FEATURED ALUMNA ARTIST Photograph by Christina Rahr Lane ’84, who studied photography at Sarah Lawrence College. Lane worked professionally in New York and was picture editor for Orion Magazine. She currently focuses on people, events, and performance in the Berkshires, and her work is part of the show “Where We Live: Through the Lenses of 11 Photographers,” at Hotchkiss School’s Tremaine Gallery in September. She resides with her three children—her favorite subjects—in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Rachel Morton
Trudy E. Hall
Editor rachel@rachelmorton.com
Head of School
Susan H. Geary
Web and Production Manager Class Notes Editor sgeary@emmawillard.org Jill Smith
Class Notes Coordinator jsmith@emmawillard.org Bidwell ID
Design www.bidwellid.com
Larry Lichtenstein
Director of Advancement Please forward address changes to: Emma Willard School 285 Pawling Avenue Troy, New York 12180 518.833.1787 alumnae@emmawillard.org or visit www.emmawillard.org/alumnae
emma willard school fall 2010
features They Are All Our Daughters
Empowering girls to be free to develop to their highest potential is a fundamental value of the EWS community.
12 Against Their Will Slavery, bride burning, sex trafficking—Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists tell how to turn oppression into opportunity for girls and women worldwide. 16 Grand Parenting Her mother’s mental illness gave
Rachel Granfield ’95 a life of uncertainty and chaos. Everything changed when her grandparents took over.
18 Like Family Sometimes a child needs more than a
parent can provide. Mentors like Sarah Soule ’77 have learned that whatever they give, they get back in spades.
22 And Baby Makes Two Single and in her 40s, Abby Bronson ’79 made a family by adopting a child from Guatemala.
24 CSI: Troy The murder scene? The basement of the science building. The investigators? Students in Linda Maier’s science class, Forensics. The perp? Only laboratory evidence will tell.
departments 28 Connections
On the cover
03 Headlines
Typography and design by Jessica Hische.
e a mentor. Offer your wisB dom and experience to a girl.
Reunion and Distinguished Alumnae Awards.
04 Emma Everywhere
34 Class Notes
The 196th Commencement puts grads in the driver’s seat.
80 Women’s Work
Emma, the bulletin of Emma Willard School, is published by the Communications Office for the Emma Willard School community, and its mission is to capture the school’s remarkable history, values, and culture through objective coverage that adheres to the highest journalistic and literary standards.
10 Action Faculty-student poster project highlights body image issues.
It’s about more than achieving the summit, says Dana Alexander Kaleta ’85.
Printed on 100% recycled paper that is manufactured entirely with nonpolluting, wind-generated energy.
35
When Polly Parker Dodds’ daughter, Deborah, decided to attend Emma Willard, Polly was thrilled.
A family tradition If you would like more information on how to incorporate Emma Willard School into your financial plans, please contact Michele Susko, director of planned giving, at (518) 833-1788 or by email at msusko@emmawillard.org.
“While I was a student at Emma, I learned the power of my own mind,” says Polly. “I knew it was the right place for Deb.” Deb’s experience was incredibly positive. “I instantly felt at home,” offers Deb. “There were girls from all over the world with varied interests and talents. We were encouraged to find our passion.” As an active volunteer for Emma, Deb knows the importance of giving back. “I want Emma Willard to continue to offer the best education for girls,” says Deb. Toward that end, she recently decided to include the school in her will. “I know there will be larger gifts than mine, but I also know that every gift—no matter the size—is important.” Deb shared her plans with her mother who decided to make a similar provision for the school. “Emma Willard gave me so much. I want the school to be able to continue to bestow similar gifts on the students of tomorrow,” says Polly. It turns out that the top-notch education that Deb and Polly were intent on preserving will be enjoyed by another Dodds woman. Deb’s daughter, Katie, entered Emma this fall as a member of the Class of 2014. “I’m proud that three generations of the Dodds family have Emma Willard in common. I’m also just a bit jealous; I would do high school all over again if I could. I bet not many people would say that!” says Deb.
