the fine production value/organization/planning of something like this [gestures at big drawing on wall]. I can’t get into that same production mode that I sometimes get into with the drawings, where I’m so focused on concerns such as “Do I still own this work? Am I still inventing?”

PUTNEY POST

News Putney Alumni in a Time of War Two alumni made the news recently with regard to the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. Adam Mirani ’07 (left, foreground) survived a helicopter crash in the mountains of Iraq in August while accompanying a relief trip for thousands of Yezidi people, an ethno-religious minority trapped on Mount Sinjar, when the Islamic State took over areas near the mountains. Adam, an Iraqi Kurd raised in Canada and Iraq, suffered superficial cuts and bruises in the crash that killed the pilot and injured other passengers. A story about Adam’s misadventure appeared in the Waterloo Record newspaper in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, where Adam spent much of his youth, and a photo, with Adam prominent in the foreground, appeared in Time magazine. Theo Padnos ’86, who changed his name to Peter Theo Curtis to make travel in Islamic countries easier for him, was released by the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda-linked group that is fighting the regime of

Syrian leader Bashar Assad. This occurred in August, following the horrifying news of the beheading of journalist James Foley. Theo, who has done extensive investigative work into the world of radical Islam, survived 22 months of capture. We are glad to know that both men are safe and sound, but also humbled by their commitment to risk all in the name of lending a hand to their fellow humans. Thank you both.

Field House Graces Cover of New Book Architect Bill Maclay makes the case for net-zero architecture in a way that’s being noticed in his recently-released book, The New Net Zero: Leading-Edge Design and Construction of Homes and Buildings for a Renewable Energy Future (Chelsea Green Publishing, $90). It’s not a self-serving, glossy ad for Maclay Architects and Associates, though we’re pretty proud of having made the cover. Maclay Architects designed our net-zero energy/LEED Platinum field house, featured prominently on the cover, and net-zero master plan. The 576-page work includes much of the process and philosophy that led The Putney School to pursue both projects. Together, we are proving that sustainable architecture on a large scale is possible right now—today.

PUTNEY POST

Athletic Fields Ready for Play After a tough year of traveling to all games played away, our soccer and lacrosse teams will now be able to have home games once again, thanks to improvements made to our home pitches over the past seasons. For the first time in the history of the school, we’ll be playing on level fields that drain properly, thanks to our generous donors. The very first game played on the new surface was one concocted by Dean of Students Todd Pinsonneault during student leader orientation at the end of August. The game included elements of ultimate frisbee, soccer, and this gigantic ball that was good for five points if your team could get it over the top of the soccer goal.

Two New Endowed Chairs Announced During June’s graduation ceremony, the Putney School Board of Trustees announced the establishment of two endowed chairs. Board Chair Tonia Wheeler joined Head of School Emily Jones for the presentation of handcrafted, Shaker-style chairs to Dawn Zweig (sitting, right) and Mary Doherty, recipients of the Carmelita Chase Hinton Endowed Chair for Environmental Studies and Sustainability and the Sarah and Geoffrey Gund Endowed Chair for the Center for Teaching and Learning, respectively. Of the Hinton Chair, Emily commented, “This chair recognizes a critical piece of Putney’s identity, and it gives us the support we need to keep pushing forward. And I am delighted to announce the first holder of this chair, Dawn Zweig. Since Dawn’s arrival at Putney five years ago, she has pushed us, pulled us, and taught us in words and by example— she has been the driver

behind the Humans in the Natural World program from the very start. She started and has nurtured the sustainability squad, and she has connected us to countless people in the larger community who care about this work. Putney is already a different place because Dawn is here.” And of the Gund Chair, Emily said, “The new name of the center— not just the Learning Center, but the Center for Teaching and Learning—emphasizes the fact that this is a two-way street, that teachers and students both can learn how learning happens, together. Mary has become the director of the center just this year. She has already made wonderful progress, and we have great plans for the future—to make the center a source of learning for all of us.”

PUTNEY POST

Study Abroad Expands to Three Trimesters Last winter’s trimester away in Cuernavaca, Mexico, pioneered by Putney Spanish teacher Abelardo Almazán-Vázquez, was a complete success, and served as the template for expanding overseas offerings to all three trimesters for this school year. In addition to a trimester at Cuernavaca’s Bachillerato Internacional UNINTER in the fall, students in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades can apply to a winter trimester in China or spring in France. The China trip is led by Putney Chinese language teacher Cai Xi Silver and her brother Xi Le, both of whom are also professional artists. Students will spend three weeks participating in academic seminars and residency at the Chongqing Arts High School. Another three weeks will be spent living in a group apartment in Chongqing and taking part in cultural excursions throughout the city. Students will spend a week participating in an exciting service learning project hosted by the Chengdu Waldorf School. Students will also spend a week engaging in cultural studies in Beijing, and will return home with academic credit in Chinese language, Chinese history and culture, and Chinese arts. The spring trimester in Pont Aven, France is led by Putney art teacher Sue Brearey and history teacher Lies Pasterkamp. Students will develop their French language skills, improve their cultural fluency, and explore French culture, art history, history, and geography through a curriculum tailored to the needs of the students. Pont Aven is best known for its association with post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin. Students will practice French, take seminar classes with a Gauguin scholar, make art in Gauguin’s studio, study the flora and fauna of the coastline, visit important historical sites, and work on a 13th-century farm, all while living with French host families. Participants will develop an art project during their trimester which will be exhibited in Pont Aven’s main gallery during the last week of their stay. Academic credits will include language, arts, and humanities.

PUTNEY POST

Ted Osius ’79 Appointed Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius ’79 (right) has been appointed to the ambassadorship of Vietnam by President Barack Obama. On June 24, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent the nomination to the full Senate for consideration. When confirmed, Ted will replace David Shear, who has been the ambassador to Vietnam since 2011. Ted is married to Clayton Bond, an officer with the State Department’s Bureau of African Affairs. They adopted a newborn son last December, Theodore Alan Bond-Osius. Ted is a career member of the Foreign Service, an associate professor at the National War College since 2013, and was a senior

fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 2012 to 2013. Ted also served as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 2009 to 2012, political minister-counselor at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India from 2006 to 2009, and deputy director of the Office of Korean Affairs in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State from 2004 to 2006. From 1998 to 2001, Ted served as senior adviser for international affairs to Vice President Al Gore. In his statement to Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Ted said, “If confirmed, I will strive to strengthen the ties that bind our peoples. Those linkages between people are central to the Comprehensive Partnership launched by President Obama and President Sang last year. Educational exchange is a good example; already, 16,000 Vietnamese study in the United States, and others attend the Fulbright Economics Training Program in Ho Chi Minh City.” Congratulations, Ted.

Earth Day 2014 The theme for this year’s Earth Day celebration at The Putney School was activism. Dubbed “MILLENNIALS FIGHTING FOR PLANET EARTH: The Next Generation of Young Adults Calling for a Greener Future,” the day of workshops, presentations, local food, and music underscored the activism theme with two apropos speakers. They included Liz Putnam, founder of the Student Conservation Association and the first conservationist to ever receive the Presidential Citizen’s Medal, the nation’s second-highest civilian honor; and Jay O’Hara, founder of the website coalisstupid.org and former alleged co-conspirator of the Lobster Boat Blockade, in which Jay and Ken Ward prevented delivery of 40,000 tons of coal to the Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset, MA (the largest coal plant in New England) by blocking the coal ship with a little white lobster boat. The students running the event wished to demonstrate that students at The Putney School believe that individuals can make a difference in the quality of our natural environment. As the studentcrafted press release said, “We do not all have to block cargo ships of coal to make a difference, but in an era where saving the environment feels like bailing out the Titanic with a thimble, we need to come together in numbers. Come to Earth Day at The Putney School—and bring your thimble.” PUTNEY POST

Summer Abroad Student Trip to India

Last summer, a group of Putney School students traveled to the Jhamtse Gatsal School and Community in Arunachal Pradesh, India. Jhamtse Gatsal, Tibetan for “Garden of Love and Compassion,” is a community in the Indian foothills of the Himalayas. Opened in 2006, it is a school and home for 77 at-risk children from disadvantaged family situations in the nearby villages—orphans, abandoned children, and children whose families are too poor to support them. The community is located in Tawang district, a historically disputed territory, bordered to the west by Bhutan and the north by Tibet. This remoteness, a product of the unforgiving mountain landscape, provided a unique perspective to the study of cultural geography. Through collaborative learning and exchange with the students at Jhamtse Gatsal School around the topics of agroecology, cultural practices and traditions, social and political dynamics, and regional history, Putney’s student participants explored the many ways in which landscape and culture dictate one another. The trip was led by Putney science teacher Hilary Maynard.

Starry Mountain Singers

Progressive Education Lab Graduates First Class

PUTNEY POST

The Progressive Education Lab held its first-ever graduation in June for its inaugural cohort of teaching fellows. (From left) Dana Wolfson, Hallie Herz ’07, Aspen Golann, and Samson Egilman celebrated their completion of the twoyear program during an intimate and memorable graduation ceremony at The Putney School, one of the four participating PEL schools, on June 9. PEL school heads, mentors, close family, and friends attended the ceremony. The Progressive Education Lab (PEL) is a two-year teacher training program that takes place at four leading progressive schools and provides a dynamic, experience-based training not typically found at traditional university-based education programs. All four fellows have accepted full-time teaching positions for next year at a variety of schools. Samson will be an assistant teacher in the kindergarten program at The Unquowa School in Fairfield, CT. Aspen, who spent her residency year with us at Putney, has moved across the country to work as an art teacher at The Cate School in Carpenteria, CA. Hallie, a 2007 graduate of The Putney School, has accepted a position as a full-time teacher at The Key School in Annapolis, MD. Hallie will be teaching seventh and eighth grade humanities in addition to working with the outdoor education program and coaching. When asked about her future position, Hallie stated, “I’m really excited about this position. Key School’s progressive philosophy is absolutely a match with my own, and I can’t wait to work with middle school students again.” Dana has accepted a position as a lower school associate teacher (second through fourth grade) at The Calhoun School. PEL is entering its third year, and has four new fellows coming into the program as of this summer: Caleb Colpitts, originally from Monroe, NH; Natalie Naranjo, from Highland Park, NJ; Jacob Northcutt, from Windham, NH; and Stephanie Shieh, from Taipei, Taiwan. Eileen Lai (pictured), a 2013-15 PEL fellow, is spending her residency year here at Putney, teaching history and serving as dorm head in the KDU dorm.