headlines
03
By Trudy E. Hall, Head of School
Your Turn to Help a Girl The names and dates are not critical; it is the point of the story that matters. More than several years ago, I sat with my boss after a particularly challenging meeting. The actions that I needed to take to lead the organization were clear. There was just one small problem: I did not know how to do any of the things on the list. Tears were welling. Let’s be honest; tears were leaking. In between the assorted gurgley noises and nasal twinges that come with a good cry, I managed to coherently utter, “I can’t do this job.” I am sure you have had such a moment—a moment when you were fully and totally overwhelmed, feeling your world of work crash in around you, being discovered for the imposter you surely must be. I have no memory of how much time elapsed before my boss responded to my sniveling. In my memory it is a mere nanosecond. “Think about the three things you can do in the next three months that will move us in the right direction.” I call that phenomenal mentoring. Imagine everything that might have been said by my boss in that moment. “We don’t need weak sisters on the team.” “Go ahead and quit then.” “I hate it when women cry on the job.” The gender of my boss is not important, nor is the rest of the conversation. The point of the story is that I was offered a lift up for a better view, a helping hand, an opportunity for professional development. I didn’t have a boss in that moment; I had something much better: a mentor. When was the last time you were properly mentored? Felt good deep down, didn’t it? Somebody saw your potential once. Somebody helped you become better at what you were already good at. Somebody took notice when you needed them to. Now it is your turn. (Perhaps it has been your turn for a while, but that doesn’t mean you get off the
hook!) When was the last time you reached down, over, beside you to mentor someone who could use your wisdom? Nobody teaches us how to be mentors. You can’t take that course in graduate school. You simply do what was done for you because that is what we do for each other in all walks of life where wisdom and experience matter more than authority or power. Author Josephine Billings reminds us that to the world we may be just one person, but to one person we may be the world. You know you owe your Who needs a bit success to those who showed of mentoring you the way. I bet you can visualize them as you read this in your world? paragraph. You can hear their words, see their gestures, and remember their facial expressions. You can still feel their compassion though your relationship with them may have been years ago. Look around in your life. Who needs a bit of mentoring in your world? Who could use some sage advice, some smart guidance, a gentle nudge? For whom could you be the world right now?
Look around in your life.
Fall 2010
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emma everywhere
emma
5 emma everywhere
In the Driver’s Seat
Mark Van Wormer
Though the day was sparkling and spirits were high, the microphones were temporarily dead, so Head of School Trudy Hall declared forcefully, “I’m going to use my Emma voice!” And she did, and she was heard at the 196th commencement, where 74 girls from six continents received individual recognition from the Head, words of camaraderie from senior speakers Anouskha Millear and Julia Johnson, and hard-earned diplomas from Board Chair Wendy Pestel Lehmann ’64 on a faultless day in spring. “The 74 members of this class will not go through life, you will grow through life. No one is in the passenger seat,” said Hall, “You are drivers. “ Commencement speakers were three Emma women from three eras: Kendra Stearns O’Donnell ’60 ’P88, a former president of the EWS Board of Trustees, who in 1987 became the first woman appointed principal of Philips Exeter Academy. “We in our class were privileged to be pioneers,” she said of the barriers women had to overcome in that time. “We dreamed, we questioned, we persisted.” Ariana Gadd ’00, who graduated with honors from the University of Chicago in 2004, recently left a career in television, film, and media to volunteer at an HIV/AIDS clinic in Africa. “I’m still asking, what’s next?” she said. Zoe Sumner, who just completed her freshman year at Emma, read a poem, “Reflections,” she’d written for the occasion. Hall concluded the ceremony by saying, “Go empowered to share your considerable drive with the world. Trust that we will be watching; know that we will be proud; be certain that we will remember you.”
Fall 2010
emma everywhere
6
“
I would say she is
a spontaneous,
Kneeling pad of honor Carla Sabloff Smith ’74 was in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., training to become a licensed D.C. tour guide when she made an amazing discovery. While walking through St. John’s Chapel, she was admiring the hand-embroidered kneeling pads that adorned each chair. Each pad had the name of a famous American who, according to the guide, “gave a great contribution to our country.” “I saw presidents, scientists, artists,” says Smith. “As I was walking down the aisle I happened to notice one cushion on top of a chair, off its hook, and it caught my eye. Imagine my astonishment when I saw that it was a pad honoring our own Emma Hart Willard!”
generous, gentle, empathetic, energetic, selfless, crazy (in a good way), motherly, powerful, and dynamic woman.” A student on Jenn Ulicnik, who was awarded the Madelyn Levitt and Linda Glazer Toohey Award for Faculty Excellence.
Blazing Relay Takes Jesters to States Members of the track 4/40 relay team never expected to qualify for the state meet. First of all, one of the foursome dropped out of the competition due to tiredness. Caroline Gregg ’10, who was the alternate, took her place, but the girls still knew they just didn’t have the times to make it to States.
“We thought maybe we’d shave a couple of seconds off our time,” says Sara Sobolewski ’10. “Maybe make a school record if we were lucky.” But something happened that day during the Section II qualifying meet that astounded all of them. The four girls ran a truly blazing relay. With Fatima Johnson ’11 in the first spot, Caroline in the second, Gabby Gil’Haerem ’11 running third, and Sara as the anchor, the Jesters set a school record, running 4:06.92.
They shaved a full 10 seconds off their time and qualified for States. “We were all ecstatic,” says Gabby, remembering as they watched Sara running the final anchor leg. “We were chasing after you,” she laughs. “The officials were like, you have to come back here!” “Other teams are competitive within their relay,” said Gabby, “but we’re all proud and supportive of each other. It just makes it a better environment, so we do better.”
Caroline Gregg ’10 (in red) won the 200m dash in the Section II D2 State Qualifier meet with a time of 26.06 (the second fastest time in school history; she owns the fastest time as well).
emma
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Challenge Met Trustee Michal Colby Wadsworth ’65 and her husband, Jim, offered a challenge: If 2,500 members of the Emma family made gifts of any amount to the school by June 30, 2010, the Wadsworths would add $250,000 to their total. The donations came steadily in, but five days before the deadline, we were still 100 donors down. Alumnae, students, parents, and friends rallied and by 5 p.m. on June 30, the goal had been met. In total, more than 2,600 members of the community gave to EW, an increase of 30% in the number of donors from last year.
New Hire John Ball has been appointed assistant head of school for academic affairs at Emma Willard School. He is the former head of the Upper School at Germantown Academy in Ft. Washington, Pennsylvania, and a former science instructor at The Webb Schools in Claremont, California.
Jamie Baxter and Alice Wallace
Tangemen Medal Awarded Alice Dodge Wallace ’38 was awarded the Tangeman Medal, the highest honor Emma Willard’s Board of Trustees bestows on an alumna for her service. The seventh recipient, Wallace was presented with the medal by Jamie Adkins Baxter ’61, the 1999 recipient, and Trudy Hall during a visit in Boulder, Colorado.
The Lamar Writing Prize is given annually to a ninth- or tenth-grade writer who demonstrates unusual imagination and commitment to her craft. This year the Lamar Prize went to two students, Rebecca Peinert ’12 and Lauren Christiansen ’12.
Post Humor by Lauren Christiansen
I regret to inform you that this poem was found post humor. The author is no longer laughing, in fact she has been done for a while now. While regrettable, you should be aware that this is also unavoidable. You see, nobody can laugh forever, despite the advances of modern silliness. So I encourage you to get on with your lives, because eventually you’ll stop laughing.