Senior Exhibitions Senior Exhibitions are an opportunity for seniors who are in good academic and disciplinary standing to design and complete a two-month independent project, ideally interdisciplinary, culminating in a body of work that will be exhibited. Students are expected to create a project that draws upon the breadth of their educational experience at Putney. There is a final presentation to the school community at the end of the semester. At these presentations, outside evaluators—themselves practitioners in the field or fields of the Senior Exhibition—grant or deny credit alongside faculty sponsors. Senior Exhibitions encourage students to show mastery through independent learning across the curriculum. Twentytwo seniors opted to participate this spring, creating such wonders as Alec Ray’s computer game—plus the computer to play it on (complete with custom metalsculpted case, pictured here) for his exhibition entitled “Gaming: From Sculpture to Screen.” Also included were Ricky Kulawitz’s “Tractor Restoration,” in which he brought a vintage Massey Harris tractor (pictured) back to usefulness; and Sophie Strauss-Jenkins’s work entitled “Why Americans Don’t Feel Toska: A Visual Dissection of Linguistic and Cultural Relativity,” in which she hunted down words that don’t translate into other languages and the reasons that occurs. Others delved into dance, math, literature, loom-building, filmmaking, drawing, baking, plant study, and more—with the added surprise benefits that manifest when crossing disciplines. This is progressive education at its very finest.

Board of Trustees Elections At its June 14 meeting, The Putney School Board of Trustees elected Dinah Buechner-Vischer P’14 (pictured) and Marni Rosner ’69 to three-year terms. Marni is a returning board member, but this is Dinah’s first-ever term. Dinah says, “I got to know Putney while my middle son, Brendan, was a very engaged and happy student here. He just graduated this June. When I describe Putney to people, I always tell them it’s a “joyful” place, the students fascinating, the faculty open minded, and the location heavenly. I am deeply impressed by Emily’s leadership and Putney’s conscientious progressive community of learners and workers. When I see something I admire I want to be an active part of it, so I offered myself to the Putney board.” Josh Laughlin ’82 and Lakshman Achuthan ’84 were elected to second three-year terms. The board also elected Tonia Wheeler P’99, chair; Ira T. Wender P’77, ’89, vice chair; Randall Smith, treasurer; and Katharina (Katy) Wolfe, clerk, to serve as officers of the board of trustees. Tonia Wheeler, Ira Wender, Head of School Emily Jones, Franz Paasche ’79, Josh Laughlin, Peter Pereira ’52, and Anne Stephens S’54 were elected to serve on the executive committee. All 2014-15 terms began July 1, 2014. The dates for remaining board meetings this fiscal year are January 10-11, March 28-29, and May 30-31.

Erratum Perhaps you wondered why we were celebrating Development Director Hugh Montgomery’s remarkably short first tour of duty here at The Putney School when we reported (on page nine of the last issue) that he’d served in the position from Halloween of 1987 to the following spring. That’s because we meant to say he was here until the spring of 1998, not 1988. We regret the error. PUTNEY POST

Printing in Three Dimensions Additive Manufacturing is Providing All Sorts of Collaborative Scientific Educational Opportunities By Don Cuerdon

PUTNEY POST

Imagine that you are building something you’ve designed yourself: a clock, maybe. Or perhaps you’re rebuilding something esoteric, such as an old weaving loom, and replacement parts are hard to find. There are all sorts of methods for making these things—most of which are expensive (CNC machining), time-consuming (whittling), or both. Imagine creating a three-dimensional (3-D) design of the parts you need on a computer, then “printing” them with a device that fits on a table. That’s what some teachers, students, and one helpful alumnus have been doing lately—right here at The Putney School. This is no sci-fi fantasy. The concept of additive manufacturing has been around since the late 1970s. Additive manufacturing is like computerautomated cake decorating, except the “frosting” is heated as it passes through a nozzle, then hardens when it cools. Rather than cutting material away, layer upon layer of metal, plastic, and other composite materials are built up with great precision under the computer-guided nozzle until the desired object is complete. This technology was originally used in manufacturing industries for creating prototypes quickly. Several factors, including open-sourcing of design software and plans for building 3-D printers, have caused the price of a 3-D printer to drop from $20,000 in 2010 to well under $1,000 today. Not only does this put 3-D printing into the hands of consumers, it also disrupts the natural order of manufacturing. It is now very inexpensive to create small numbers of items, which is the antithesis of mass production. For instance, using a design downloaded from the Internet, you can 3-D print a protective outer case for your telephone for about 96 cents (once you own all the gear to make that happen, that is). Making more of them this way does not lower the price, except in terms of startup equipment costs. This may have repercussions down the road with regard to everything we believe about the economy of scale in manufacturing.

Not only does this put 3-D printing into the hands of consumers, it also disrupts the natural order of manufacturing. It is now very inexpensive to create small numbers of items, which is the antithesis of mass production.

PUTNEY POST

A Meeting of the Minds Robert Chave ’68 (see sidebar, page 17) was a disciple of physics teacher Ed Shore when he was a student here—as was current Putney physics teacher and science department chair Glenn Littledale ’76. When senior development associate and former art teacher Brian Cohen introduced the pair to each other last fall, good things happened. Three-dimensional printing is certainly convenient, but the real magic happens at the design end. Three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) software has been evolving since the 1960s. “The combination of solid modeling and 3-D printing together amount to a ‘disruptive’ pairing of technologies,” says Robert, because of the likely economic effect on manufacturing. “I think that it is really important for Putney that people like Glenn are riding the front edge of that curve.” The NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory guy, the science department chair, and a group of interested students created a perfect storm that resulted in one of the most exciting Project Weeks offerings ever last winter, entitled Mastering SolidWorks: A 3-D Design Project. “The whole thing is off-the-charts cool,” says Glenn, adding, “The stuff they came up with was incredible. Plus, there was superb collaboration.”

Collaborative Learning Robert says the name of the game in science and technology is collaboration, but that science and engineering types can be socially awkward and disinclined to seek the company of people. “That’s what makes Putney the perfect place for a science kid,” says Robert. “When I was here, I was forced into a near constant interaction with people through most of the day’s waking hours. The social skills I learned helped me in my career tremendously” In the 3-D design world, collaboration is king. “One of the possibilities of the medium, which I hoped very much that students would be able to grasp, is the possibility of obtaining the solid models of components from vendors and opensource websites all over the world,” says Robert. “I hoped that they would be able to see how they could benefit by including open-source materials from the work of others, available on

PUTNEY POST

the Internet generally (fasteners, bearings, components, portions of mechanical interfaces, etc.); and, with a few key clicks, load these design elements directly into their assemblies.” This is precisely what happened. “I have always dreamed of being able to design my own printable GoPro [video] camera mounts, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to become familiar enough with the software to make that happen,” said Ben ’16 in his proposal to join the project last winter. He was able to do that, and more. “I tracked down the mechanical interface geometry I needed to attach to the GoPro on the Internet and was able to cut and paste the program coding right into my design,” says Ben with obvious delight. “The ability to rework vendor material and open-source material is one of the more powerful aspects of contemporary computer-based design,” says Robert. “To use the abundant open-source material, you have to have some basic mastery of the editor. I was pleased that we were able to make it far enough into the CAD editor that those possibilities were clearly visible.” Collaboration is emerging as a better way to educate young minds, as well. A recent story on American Radio Works (americanradioworks. publicradio.org) entitled “Rethinking the Way College Students Are Taught” describes quantitative work done by University of Maryland physics professor Joe Redish and others. It shows that students who don’t understand a lecture presentation are far more likely to “get it” if a fellow student convinces his or her peer of the concept than if the professor does. Glenn knows this work personally. “Joe Redish and Eric Mazur, along with David Hestenes and Lillian McDermott, have all played significant roles in revising physics education. By nature, physicists are data-driven. It occurred to some of them that they were not only physicists, but also educators—so it might make sense to apply the same data-driven approach to evaluate methods of instruction and allow results to shape what happens in the classroom or lab. “Redish and Hestenes created the Force Concepts Inventory [or FCI, a means to assess student understanding of the most basic concepts in Newtonian physics] a while back. Based upon exam performance, they suspected that

their students might be learning exactly nothing from their brilliant lectures. They administered the FCI before and after their courses, and confirmed their suspicions. From this, various interventions were developed, including Mazur’s peer instruction and McDermott’s physics by inquiry. “One of the lucky things about going to college in my thirties was that I found myself in a little progressive offshoot of a physics department in the 1990s, when a lot of this work was going on. The really smart people I was with were part of the much bigger next generation, which was interested in implementing the work of the first generation. Members of that first generation are rock stars to me. We worked closely with Lillian McDermott and Peter Shaffer of the [University of Washington’s] Physics Education Group. Their big idea was to place the student in the role of discoverer, and the curriculum unfolded from that. Their bigger idea was to place the future teacher in the role of discoverer, so that they could learn to teach that way. One of the most important things this group contributed was shifting the question from professors wondering why all their students were idiots to professors wondering why their own methods were ineffective. From this shift, they created the beginnings of student-centered physics instruction.”

There’s No Escaping 3-D Modeling “These days, if you’re going to be a designer, [if you’re] going to be an architect, if you’re going to be an engineer, a physical chemist, a geologist—if you deal with anything that deals with spatial imagination and understanding three-dimensional and polydimensional data— you must learn a solid modeling program,” says Robert. “Today, geologists ‘fly’ through their data with a joystick. The spatial coordinates are those of the subsurface of the earth, and they turn on and off layers of different elements so they can see what they’re ‘flying’ through. If you’re going to go into any of these professions, the question is not whether you learn a solid modeling program; the question is which one.” SolidWorks is Robert’s 3-D modeling program choice for the sort of problem-solving he does for a living. “We bought [relatively inexpensive] academic licenses for what’s basically a $5,0006,000 package—it’s the one that I use professionally.

3-D Campus Print Shop Word spread quickly this spring about the seemingly endless opportunities for problem-solving with 3-D modeling software and a 3-D printer on campus. When Bea Butler ’14 needed a hard-to-source part for her Senior Exhibition that involved rehabbing an antique weaving loom, physics teacher Glenn Littledale and his students were able to design and print one for her. For her Senior Exhibition, Dolma Yangdon ’14 needed to attach a roller to a small electric generator [photo 2] to transfer energy from a spinning bicycle to charge a cell phone [photo 3]. This was a totally one-off problem that was easy to solve with these new tools. “We used the #25 roller chain cog that fit the shaft to capture the roller,” says Glenn. “We found the CAD drawing of the cog in an industrial catalog, and Nate (’16, another of the Project Week participants) had the part worked up in SolidWorks in about 30 minutes. An hour later, here it is [photo 4]. This is a draft-quality print, and the cog is a perfect press fit. I can’t believe how well this stuff works.” Evan Schmidt ’14 [photo 5] endeavored to create a mechanical clock using parts designed in SolidWorks and 3-D printed for his Senior Exhibition [photos 6, 7].

1 2

5 6 PUTNEY POST

Next Up: Metal Printing “Laser sintering of metals is a ‘disruptive technology’ and leapfrogs over all sorts of other processes,” says Robert Chave ’68. “An interesting consequence of this is that it is possible to make a ship in a bottle using additive manufacturing, generating families of shapes which were previously not really possible. This kind of work is expensive, at the moment. Making a stainless steel coffee cup in this kind of additive process is about a thousand dollars. That said, prices are dropping. An especially interesting aspect of this is that there is almost no material waste. The laser sintering of stainless steel consumes a lot of power. Laser sintering of plastics, and plastics loaded with powdered metal fillers, is far more affordable. Here is a 3-D CAD model and a working model of an imaging spectrometer head that I designed for a company that was trying to detect skin melanoma. The two halves and the case, and some other little pieces, were around $600.”

Collaboration is emerging as a better way to educate young minds

My license for that software rivals my office rent. We are using a fully-featured professional tool.” “I’ve been interested in 3-D printing for a while,” says Daniel Ewald ’14, another of the project participants. “My goal was to make a Swiss army knife with a bunch of little attachments. I only got two attachments designed. The screwdriver was a lot more complicated than I thought it would be—the number of facets, and getting the angles of the facets, was a pain.” Daniel is attending college for engineering this fall and will, no doubt, benefit from his otherwise frustrating 3-D design experience. “These are design methods which are very powerful, and they truly are 21st-century methods,” says Robert. “At some point, I would like to

PUTNEY POST

come back [to Putney] and do a top-up—revisiting the basic elements of the 3-D editors, and moving on to the forming of organic and biomorphic shapes with spines and bezier patches. Given the positive reception at Putney, I may be doing some version of this program at other schools.” Robert has definite plans to be back at Putney this school year to delve deeper into 3-D modeling with students. On the horizon, he says, is an idea on how to get Putney students familiar with the possibilities of the emerging, academic satellite platform known as a CubeSat which the more technically oriented will encounter in their university level work. But that’s another story.

Meet Scientist and Inventor Robert Chave ’68 and an MSME in engineering design and material science through the Polymer Processing Program at the Laboratory at MIT. Robert also worked in software development for robot kinematics at the Technical University of Berlin, and precision assembly for Mettler Instrument (CH) at Stanford’s Design Division. He is the author of patents and articles on numerous devices involving advanced technologies, and is active with the Optical Society of Southern California and the Society of PhotoOptical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). During his 15 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Robert Chave ’68 designed and developed instruments and subsystems with opto-mechanical elements for the Mars Rovers, the James Webb and Hubble Space telescopes, and a U2 aircraft-based spectrometer for monitoring ozone degradation above the earth’s poles. While at JPL, he was principal investigator on a NASA Advanced Technology Development grant in low-temperature science and engineering. This research led to the invention of a magnetostrictive super-fluid helium valve, linear and rotary lowtemperature actuators, and related tools with significance for condensed-matter physics, astronomy, and cryosurgery. Robert was visiting research faculty in the department of materials science at Caltech. This work led to 12 NASA New Technology awards given to him personally, and over 20 awards to authors on the project. In 2000, he founded RCAppP Inc., a contract design firm that designs, builds, and calibrates instruments for clients and end-users. These have included the Office of Naval Research; the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, and Homeland Security; NASA; Los Alamos National Laboratories; Caltech; and the Smithsonian Observatory, as well as private corporations such as the Idealab family of companies. He received his BSME, magna cum laude, from Tufts University,

“Putney, despite the fact that I was with you all for only two years, did play a special role in this,” says Robert. “One of the characteristics of Putney at the time, which holds in the present to a remarkable degree, given the world of litigiousness we have all since entered, is that Putney’s culture tolerates messy activities. And building stuff is messy. Ed Shore and Elizabeth Burns left deep, deep impressions on me, and were supportive, in concept, of the build jobs I undertook. You need a special kind of culture to support that, and Putney has been nurturing that kind of sensibility pretty much since the doors opened. Specifically, it was Putney’s celebration of craft and of the act of physical making which was particularly important in my career development. NASA employs many of the best industrial craftspeople in this country. Spacecraft are made a few at a time. There is an engineering model, a flight model, and the flight version. For some instruments, like the Hubble Telescope, there is only the flight model. Therefore, the people who put those together have some of the highest levels of manual ability presently available anywhere— on the order of surgeons, but with steel and aluminum and epoxy and glass. In order to organize and direct these people effectively, you must have done a fair amount of what they do yourself.” Needless to say, we’re pretty happy to have Robert lending a hand in the science department at The Putney School.

PUTNEY POST

Culture and Safety

Creating and Maintaining the Cultural Norms of a Civil Society on the Hill is Not as Difficult Today as it Has Been in Some Earlier Generations

ADOLESCENCE IS NO LONGER ASSUMED TO BE A TIME OF REVOLT AND TURMOIL; IN FACT, FOR MANY OF THIS GENERATION, IT IS A TIME OF GREAT JOY AND FRIENDSHIP. PHOTO: JUSTIN ALTMAN

PUTNEY POST

By Emily H. Jones, Head of School When parents visit a schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s admissions office with their children, they ask lots of questions about math and music and how their child will do laundry. What they really want to understand is whether their children will be safe, emotionally and physically. They ask about the qualifications of the teachers, but carefully watch the student body to see if they look kind, and where their child might fit in. It is an enormous responsibility to take on the care of the most precious beings in the lives of some 400 people. We do not, and cannot, get it right every time, but we know that tending to student culture and developing strategies for student safety are the primary jobs of any school.

How this is best done changes as the norms of the wider culture change. Adolescence is no longer assumed to be a time of revolt and turmoil; in fact, for many of this generation, it is a time of great joy and friendship. Most teenagers are reshaping rather than rejecting their relationships with their parents. It is seldom an easy time, however, and for some, these years are very difficult indeed. At Putney, where most students live as well as learn, we work to create an environment in which students have freedom but not license, in which adults model healthy relationships with families and colleagues, and in which students are kept safe without being wrapped up in cotton wool. Creating and maintaining the cultural norms of a civil society on the hill is not as difficult as some might imagine. This generation of students arrives from middle school experienced in all kinds of conversations about boundaries, bullying, and safety that many of us, raised in earlier generations, didn’t encounter until we had children of our own. Most of them have had relatively little freedom as youngsters, and tend to look to adults for counsel and direction. There are exceptions, however, and we make sure we notice who the adult-avoidant kids are, and make a particular effort to be sure they are connected with teachers they trust. Students talk with their parents regularly, and although the cellphone umbilical cord has some downsides, it does mean that parents know much more of their children’s daily lives than in earlier generations— and they share their impressions with the faculty. We are always aware that our school and community culture is as much a part of the curriculum as the classes, jobs, and activities. Our adults have made agreements about collegial conduct which serve not to stifle discussion or dissent, but ensure that we model how to disagree without undermining each other or the school. We have seven faculty and staff who are African-American or Hispanic, and enough gay adults to make this unremarked-upon. Although our international faculty doesn’t match the breadth of our student body, we are making progress on this. We intentionally don’t hire for a “good fit” for Putney. We do want people who will be constructive and happy here, but we also want them to stretch us and bring voices we don’t already have in the community. Perhaps because of this variety, and perhaps because of who they are themselves, Putney students seem to have little instinct to norm each other. There are groups of friends, for sure, but seldom the rigid cliques typical of many high schools. There are the social anxieties attendant upon any place in which

a bunch of adolescents are defining and redefining themselves, but peer pressure is very low, by student accounts. (Yes, there are a lot of flannel shirts on campus, often seen on different students on successive days; but students who choose to make other fashion statements get much approbation.) Many visitors have remarked that our seniors seem older than in other schools. I believe that this is the result of spending their years here becoming who they are rather than trying to “fit in” to some particular form of teen culture in order to survive. We delight in watching our students come into their own as young adults; any 18-year-old who is genuinely comfortable in his or her own skin has already accomplished a great deal. Student leadership is crucial to the working of the community: important but diffuse. At this point, we have 67 leadership positions, and these are held by seniors, juniors, and a few sophomores. Heads of school, trustees, work committee, standards committee, diversity committee, dorm heads, international ambassadors, sustainability squad, admissions committee: all of them go through leadership training. Although the school could not run without student leaders, they all realize that they have been given responsibility rather than power. Putney has very few natural followers, and every student whose job it is to get others to follow is deeply frustrated at least once or twice. This frustration is expected, and it represents a valuable lesson that we hope students will encounter—as well as learning how to be a good follower, when appropriate. In spite of the fact that everyone is learning on the job, things generally get done, and generally cheerfully. Every student at Putney has an advisor, and these relationships are central to student life and communication with parents. Advisors and advisees meet regularly, often over meals. At the same time, we have structures which mitigate against any one teacher creating a cohort around themselves. Each dorm has at least four adults associated with it: some of whom are in residence, and some of whom are not. All dorms have at least two resident adults, and counting spouses, the ratio of resident adults to students is 7:1. The adults are aware that although we encourage and expect them to get to know the students well, even a hint of impropriety is a careerending move. Unlike previous years at Putney, we generally do not have male dorm heads in girls’ dorms. A student who can be sure that their dorm head will never just drop into their room has an expectation of privacy that can lead to trouble, and a man whose job requires him to drop into teenage girls’ bedrooms is much at risk.

EVERY STUDENT AT PUTNEY HAS AN ADVISOR, AND THESE RELATIONSHIPS ARE CENTRAL TO STUDENT LIFE AND COMMUNICATION WITH PARENTS.

WE ARE CONSTANTLY WORKING TO FIND THE RIGHT BALANCE BETWEEN LETTING STUDENTS LEARN HOW TO SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS AND MAKING SURE THAT WE WILL BE AWARE IF THEY ARE FAILING TO DO SO IN HEALTHY WAYS.