Student Wins Study Abroad Scholarship Rae Steinbach, a senior from Chatham, N.Y., has been awarded one of 650 National Security Language Initiative for Youth scholarships for 2010–2011. Rae will study Chinese in China for the summer. Funded by the U.S. Department of State, the scholarship is merit-based and covers all program costs for participants including travel; tuition and related academic preparation, support and testing for language study; educational and cultural activities focused on language learning; orientations; food and accommodations with a host family.
Fall 2010
emma everywhere
Poetry Prized
Newsmakers
8
click
emma
Because how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Kristin V. Rehder
—Annie Dillard
10
Gemma Halfi
action
Houseparent
Thi s is my bod y!
By R ACHEL MORTON
Thi s is wh at my bod
y can do for This is my body me ! … it is C-U-RV-Y and I like that! My body it like loves to hula hoop and belly It can ofte dance. n be found danc ing like barefoot) at crazy (usuall concerts and y music festivals the country all around ! My body also harbors intense voic a delicate yet e box that can croon out som tunes. My e gorgeous body is now embarking on journey of train the intense ing for a half marathon. I body for all love my the fun it allo ws me to have ! I wish my hips weren't quit e so voluptuo least their cur us, but at viness is cru cial in accentuating the shimmies all of and twists I do when I'm belly dancing!
Our Bodies: Imperfect and Wonderful Are your hands freakishly small? Your stomach way too big? Your legs ridiculously long? Your calves insanely developed? Your chest too flat? These are judgments that many girls and women make about their bodies every day. The Peer Educators at Emma wanted to do something bold to call attention to the fact that negative body image was a problem. So they enlisted the aid of their houseparents and together they came up with a project they called These Are Our Bodies. They asked for volunteers among the female teaching and resident faculty to be photographed and to write a few sentences about the great things their bodies had allowed them to One night the Houseparents accomplish and then what they these posters perceived as a flaw and what on bathroom mirrors was the upside of that flaw. So for example, English teacher Frances O’Connor says her body has helped her dance the Nutcracker, cliff jump, and give birth to her daughter. She wishes her eyes were bigger, but says, “they help me see the world as only I can.” Houseparent and college counselor Carrie Turvey loves that her body might “spontaneously combust into
plastered
all over campus.
emma
dance,” and though she wishes she had more defined muscle tone, “at least you don’t need muscle to do the hustle!” A total of 20 women volunteered to participate in the project. The result was a collection of posters that the houseparents one night plastered on bathroom mirrors all over campus. Gemma Halfi, the houseparent who coordinated the project, says that “All of sudden the girls woke up and on every mirror they went to was one of these posters,” she says. “The message is: We all have things we perceive as flaws, but it’s how you interpret it that matters.” The posters stayed up for over two weeks and even had a stint at a faculty meeting so the male faculty could see them. “The men were blown away,” says Halfi. “They thought it was great.” One of the aims of the project was to give the girls a boost of positive self-image before going into spring break and the beginning of bathing suit season. “Especially international students,” says Halfi, “we hear they are under a lot of pressure. After being in the U.S., they go home and they might have gained a little weight as a result of the different diet. By American standards we wouldn’t look at them as overweight, but their families may pressure them to lose weight.”
11 action
Fall 2009
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emma
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BY KIM ASCH
Against Their Will " More girls and women are now
missing
from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men
killed on the battlefield
Sandra Dionisi
in all the wars of the 20th century."
How can we FREE and empower women and girls who are forced into slavery?