Safety PUTNEY POST

Maintaining healthy relationships between students Our health office is staffed by three nurses and is an ongoing process—one which will never be a counselor; the latter is a Putney alumna. The finished, as new students join the community counselor is available to meet with students, either A fierce gargoyle crouches on abasis snowy hillock, she studying the every year. New students learn a great deal from on a drop-in or by appointment; also <above> PUTNEY STUDENTS other students about Putney culture, but as adults, works with advisors, dorm heads, and parents to curving dirt road SEEM TO HAVE LITTLE that leads from a covered bridge to the vintage we are vigilant about understanding how students make plans for the support of students who are INSTINCT TO NORM EACH think about bullying, sexual harassment, and other struggling. She arranges for students who need Vermont farmhouse where children’s author and book illustrator OTHER. THERE ARE GROUPS problems that may arise between teenagers. An or want ongoing counseling or therapy over a OF FRIENDS, FOR SURE, Anna Dewdney ’83 livesperiod with hertomenagerie real and argument about who cleans the bathroom, which of time meet with a localof therapist, BUT SELDOM THE RIGID may be quite appropriate between freshman boys, and students can do this without fear of stigma. imagined creatures. CLIQUES TYPICAL OF MANY is quite different when it is between a senior and Another member of the health office staff, who HIGH SCHOOLS. a freshman. Since same-sex couples are common is also a dorm head, teaches health classes to here, some of the old rules and guidelines about freshmen and sophomores, focusing upon <above right> WE HAVE A relationships no longer make sense—a couple who healthy decision-making and peer interactions. COMMUNITY OF has broken up may still live in the same dorm. ADULTS THAT HAS SEEN, All of these systems involve engaged and watchful We are constantly working to find the right balance COLLECTIVELY, TENS OF adults, and students who trust them. None of between letting students learn how to solve their THOUSANDS OF TEENAGERS it would be sufficient without students who are own problems and making sure that we will be THROUGH ADOLESCENCE, invested in each other’s well-being, and our student aware if they are failing to do so in healthy ways. AND ARE MOSTLY ABLE body is an important part of our safety net. We Having said at the outset that maintaining a civil work to create a culture that encourages students to TO GAUGE WHAT IS JUST society at Putney is not as difficult as it has been in look out for each other and understand why, how, “TEENAGERS BEHAVING other times, I believe it is also true that no school and when to bring a problem to the attention of LIKE TEENAGERS,” WHAT ever intends its culture to start to slide into complaadults. Leadership training helps students learn how IS WORRISOME, cency or degeneracy—and yet it happens in schools to make these decisions, but most important is their AND WHAT SHOULD all too often. It takes constant effort and vigilance observation of what happens when they do bring a RAISE THE ALARMS. to make sure we are seeing things accurately and struggling student in for help. Most of these situaresponding appropriately. Any adult who has raised tions don’t involve rule-breaking, but according to even one teenager knows that it is an unpredictour “sanctuary policy,” students who are concerned able process. Having 225 of them all growing up about the behavior or well-being of another stutogether means that it is a rare day that things go dent may refer them to the dean of students’ office well for everyone. We have a community of adults for help without fear of incurring a disciplinary that has seen, collectively, tens of thousands of response. The sanctuary policy is actively discussed teenagers through adolescence, and are mostly able with (and used by) students to protect each other to gauge what is just “teenagers behaving like teenfrom real danger, including substance use, selfagers,” what is worrisome, and what should raise harm, and many things in between. It is hard to the alarms. We also have students who care deeply know how much is simply generational, and how about the school and each other, and are often the much is a result of Putney culture, but students first to sense if something is going wrong here. bring both big and small problems to adults with great regularity.

PUTNEY POST

Peter Willcox ’72

Commencement Speech June 8, 2014 Peter Willcox ’72 has captained The Rainbow Warrior and worked as an activist with Greenpeace for more than 30 years, most recently making headlines when he and his shipmates—the Arctic 30, as they became known—spent over 100 days in a Russian jail for their non-violent protest of an oil platform being built in the Barents Sea. Peter, a passionate and fiercely dedicated environmental warrior of his own, spoke at Putney’s graduation in June. Peter’s speech is printed in full online (putneyschool.org/post), and is excerpted below. I grew up in a politically active family. My mother was a middle school science teacher who started an environmental club in the late 1960s. Like my grandparents, she spent time testifying before the Un-American Activities Committee. My father is a community organizer who is also a passionate sailor. I am doing just what I was brought up to do. The first demonstration I attended was for civil rights. Thanks to my father, I grew up in an integrated community, and attended integrated schools. It came as a real shock to learn about segregation. When I was 13, my father woke me up one morning with the question: would you like to go on a civil rights march? We flew out that night and met the Selma to Montgomery civil rights march, which was aimed at getting a voting rights bill through Congress. There were three people murdered in the march. One by an Alabama state trooper, and two by Ku Klux Klan.

The first day the marchers tried to leave Selma, the sheriff deputized every white male in the county over the age of 21. The deputies, police, and troopers attacked the marchers, and turned them around on what became known at Turnaround Tuesday. But the film and photos of the beatings went all over the world. It was these images and images of Freedom Riders like this that eventually turned the rest of America and the world against the segregationists. In 1965 in Lowndes County, Alabama, there was not one African-American registered to vote, even though they made up 81% of the population. There were 2,240 registered whites. This accounted for 118% of the white population in the county. This was a common occurrence in the South fifty years ago. I attended the rally the night the march made it to Montgomery, and joined the march as it made its way into the Montgomery business district the next day. I was struck with the joy and optimism in the air. It was this march that prompted President Johnson to present the Voting Rights Bill to Congress. In 1960, there were 53,000 blacks registered to vote in Alabama. In 1990 there were 537,000, a tenfold increase.

PETE WILLCOX ’ 72 SPEAKING AT PUTNEY’S GRADUATION IN JUNE

2014

PUTNEY POST

‘FREE THE ARCTIC

30 ’ SAILING

PROTEST IN NEW YORK A FLOTILLA FROM THE SOUND SAILING CENTER CIRCLES IN FRONT OF THE UNITED NATIONS BUILDING IN SUPPORT OF CAPTAIN PETE WILLCOX AND THE ARCTIC

This example of how non-violent direct action could work deeply influenced me. I stress non-violent. I do not think we can make a better planet by threatening people or breaking things. At Greenpeace we have a very strong policy against creating any property damage as the object of the action. We can trash our own boats, but not anybody else’s.

As it turned out, Clearwater, the environmental action sloop started by Pete Seeger, was federally approved CO duty. In March of ’73, after I’d had my pre-induction physical, Nixon decided we had won the war, and that the draft could be ended. But I went to Clearwater anyway. And I am very glad I did.

30 . THE SAILBOATS 30 CIRCLES

EXECUTED

ON THE EAST RIVER TO HONOR THE

28 GREENPEACE

INTERNATIONAL ACTIVISTS AND ARCTIC SUNRISE CREW AND A FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER AND FREELANCE VIDEOGRAPHER CURRENTLY HELD IN A MURMANSK DETENTION CENTER FOLLOWING A PEACEFUL PROTEST AT GAZPROM’S PRIRAZLOMNAYA PLATFORM IN THE PECHORA SEA. WILLCOX SOMETIMES TEACHES AT THE SAILING SCHOOL IN HIS HOMETOWN OF NORWALK, CONNECTICUT.

11/03/2013

GREENPEACE / MICHAEL NAGLE

During my high school years at Putney, we were demonstrating against the war in Vietnam. In the spring of 1971, my junior year, all classes at school were stopped for a week when the protests against the war reached a crescendo. In the sixties we added the soldiers to our list of undesirables. I think it is an urban legend that soldiers were spit on in airports. But it is a story that reflects the mood of the times. I am really glad that we seem to do so much better at that today. My senior year, during the winter, a major turning point in my life occurred. Sven Huseby came and sat down at the lunch table in the KDU. “If you were born on March 6, 1953, this is your lucky day.” “Why?” I said. “Because you would be number one in the draft lottery.” It was my birthday. But it would be 35 years before I told Sven what that moment meant to me. Being number one in the draft lottery has certain advantages. It crystallizes your decisions. I knew I would not go to fight in Vietnam. I would like to think I was prepared to go to jail, rather than flee to Canada, but one can never assume anything until you really face the question. Eventually I received a conscientious objector classification. It meant that I would do some alternative service for a couple years. Taking the CO was the easy way out, and not something I am particularly proud of today. Nobody liked the draft.

PUTNEY POST

In 1972, we found out about PCBs, and how General Electric had spent years dumping them in the Hudson. GE went on to spend more than 100 million in court fighting the idea that they had to clean up what they dumped in the river. That’s when I realized an important point: corporations are set up to make money. Expecting a corporation to have a social conscience is about as realistic as expecting a pig to fly. I started working for Greenpeace in 1981. My first action was for the same campaign as my last action a month ago: offshore oil drilling. In 1981 we were successful in stopping oil companies from drilling on Georges Bank, off Cape Cod. But offshore oil drilling expanded. Last month in Rotterdam, we held a Russian tanker, carrying oil from the same rig we got arrested at, off the dock for a couple hours. The least we can do is get in their way. Oil companies are the largest corporations going today. In 2008, as the rest of the world was tanking, Exxon made more money than any company in the history of the world. They were making $100 million a day in profits. Please understand I am not suggesting that you all need to be scientists or lawyers. There are roles for everyone to play . . . artists, teachers, performers. But while you are at this point of your life, I urge you to give 100% of your energy to whatever gets you up in the morning.

Getting arrested in Russia last year was . . . a bit over the top. Being in a prison and facing ten to fifteen years for piracy was not what any of us had signed up for. We had done the same action

the year before, with very little reaction from the Russians. But this time they started firing machine guns within a meter of us right away. After we were arrested, they spent four days towing us to Murmansk. When we got to the investigators’ office, we were told we were being charged with piracy, which carried a ten to fifteen year sentence. I thought it was a joke. I looked around the room at my 30 ships mates from 22 different countries and figured that they could never arrest all of us. That night we were in jail. We were held for two months in detention. That means locked in a cell 23 hours a day, and during the 24th you are moved to a bigger cell so you can walk around in circles. I could not, and did not, believe that they would really sentence us to 15 years in jail, but in Russia, 99.6% of all persons put in detention are found guilty at trial. After six weeks, our charges were reduced to hooliganism, and after two months we were released. I do not recommend tangling with the Russian justice system. But lest I sound too critical, let me point out that in the U.S., we have twice the per capita population behind bars. In 1985, the Rainbow Warrior was blown up by French agents and my shipmate Fernando Peierer was murdered. There is one similarity in both events. The French thought they could shut us up and stop us by blowing up our ship. The Russians thought they could get rid of us by locking a few of us in jail. Both plans failed miserably. In both cases, the actions of these super powers were slammed by the world at large. The French eventually had to stop testing nuclear bombs in Polynesia. The head of their secret service was fired, and their secretary of defense had to resign. Many of my friends expected me to look for safer gainful employment after that. But we took it as a huge compliment. If a bunch of hippies on an old boat could scare France that much, we must be doing something right. As a result of our being arrested in Russia, a very large number of people around the world now question if the Russians should drill for oil in the Arctic. Speaking for the Arctic 30, once we were out of jail, I would say we all thought we had done a good thing. It was close, though.

There is one other Greenpeace campaign I would like to tell you about. After World War II, the U.S. was given the Pacific Trust Territories to do with what we wanted. In 1954, we tested a bomb that was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs we dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For that particular test, rather than move them to a safe location, the U.S. government left the people of Rongelap on their island. The first day it “snowed” several inches of radioactive fallout. The kids all played in it. There was an intentional decision to leave the people there so we could use them as guinea pigs. Over the next 20 years, all of the people got thyroid cancer. Women had multiple miscarriages and jellyfish babies. Children were born deformed, retarded, and crippled. Adults suffered premature aging. And it was done intentionally. When the Rainbow Warrior sailed to the Marshalls in 1985, we moved the whole village of about 350 people 100 miles to the south to a less contaminated atoll. The military also used the Marshalls as our splashdown range for our Star Wars testing. We, and our military, built an apartheid area that would have done South Africa proud. And today, the U.S. government is telling the Rongelap Islanders they either have to go back to their contaminated island, or risk being cut off from aid that they have become accustomed to for the last fifty years.

ARCTIC SUNRISE ARRIVES IN AMSTERDAM. PETE WILLCOX WAVING TO THE PEOPLE AT THE QUAY AS THE ARCTIC SUNRISE ARRIVES IN THE NETHERLANDS DURING TRANSIT TO HER HOME PORT OF AMSTERDAM, FOLLOWING HER DEPARTURE FROM MURMANSK. THE GREENPEACE SHIP WAS DETAINED IN THE RUSSIAN PORT CITY FOR OVER

300

DAYS FOLLOWING A HIGH PROFILE PROTEST AGAINST ARCTIC OIL DRILLING IN SEPTEMBER

2013 . MEMBERS 30 WHO

OF THE ARCTIC

WERE DETAINED IN RUSSIA CAME TO THE NETHERLANDS TO BOARD THE SHIP ON ITS

The fact that this is happening under the current administration is, to me, extremely disheartening. I am sorry to lay this on you. But it is something I just have to let my fellow citizens know about. So congratulations on completing the first part of your education. Many of you will have another four to eight years of education. But take heart. If things go on like they are, your children will probably be in school until they are 40. That’s another good reason to find a job you like doing.

VOYAGE TO AMSTERDAM. IT IS THE FIRST TIME THEY SEE THE SHIP AFTER THEIR DEPARTURE FROM RUSSIA.

8/9/14 COPYRIGHT

GREENPEACE / BAS BEENTJES

PUTNEY POST

Dear Putney, I write you these words in hope of capturing not only my class’s final goodbye But also to clear the air of what we may have confused you by doing. And if I could find a way to speak forever we would not have to stand up and hug each other goodbye. We could stay in this moment of long awaited glory for years to come. We could sit oh so comfortably under the shadow of these Black Locust and your omnipresence. But I am not so clever, I like to talk but these words escape me. I have no tools to communicate with you. For you have never spoken directly to me, dear Putney.

For Putney, When the Time Comes By Noah Strauss-Jenkins ’14 Delivered at Commencement, June 8, 2014

Sweet Putney, Although YOU who lay awake forever see all that happens on these hills You do not know the joy you have brought us. We have too many stories to tell, And they have been collected during many passing moons. All you have to do is look up this hill to find the fearless. But we are too quick for flashlights, Too in love with our own chaos to care about the speed limit. We sneaked until we wanted to sleep longer than four hours. Sweet Putney, I am so rested now. True Putney, Although we followed some through narrow windows outside of your tender embrace to embark on failed launches, It was you who guided us back in towards ourselves with memories falling out of our pockets. The thing that haunts me about these stories though is not their missed moral lessons but their fragility. So much has been lost because words were too hard to write down at early hours of elm tree mornings. I have trouble remembering my first year here, So what happens when the last of our vivid memories fade? We have no way of being ready for the moment when Putney becomes an idea not spoken of enough to really matter. Cruel Putney, You who know that we shall never come back to gaze upon you again with the same admiring eyes as this moment; at Garland’s, at channel master, atop these roofs.

PUTNEY POST

You who laugh at our useless attempts at climbing back onto our severed rope swing. You who were most beautiful at night but did not allow us to be out past ten. You who are pushing us away with a fake shake of hands and a crowd to watch. You weren’t perfect but we didn’t want to be anywhere else. I guess you weren’t as cruel as we would have hoped. Wise Putney, Through foggy mornings on the east lawn We grew roots deeper into your body As you told us to wake day after day You told us to sing You told us to wait for spring And we abided with the cruel homework hour With our last thirty minutes of Internet With the nap before dinner that we all regret. You wished us sweet slumber with the sunset over the earth’s folds even in the dead of winter. Wise Putney. Immortal Putney, You will die only when no more children are born made for this place. When wanderers no longer stop to look upon you and your glory. You have made arrangements with Time, ever so irritable. We are now faced with immense chaos, And we can struggle for countless days thinking and writing what we have seen and felt. As a friend of mine once said: “I’ve sat in all the best places.” And that explained Putney just as I am trying to explain Putney. Within these drawn-out thoughts about our home, we find Putney. The very dirt is felt in everything that has even a glimpse of Putney within it. It has stained our feet, and you can see it on every carpet we cross. This light that we could only process when the sun went down is forever ours to own. My Putney, Our Putney, These faces will forever be stamped onto our minds. When the night is all too noisy to sleep we will shout to them and speak with the honesty of a child. Some may still doubt my devotion to you, But not the people with whom I stand, Not these faces, Not these classy folks, These are the best friends I’ve ever had, These are the best friends I’ve ever had.

Alumni

News

Alumni Authors

Please let us know when you have (or plan to have) your work published. Please consider donating a copy to our school library. Contact Alison Frye at 802-387-6273 or afrye@putneyschool.org. We wish these and other present and future alumni authors and musicians well in their endeavors.

personnel, a constant presence behind the scenes as the woman called Pearl took the world by storm.

ON THE ROAD WITH JANIS JOPLIN John Byrne Cooke ’58 Berkeley Hardcover, 2014 As a road manager and filmmaker, John Byrne Cooke helped run the Janis Joplin show—and record it for posterity. Now he reveals the never-before-told story of his years with the young woman from Port Arthur who would become the first female rock and roll superstar—and depart the stage too soon. In 1967, as the new sound of rock and roll was taking over popular music, Cooke was at the center of it all. As a member of D.A. Pennebaker’s film crew, he witnessed the astonishing breakout performances of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival that June. Less than six months later, he was on a plane to San Francisco, taking a job as road manager for Janis and her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. From then on, Cooke was Joplin’s road manager amid a rotating cast of musicians and

Cooke was there when Janis made the difficult decision to leave Big Brother and form a new band. He was with her when the Kozmic Blues Band toured Europe in the spring of 1969, when they performed at Woodstock in August, and when Janis and Full Tilt Boogie took their famous Festival Express train trip across Canada. He accompanied Janis to her friend and mentor Ken Threadgill’s 70th birthday party, and was at her side when she attended her tenth high school reunion in Port Arthur, Texas. This intimate memoir spans the years he spent with Janis, from her legendary rise to her tragic last days. Cooke tells the whole incredible story as only someone who lived it could.

Fast Hands begins when a youthful adventure goes awry. It turns out that there are serious consequences for breaking into large yachts. When a Seattle judge gives 16-year-old Gus Pedersen an unwelcome choice between spending time in a juvenile facility and fishing with his uncle in Alaska, Gus heads north. However, after only two days on his uncle’s boat, Gus is already thinking about jumping ship. Gus drives himself crazy wondering what could have saved him from being sent to Alaska to fish with three old Norwegians who think a 19-hour workday is normal. Fishing on the fringe of civilization begins to change Gus, forcing him to grow up fast. He realizes that if anything had gone differently, he never would have met Claire, who is running from troubles of her own. A young adult novel set off the coast of Alaska, the story is inspired by true stories of young people suddenly plunked down into a world for which they are not prepared. The author and Rich Dehlinger ’63 learned the complexities of fishing halibut off the coast of southeast Alaska in the summer of 1975.

FAST HANDS John Pappenheimer ’62 With illustrations by Kate Thompson ’63

BRONX BOYS Stephen Shames ’65 University of Texas Press, 2014 “The Bronx has a terrible beauty, stark and harsh, like the desert. At first glance you imagine nothing can survive. Then you notice life going on all around. People adapt, survive, and even prosper in this urban moonscape of quick pleasures and false hopes. . . . Often I am terrified of the Bronx. Other times it feels like home. My images reflect the feral vitality and hope of these young men. The interplay between good and evil, violence and love, chaos and family, is the theme, but this is not documentation. There is no story line. There is only a feeling.” —Stephen Shames A 1977 assignment for Look magazine took Stephen Shames ’65 to the Bronx, where he began photographing a group of boys coming of age in what was at the time one of the toughest and most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States. The Bronx boys lived on streets ravaged by poverty, drugs, violence, and gangs in an adolescent “family”

Epicenter Press, 2014 PUTNEY POST

they created for protection and companionship. Shames’s profound empathy for the boys earned their trust, and over the next two-plus decades, as the crack cocaine epidemic devastated the neighborhood, they allowed him extraordinary access into their lives on the street and in their homes and “crews.” Bronx Boys presents an extended photo essay that chronicles the lives of these kids growing up in the Bronx. Shames captures the brutality of the times—the fights, shootings, arrests, and drug deals— that eventually left many of the young men he photographed dead or in jail. But he also records the joy and humanity of the Bronx boys, who mature, fall in love, and have children of their own. One young man Shames mentored, Martin Dones, provides riveting details of living in the Bronx and getting caught up in violence and drugs before caring adults helped him turn his life around. Challenging our perceptions of a neighborhood that is too easily dismissed as irredeemable, Bronx Boys shows us that hope can survive on even the meanest streets.

of tragedy, Jim, a well-known expressionist painter, abandoned the art scene of Santa Fe to start fresh in the valleys of rural Colorado. Now he spends his days painting and fly-fishing, trying to find a way to live with the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him. He works with a lovely model. His paintings fetch excellent prices. But one afternoon, on a dirt road, Jim comes across a man beating a small horse, and a brutal encounter rips his quiet life wide open. Fleeing Colorado, chased by men set on retribution, Jim returns to New Mexico, tormented by his own relentless conscience.  A stunning, savage novel of art and violence, love and grief, The Painter is the story of a man who longs to transcend the shadows in his heart, a man intent on using the losses he has suffered to create a meaningful life.

THE KITCHEN ECOSYSTEM: INTEGRATING RECIPES TO CREATE DELICIOUS MEALS Eugenia Bone ’78

a delicious meal. The trick is to approach cooking as a continuum, in which each meal draws on elements from a previous one and provides the building blocks for another. That synchronicity is a kitchen ecosystem. For the farmers’ market regular as well as the bulk shopper, for everyday home cooks and aspirational ones, any kitchen ecosystem starts with cooking the freshest in-season ingredients available, preserving some to use in future recipes, and harnessing leftover components for other dishes. In The Kitchen Ecosystem, Eugenia Bone spins multiple dishes from single ingredients: homemade ricotta stars in a pasta dish while the leftover whey is used to braise pork loin; marinated peppers are tossed with shrimp one night and another evening chicken thighs and breast simmer in that leftover marinade. The bones left from a roast chicken bear just enough stock to make stracciatella for two. The small steps in creating “supporting ingredients” actually save time when it comes to putting dinner together. Delicious food is not only a matter of exceptional recipes— though there is an abundance of those here. Rather, it is a matter of approaching the kitchen as a system of connected foods. The Kitchen Ecosystem changes the paradigm of how we cook, and in doing so, it may change everything about the way we eat today.

Former Faculty

Clarkston Potter, 2014

THE PAINTER Peter Heller ’77 Knopf, 2014 Peter Heller ’77, the celebrated author of the breakout best seller The Dog Stars, returns with an achingly beautiful, wildly suspenseful second novel about an artist trying to outrun his past.    Jim Stegner has seen his share of violence and loss. Years ago he shot a man in a bar. His marriage disintegrated. He grieved the one thing he loved. In the wake

PUTNEY POST

The paradigm-shifting cookbook The Kitchen Ecosystem will change how we think about food and cooking. Designed to create and use ingredients that maximize flavor, these 400 recipes are derived from 40 common ingredients—from asparagus to fish to zucchini—used at each stage of their “life cycle:” fresh, preserved, and in a main dish. Seasoned cooks know that the secret to great meals is this: the more you cook, the less you actually have to do to produce

SCANDALS OF CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD Anne Helen Petersen Plume, 2014

Gossip meets history in a compulsively readable collection of Hollywood’s most notorious clashes and controversies in the spirit of Hollywood Babylon. Believe it or not, America’s fascination with celebrity culture was thriving well before the days of TMZ, Perez Hilton, Charlie Sheen’s breakdown, and allegations against Woody Allen. And the stars of yesteryear? They weren’t always the saints we make them out to be. Film professor Anne Helen Petersen is here to set the record straight with Scandals of Classic Hollywood. Pulling little-known gems from the archives of film history, Petersen reveals eyebrow-raising information, including: n T he smear campaign against

the original “it” girl, Clara Bow, started by her best friend

n T he heartbreaking story of

Montgomery Clift’s rapid rise to fame, the car accident that destroyed his face, and the “long suicide” that followed

n F atty Arbuckle’s descent from

Hollywood royalty, fueled by allegations of a boozy orgy turned violent assault

n W hy Mae West was arrested

and jailed for “indecency charges”

n . . . and much more.

Part biography, part cultural history, these stories cover the stuff that films are made of: love, sex, drugs, illegitimate children, illicit affairs, and botched cover-ups—but it’s not all just tawdry gossip in the pages of this book. The stories are all contextualized within the boundaries of film as well as cultural, political, and genderbased history, making for a read that will inform as it entertains. Based upon Petersen’s popular column at The Hairpin, but featuring 100% new content, Scandals of Classic Hollywood is sensationalism made smart. Editor’s Note: Through the Prisms of the Pines, the collection of poetry written by Kari Prager ’65 and published by Robin Barber ’65 and Gail Prager ’68, is now available for purchase online.

Alumni

News

Reunion Southern Landscape by Sally Mann ’69 A new collection of Sally Mann’s photographs is available as the book Southern Landscape. In the four decades that Sally has been printing and publishing her work, she has produced 24 series, has been called “the best American photographer” by Time magazine, and has been the subject of four documentary films. This new collection—all photographs that have never before been published—offers haunting images that are deeply connected to her Southern identity. John Stauffer, in the book’s foreword, notes, “In this new age of finance, digital technology, and quick surface effects, Sally Mann’s photographs are our evangels of the eye, enabling us to walk more gladly and lightly. Confronting her work is like discovering a new, mysterious, and beautiful world. It offers a way to redeem a society that is in decline from greed and pettiness. For like other truly great and enduring artists, she has remained faithful to the love of craft, only using technology in the service of her eye and aesthetic, creating beauty and re-enchanting the world.” Her exceptional skill at printing also sets her apart, as does the evolution of her work and the breadth of her subjects. “Mann’s curiosity about the aesthetic and conceptual possibilities of photography seems virtually boundless,” writes Stauffer.

CLASS OF

1945 : JOAN HERSEY SHIMER, DAVE RAYNOLDS,

CLARE BRETT SMITH, BILL WASSERMAN

The collection includes 11 bound and three loose platinum prints that measure 13" x 15." Southern Landscape, 21st Editions (2013). Photographs by Sally Mann, text by John Stauffer, edited by John Wood. Edition: 58 copies, 11 bound and 3 loose platinum prints. Handcrafted in New England. 21st@21steditions.com/508-398-3000.

CLASS OF

1954 : JOE FINEMAN, JOAN DE GRAAF, CARLY ROGERS

PUTNEY POST

CLASSES OF

CLASSES OF THE

1958–60

1970 S

CLASSES OF THE

1970 S: <front> EVAN SCHWARTZ, STEVE BLACKMER, SARAH MINOT GOLD, AMY NG, LIZ COBBETT WILLIAMS

<middle> PATTI COHEN, EMILY VAN EVERA, SARAH ROSENBAUM, MINDY MAYER, KATHERINE LEE, DAMARIS SOUTH, TRACEY THOMPSON-TURNER, HEIDI HUNT STEELE, MARK CONNORS, SARAH SPURR, GEORDIE HELLER, ABBY RIESER, MARDI GOLDIZEN HILL, FRIC SPRUYT

PUTNEY POST

CLASSES OF

1958–60 : <front> RAUN BURNHAM,

DUSTY SMITH, BETSY DANE, LINCOLN HARRICE, MARIAN HUNTER, KEILA TIBI FULTON DEPOORTER, BARBARA BREASTED WHITESIDES. <back> JERRY BURNHAM, NEILSON ABEEL, TORI BRYER, DICK GOODWIN, JEANIE MCEACHERN, JOHN MCEACHERN, JON ROSENFELD, LEE COMBRINCK-GRAHAM, PHIL MENDERSHAUSEN

CLASS OF

1964 : <front> DAISY PARADIS,

TERRY MORRIS, FRAN ANSLEY, JAN EGLESON <middle> JOYCE WALWORTH, FRANCIE SHAW, BOB PERLEMAN, NANCY SONDOW, HARRIET CROSBY, LEIGH SMITH, STEVE FLANDERS, DAVID BOEHM <back> NGOIMA WA MWAURA, EDDIE GERMON, PETER SCHUBERT, JEFF JONES, DAVID SHELTON, DAN POTTER, CLASS OF

1964

DORCAS GRAY, MARK OBENHAUS, MARC MANN, PENELOPE BOEHM, KOR KILEY

<back> BETSY BERNE, BEA STERN, KATHY BERNSTEIN, MARTI STRAUS, BARBARA ANDREWS, DAVID FITZPATRICK, CHRIS LANDIS, MARSHALL NALLE AYERS, TIM DWIGHT, LINDSAY BORDEN, ANNABELLE HOFFMAN, PHIL TURINO, KATE KREUSI LINCOLN, PETER MEDVIN, CHARLES YOUNG, KERRY MICHAELS, BETSY HEISMAN-TINKHAM, FRANCESCA WOOD, BEN PFOHL, JAMES THOMPSON, BEN GUERRERO, TIM DALY, PAUL SMART, PAULA RODERICK, ELLEN SCHLEFER, CERCIE MILLER PUTNEY POST

CLASSES OF

1984 AND 1985 :

<front> MICHAEL DRURY,

IAN STELL, LAKSHMAN ACHUTHAN, ROB CORNEY <back> KATE LAWLESS, SARAH VELA, DANA HOKIN, CYANE DANDRIDGE, ABBY JONES

CLASSES OF

1984 AND 1985

1989 AND 1990 :

<front> HELEN

COATSWORTH, HEATHER MATHEWS, BREE NEUMANN, KATE MOXHAM <back> LEE HIRSCH, LEAH KING

CLASSES OF

2003–05:

1989 AND 1990

<front> STEPHANIE POWER O’CALLAGHAN, YARROW JONES, TORY VOIGHT, TENAYA SCHNARE, JEANNE SCHWARTZ,

HILLARY FOXWELDON, EMILY ECKMAN, SOPHIA GIANNIOTIS, HOPE FARLEY <middle> AMBER SCHAEFER, ANNIE CARTER, FRANCIS WHITESELL, MOSES RABINOWITZ, KRISTIN BREWER, ANNETTE FROST, MORGAN WOOLSEY, KAILAH WEISS-WEINBERG, DORA LEVINSON, RAYLA SHAWANDA <back> OFURHE IGBINEDION, SETH QUARRIER, ABE BROWN, JOHN SAMUEL MACKAY, CASEY DARROW, MARTIN CROOK, ABBY YOUNG, HALLIE WELLS, LIA SANDERS, WYNDHAM BOYLAN-GARNETT, AMILIE BACON BLACKMAN

PUTNEY POST

Memoriam in

the construction of a home there. His sailboat, the Magnolia, was soon a fixture in Shelter Island catboat-racing regattas. He was a longtime volunteer for Meals on Wheels and a strong supporter of the Mashomack Preserve.

Bill Drew ’39 Bill Drew, of Shelter Island, New York, died on April 28, 2013 at age 93. Bill was born in Flushing, Queens, New York. He was educated at the Sunnydown School in Surrey, England, and after Putney, attended SUNY at Farmingdale, where he studied animal husbandry. He joined the American Field Service as part of the English military in World War II, driving battlefront ambulances in Africa, Burma, and India. Upon returning to the U.S., he married and worked briefly with an airline, but his major life’s work was with First National Citibank, later to become Citibank, and now Citigroup. His early retirement, divorce, and subsequent marriage to Maxine Kass led to frequent weekend sojourns to Shelter Island in the 1970s, and

PUTNEY POST

Bill was someone who clearly and simply loved life, and did all he could to enjoy it. Friends and family will forever remember his warmth, humanity, humor, and direct engagement with so many people from so many walks of life. His wife, Maxine Kass, his sons, Christopher and Timothy Drew, his stepsons, David and Neal Kass, nine grandchildren, and eight greatgrandchildren will all miss him.

Ann Strieby Philips ’39 Ann Philips passed away on June 19, 2014, at a retirement community in New Hampshire. She divided most of her adult life between a winter residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a summer residence in Greensboro, Vermont. She was born Ann Strieby in New York City in 1921, to Ted and Fran Strieby, both of whom grew up in Colorado before moving to New York City to pursue Ted’s engineering career. Ann spent her early years in Milburn, New Jersey, then attended the Putney. She graduated from Bennington College and

completed some graduate studies at MIT Ann was a dedicated artist, and paid particular attention to penand-ink sketches, pastel drawings, and mixed-media collage works. As a young adult, she bicycled in parts of Europe and Canada, establishing lifelong friendships and an artistic eye for landscapes. She married Thomas Philips, Jr. in 1952, in Greensboro. Together, Tom and Ann raised Christopher and Thomas Philips III in Cambridge, Massachusetts, spending summers in Greensboro with the grandparents. During the years when the children were in school, Ann taught art at the Belmont Day School in Massachusetts. Later on, she taught cooking classes to adults through a continuing education program in Cambridge. In the early 1980s, Ann purchased a summer camp in Greensboro, and in the 1990s, she made Vermont her formal place of residence. Ann loved Greensboro, and would often stay there in the fall until the town turned the water off for the season. She made friends in many places, and it was these friendships that sustained her throughout a long and healthy life. Her cheery smile will be missed by all who knew her.

Bob Darrow ’40 Bob Darrow, of Mendon, Vermont, died August 10, 2014 in his home,

surrounded by his loving children. He was born August 14, 1922, to William H. and Ellen (Person) Darrow, and grew up tending his father’s apple orchard in Putney. After Putney and Middlebury, he earned his M.D. from Yale Medical School and served as a lieutenant in the medical corps during World War II and the Korean conflict. After completing his residency at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, he moved his young family to Rutland, and in 1956, established his private practice in general surgery. Bob was widely recognized as a physician of exceptional talent, empathy, and practicality, and was beloved by his patients and the community at large. A lifelong outdoorsman, Bob was a four-event skier for Middlebury, and served as medical adviser for the Killington Ski Patrol and the National Ski Patrol. He was a NASTAR racer from 1993 to 2003, placed in the high jump in the Senior Olympics, and was a longtime member of both the Mendon Fish & Game Club and Weston’s Wantastiquet Trout Club. Bob also established a family tree farm in Shrewsbury, traveled widely throughout his life, and was a theater buff and emeritus member of the Killington Music Festival board.

Bob was predeceased by his wife of many years, Susan Ackerman Darrow, and is survived by his children, Alison, Pamela, Bruce, and Jeffrey, and by his loving companion, Gillian Gaines of Shrewsbury.

George Brunn ’41 The Honorable George Brunn passed away peacefully in his sleep on June 30, 2014 after a short illness. George was born in Vienna, Austria, and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was a young man. George enlisted in the army and fought in North Africa and Italy. After returning from the war, George received his B.A. and J.D. degrees from Stanford, and practiced law in San Francisco. He then became a judge for Alameda County and worked as a trial judge for twenty years. After retiring, George continued working as an arbitrator and mediator, and spent much of his time writing handbooks for judges, both on search and seizure and the death penalty. To George’s family and friends, he was known for his wit, smarts, limericks, jokes, and poems that he made up over the years. On his 90th birthday, he had a small gathering of family and friends, as he had for many years. The room was filled with joy and laughter. George was preceded in death by his loving wife, Ruth. They had been married 54 years. George is survived by his children, Tracy and Scott. A celebration of his life was held this fall.

Bernardine Cate ’42 Bernardine Cate, born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on March 25, 1925, died on May 10, 2014 at a hospital in metropolitan New York City after major heart surgery. Bernardine, aged 89, was the older daughter of Sheridan and Lucia Cate. She attended schools in Pittsfield before graduating from Putney, then from Smith College. She earned graduate degrees in philosophy at Columbia University

and the University of Chicago. She then joined the faculty of the University of New Brunswick in Canada. After a few years in Canada, she moved to Scotland, where she taught at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh for a few years. For more than 60 years, Bernardine was a resident of Scotland. Toward the end of that time, she began to spend summers in a lovely rural cottage in Townshend, Vermont. It was from her Vermont home that illness required she enter a series of hospitals during recent months. Bernie was a private and independent person. Her interests were mostly scholarly and horticultural, activities from which she derived great satisfaction and pleasure. She was most animated when, with spade or hoe in hand, she tried to amend the works of nature in a glade on the hillside near her house in Vermont. Bernardine is survived by her brother, Addison ’39, of Easthampton, Massachusetts, and her sister Lucia ’46, of Acworth, New Hampshire.

Lathrop Hoffman ’42 Lathrop G. Hoffman passed away from natural causes on April 2, with his entire family with him for his last days. He was born in Los Angeles and raised in South Bend, Indiana. He joined the army shortly after graduating from Putney, to serve in India and China during World War II. He became the youngest first lieutenant in the Army. Upon discharge from the Army in 1946, he returned to Los Angeles to attend UCLA. In

1947, he married Dorothy Anne Cleary, and graduated from UCLA in 1950 with a degree in banking and finance. After college, he began in the automobile business with the PGH Company, selling Studebakers from the downtown Los Angeles dealership, which he acquired in 1953. When Studebaker closed in the United States, he established Hoffman Tile, manufacturing ceramic tile; and in 1971, he purchased a Volkswagen dealership. Over the years, he owned franchises of more than twenty auto manufacturers, with stores all over the Los Angeles area. He was always a good neighborhood dealer, supporting the communities he served and representing the retail automobile industry in a positive way. Lathrop was also a founder and board member of the Bank of Monrovia, which became Granite State Bank and was later acquired by Citizens Business Bank. Lathrop’s community involvement was extensive, and he was also an avid golfer, longtime Thoroughbred horse owner and breeder, and a familiar face at the Santa Anita Racetrack. He loved flying and was an accomplished pilot, with a license to fly single and multi-engine aircraft. He obtained his helicopter license when he was 79. Lathrop was a devoted family man whose great joy later in life was taking his entire family on annual vacations so they all could enjoy one another’s company. He was a good, kind, and generous man interested in every opportunity life offered him. He was an inspiration to his children and grandchildren, a consummate dealmaker, and a wonderful storyteller. His survivors include his wife of over 66 years, Dorothy, and his sisters Barbara Henry ’46 and Kiriki De Diego Metzo ’46; seven children; and 18 grandchildren. He was pre-deceased by his son, Timothy, in 2003, and four brothers, including Donald ’41.

Chilton Anderson ’47 Chilton “Andy” Anderson, a longtime resident of Taos, New Mexico, died on March 12, 2014, at age 85, after a long illness. Andy was known as a Renaissance man, an accomplished cellist, a rancher, and a ski instructor. He founded the world-renowned Taos School of Music in 1963, a chamber music organization that draws nationally-known string quartets to New Mexico’s high desert mountains every summer to play and learn chamber music. He directed the organization for 44 years, turning its leadership over to his daughter, Kathleen, in 2007. Andy also served as president of the Taos Arts Association in later years (now the Taos Center for the Arts), and in 2000, he was honored with the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. In 1955, Andy was hired as the first ski instructor at Taos Ski Valley. He continued to teach skiing there for 47 years, and was inducted into the New Mexico Ski Hall of Fame in 2010. Additionally, Andy was a successful cattle rancher who loved to work the land; Andy and his wife, Judy, were inducted into the New Mexico Angus Association Hall of Fame in 1992. He left his mark on the Taos valley in many ways, and is survived by Judy, his wife of 55 years; his children, Kenneth, David, and Kathleen; two grandchildren; a legacy of music; and legions of skiers making their way down the slopes of Taos Ski Valley.

PUTNEY POST

Madhi Elmandjra ’50 Mahdi Elmandjra died on June 13, 2014 in Rabat, Morocco, at age 81. He had been in poor health for some time. He came to Putney in the fall of 1948 after having completed the baccalaureate at Lyceé Lyautey in Casablanca. After graduating from Putney, he majored in government at Cornell before going on to study at London School of Economics, where he received his Ph.D. in 1957. After that, he did it all: working as director general of the Moroccan Broadcasting Service; teaching international relations at the University of Rabat; acting as counselor to the Moroccan Mission at the U.N.; and from 1961-1981, occupying various positions at the U.N., including assistant directorgeneral of UNESCO for social sciences, human sciences, and culture. Mahdi was widely known as a “futurist:” he was a founder of the World Future Studies Federation, and was its president from 1977-1981. Over the years, he was involved in a number of activities and organizations associated with “future studies.” He was a president of the Moroccan Organization of Human Rights, the producer of 20 television programs, and a prolific author of many books and over 500 articles.

PUTNEY POST

While widely known and appreciated in the broader international community, it appears that, to some, he was a thorn in the flesh of his home country. The Moroccan World News noted that his lectures are banned in Morocco, and credited him with prophesying the recent Arab Spring: “He was quite sure that the peoples of the region would surely wake up of their hibernation and topple down tyranny. He based his prophecy on the prevalent political corruption, despotism, and the lack of basic human rights. Professor [Elmandjra] lived until he saw the dictators falling like dominos.”

John Peaslee ’51 John R. Peaslee, of Washington, DC, died August 5, 2014 in Bangor, Maine, of complications from a fall suffered on July 29, 2014 at his cabin on Spednic Lake near Vanceboro, Maine. John, a lifelong Washingtonian, was the son of Washington architect Horace Whittier Peaslee and Frances Monroe Hopkins. He graduated from Cornell University after attending Putney, then worked as an electrical engineer for the National Security Agency for 37 years until his retirement in 1994. In retirement, he continued to work on electronics at home, and was noted for his ability to fix anything and for inventing ingenious solutions to common problems. He volunteered with the C&O Canal Maintenance Department for 15 years, and was active in regular hiking and wine-tasting groups. He built the cabin at Spednic Lake himself in the mid-1960s, and went there as much as possible. He is survived by his wife of 32 years, Jean Bolan Peaslee, and by three daughters: Lisa, Alaine, and Sarah. Contributions may be made to WETA Classical Radio in Arlington, VA., or to the Putney School Development Office.

Joy Madsen Scott ’52

Alice Cobb Ipsen ’55

Joy Madsen Scott, age 80, of New Fairfield, Connecticut, died peacefully with her family by her side on April 11, 2014, at her home on Candlewood Isle, Connecticut. Born on August 24, 1933, in Frederiksberg, Denmark, she moved to New York City as a child, spending her formative years at the Walt Whitman School. After Putney, Joy studied at Simmons College in Boston. After college, she married Harvey Richard Scott, and had twin boys, Mark and Peder, and a daughter, Lisa. Joy and Harvey lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and North Salem, New York, before retiring to Chesapeake City, Maryland, where they enjoyed living near the water on their farm.

Alice Cobb Ipsen died in Odense, Denmark, on August 31, 2014. Alice was born in Pasadena, California, in 1936. Her father was the acclaimed author Humphrey Cobb, who wrote the novel Paths of Glory, which was adapted for the screen by Stanley Kubrick in 1957, and co-wrote the 1937 movie San Quentin with Humphrey Bogart. Alice’s father died in 1944 when she was eight years old. She grew up in Port Washington, New York, with her mother Anne Louise (Hubbard) Cobb, and brother, William Cobb.

Education was a lifelong passion for Joy. She was a nursery school teacher at the North Salem Nursery School for more than 30 years, and camp director at Candlewood Isle Summer Camp until her death. She attended the Academy of Lifelong Learning through the University of Delaware in her later years, where she enjoyed learning and studying with her peers. Known for her love of community and her contributions to her congregations, Joy was an active volunteer at the New Fairfield Community Thrift Shop and a member of both the Town Point Methodist Church in Chesapeake City, Maryland and the New Fairfield Congregational Church in New Fairfield, Connecticut. Joy was preceded in death by her husband, Harvey, and her son, Mark. She is survived by her son Peder and her daughter Lisa, as well as seven grandchildren.

Alice matriculated at The Putney School in 1952, where she developed the artistic talents she had demonstrated since childhood. She received a B.A. from the University of Arizona in 1959, and a Master of Public Health degree from Yale University in 1967. It was there that she met her husband, Johannes (“Johs”) Ipsen, a professor at Yale who was visiting from the University of Copenhagen. Alice and Johannes were married in June 1972, in Philadelphia. They settled in Aarhus, Denmark in 1973, where Johs became a professor in epidemiology and biostatistics. It was a new era for Alice in Aarhus. She resumed her artistic work at the Aarhus Academy of Fine Arts, specializing in graphics. Johs died in 1994, and in 1997, Alice moved to Odense, where she became a dear and a regular member of the Fyns Grafiske Værksted (Funen Graphics Workshop) and honed her skills in etching, lithography, and the traditions of Funen’s drawing and painting school. She exhibited at juried

exhibitions in Denmark and internationally, and got great satisfaction from mastering the ancient skills of delicate inscribing on metal and stone. She was an active and welcoming member of her community, always participating and transmitting information to new graphic designers and artists. She will be sadly missed by all who knew her. She is survived by her niece, Annie Cobb, cousins John ’55 and Mary Stickler, and a great-niece, Louisa Wood.

Jonathan Schell ’61 Jonathan Schell, longtime writer for The New Yorker who was known throughout his career for his direct, outspoken criticism of nuclear expansion, died in March of 2014 at the age of 70. Jonathan rose rapidly to prominence in 1966—when he was just 23 years old and had barely entered into the world of journalism—with the publication of “The Village of Ben Suc” in the The New Yorker, a piece that told the harsh story of the American military’s complete obliteration of a South Vietnamese village and forced relocation of its population. “The Village of Ben Suc” caused a stir with a public whose antiwar sentiment was already on the rise. He returned to Vietnam in 1967, following along as our military destroyed the towns and houses of two Northern provinces. The piece that followed, “The Military Half,” shone even more light on the U.S. operation in Vietnam as another grim indictment of the war. After that, Jonathan continued to write bestselling nonfiction books exposing the realities and dangers of nuclear proliferation. He gained even greater renown for The Fate

of the Earth, a book that caught the public’s attention and contributed to the growing cry for nuclear disarmament in the 1980s. The book was chosen by New York University as one of the 100 best works of journalism in the 20th century. The New Yorker wrote, in its remembrance of Jonathan, “In a way that’s hard to imagine in our fragmented media age, his essay mattered: it played an outsized role in catalyzing the nuclear-freeze movement, which in turn played an outsized role in making nuclear war unthinkable.” Throughout his career, Jonathan continued to openly criticize the U.S. government for what he considered its systematic betrayal of the American public. He received both harsh criticism and extensive praise for his work, and was called too idealistic, but felt vindicated when, in 2007, The Wall Street Journal published an article urging disarmament, written and signed by Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn. Jonathan worked for The New Yorker for 20 years as the lead editorial writer and staff writer. After The New Yorker, he wrote for Newsday, New York Newsday, and then The Nation, while also teaching at Yale, Princeton, New York University, and other universities. Jonathan was born August 21, 1943, in Manhattan, the son of Orville Hickock Schell, Jr. and Marjorie Bertha. After Putney, he graduated from Harvard, then spent a year in Tokyo studying Japanese. It was on his return trip from Japan that he stopped in Vietnam, and came across the story that would become “The Village of Ben Suc.” He is survived by his sister, Suzy Schell Pearce ’56. (Photo by David Shankbone)

Ron Burgess ’63 Ronald Burgess was born on July 22, 1946, at Harlem Hospital, to the late Leonard Burgess and Dorothy Burgess. He died on February 17, 2014. During his time at Putney, at age 15, he was baptized, and soon thereafter started in pioneer work as a Jehovah’s Witness. On September 1, 1965, Ron started serving as a member of the United States Bethel Family in Brooklyn. He worked faithfully at his assignment in the bindery and left on September 1, 1969. After Ron’s marriage to Edith Alsford, they served as pioneers for a period of time in St. Lucia, where he assisted in the formation of the Soufriere congregation on the west coast of the island. After the news of the expectancy of their first child, they returned to the United States. Ron served faithfully with the Mount Morris and Triboro congregations. Over the years, Ron enjoyed a host of theocratic privileges while serving in New York. Ron is survived by his four children, as well as by two brothers, four sisters, and extended family. He will also be remembered for his deep love of Jehovah, being a diligent student of the bible, his love for the brotherhood, and his gregarious and generous spirit. His classmates remember him with love, and a few quotes from them are included in the Alumni Notes section on page 47.

Jeff Kim ’90 from Jeff’s sister, Eileen Jeff Kim passed away unexpectedly on May 27, 2014, in Oakland, California. He was 40 years old. The Putney School was a special place for Jeff. While he was there, he struggled, as all adolescents do, but also made some lifelong friends and learned a lot about who he was, what he valued, and what he wanted out of life. From that experience, I think he honed his love of nature, animals, and art. After Putney, Jeff went on to art school, completing a B.A. at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Jeff taught himself how to become a successful software engineer in his early 20s, and continued to make art throughout his life. Jeff never married. In the last five months of his life, Jeff adopted a threelegged dog named Foster from the local animal shelter. In typical Jeff fashion, he sought out the most overlooked being with a kind soul; they quickly bonded and became kindred spirits. Jeff lived his life with courage, honesty, intensity, and compassion. We loved him, and will miss him dearly. He is survived by his parents, Dr. Chong Sang and Cho Hea Kim; two sisters, Christine Kim and Eileen Kim; two loving nephews, Ben Goldings and Levi Brown; and one adoring niece, Anna Goldings. If you would like to obtain more information, you may contact me at Eileen_kim23@hotmail.com, or by phone at 510-559-3354. Thank you for supporting Jeff and being his friend.

PUTNEY POST

Jamie Kanzler ’07 written by David Crook ’07 September 27 marked a year since Jamie Kanzler’s death. Jamie spent three years at Putney, graduating in 2007. During his time at Putney, he made incredibly diverse friendships that helped to glue the community together. Jamie was p.m. barn head for a time. He loved the cows, and I remember him telling me one evening that he’d just helped to put down a sick cow. It was clearly a painful experience for him, but he seemed to take more notice of the feelings of the other people involved. During our senior year, the two of us were on the standards committee together. It was intimidating for students to go before standards, but Jamie had a gentle manner that made them comfortable presenting their side of the case. One of Jamie’s teachers, Brian Cohen, told the following story: “I taught Jamie at Putney in drawing and printmaking. His visual insights were vivid, idiosyncratic, and brilliant, like everything about him. At one point, after giving him a little advice, I said (joking a bit), ‘Jamie, I say this as a father, with love.’ Thereafter, for the next three years he was at Putney, he called me ‘Dad.’ He said it with love and without irony, and I loved to hear it.”

PUTNEY POST

Jamie had a knack for organizing community events. He was a founder of Freaky Juice Tuesday, an event for which people got together to sip fruit cocktails. He periodically made assembly announcements along the lines of, “Hey everyone, this Tuesday night we’ll be having Freaky Juice Tuesday at the broken-down school bus by the barn at 9 p.m. Bring a drinking vessel and be freaky,” followed by uproarious applause. Also, for our graduating class’s card-burning, he brought along lamp oil and taught us to breathe fire. After Putney, Jamie spent a few months in California as an emergency medical technician. Apparently, it was a very difficult experience, but he was always testing himself and pushing boundaries, and it makes sense that he would choose to subject himself to painful things rather than leaving it to others and ignoring their pain. Not long after graduating from Sarah Lawrence, he moved to New Orleans with a college friend, who later related to me that on the day they drove into New Orleans for the first time, Jamie cried silent tears of joy as he saw the pastel houses covered in vines and the liveliness of the city streets. According to his neighbor, Patrice Garrison, Jamie made friends with local families, helped look after the young and the elderly, revived down-and-out people on the streets, and volunteered at the local library. Patrice remembered, “He helped the kids with their homework. He also looked out for Grandpa a lot. He would watch him when I was gone sometimes. I would come home and it would just be Jamie and Grandpa.”

A fund has been set up in Jamie’s name to support community projects in his New Orleans neighborhood. If you’d like to support this, please get in touch with Jamie’s mother Janine by e-mail at j9kan@ comcast.net. Ultimately, Jamie’s own words are the best to remember him by, so a poem by him has been included in this edition of the Post (see Alumni Notes, page 58.) The untitled poem describes a surfer’s sense of wonder overcoming fear, a process that I think Jamie experienced constantly throughout his life. Editor’s Note: We receive news of deceased alumni through many channels; however, we do not always find an accompanying obituary. One alumna fell into this category during the production of this issue, and we wanted to share her name:

Juliana Day Franz ’37

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