Fall 2010
âž”
14
O
n the morning Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn came to speak about the rampant, systemic oppression of girls and women around the globe—what they describe as “the paramount moral challenge” of the 21st century—it just so happened to be Emma Hart Willard’s 213th birthday. The august occasion (celebrated with cake after the talk) provided a not so rose-colored lens through which to view women’s uncertain progress over the past two centuries. Of course, Western women have gained much ground in the struggle for gender equity since the school was founded in 1814, but in poorer countries subjugation abounds in the form of sex trafficking, forced labor, acid attacks, bride burnings, and mass rape. Gross inequality is still the norm in much of the developing world, where females have much less access to education and health care and little or no power over their own lives. Head of School Trudy Hall told the crowd, who gathered at nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to hear the couple’s talk, that Madame Willard would be “deeply chagrined” to learn that efforts to empower women are still so critical and so necessary after all these years. “I can almost hear her say, ‘It is our moral responsibility to correct this insidious and devastating global reality, and I expect all of you—I expect my school—to take a stand and play a role in a grand solution. You will provide a progress report by my next birthday.’” Kristof and WuDunn say the plight of women in the developing world was also largely off their radar until they got married in 1988 and moved to Beijing to be correspondents for the New York Times. There, they experienced an “awakening.” The eyeIn poorer countries, opener for female them wasn’t witnessing the abounds in the form of Tiananmen sex trafficking, forced Square massacre of labor, acid attacks, bride between 400 burnings, and mass rape. and 800 prodemocracy demonstrators, though that was bad enough, but a littleknown demographic study that outlined a human rights violation that had claimed tens of thousands more lives. The study found that 39,000 baby girls died annually in China because parents didn’t give them the same medical care and attention that boys received. “As many infant girls died unnecessarily every week in China as protestors died in Tiananmen Square,” the couple reports. “Those Chinese girls never received a column inch of news coverage, and we
subjugation
began to wonder if our journalistic priorities were skewed.” They uncovered similar tales of violence and neglect in other counties. In India, they learned, a “bride burning” takes place about every two hours to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry. Throughout places like Cambodia, Malaysia, and India, millions of women and girls are enslaved and forced to do labor of all kinds, including prostitution. “Girls and women are locked in brothels and beaten if they resist, fed just enough to be kept alive and often sedated with drugs to pacify them and often to cultivate addiction,” the journalists say. “It appears,” the couple reports, “that more girls and women are now missing from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men killed on the battlefield in all the wars of the 20th century.” Yet for all of the bleak stories and statistics, Kristof and WuDunn told the attentive audience that theirs is ultimately a message of hope. The book they coauthored, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, illuminates the problem but also illustrates how the right kind of foreign assistance can unleash the potential of women to change their own lives and transform their communities. “The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution,” the journalists conclude. Half the Sky—which most Emma students read in anticipation of the couple’s visit—recounts the real experiences of several women whose lives were drastically improved with the help of aid organizations. Saima Muhammad lived in a slum outside Lahore, Pakistan. Her unemployed husband beat her every afternoon, and she had to send her daughter to live with an aunt because she couldn’t afford to feed her. After connecting with a Pakistani microfinance organization that lends small amounts of money to women to start businesses, Saima took a $65 loan to buy beads and cloth and eventually built a thriving embroidery business that now employs 30 families. These days, Saima’s husband works for her and no longer abuses her. In fact, she has earned his respect. She was able to take back her daughter and pay off her husband’s debt, and is plotting the children’s education through high school—maybe even college. In their book, Kristoff and WuDunn also share the stories of a Cambodian girl who escaped her brothel and, with the assistance of another aid group, built a thriving retail business; an Ethiopian woman whose injuries were treated and who went on to became a surgeon; and a Zimbabwean mother of five who was counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate, and became an AIDS expert. “Helping people is hard, but we’re also getting better at figuring out what really does make a difference,” Kristof told the crowd.
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The right kind of foreign assistance can unleash the potential of women to change their own lives and transform their communities.
Gary Gold
Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, who coauthored Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, spoke to EWS students and community members last February.
He said well-meaning Westerners, for example, have tried to sponsor scholarships for girls in developing countries. But scholarships are typically awarded by the headmaster, and often the winner is the prettiest girl at the school. “In exchange for that scholarship she’s expected to sleep with the principal. And considering that the principal might have HIV, the issue becomes an awful lot more complicated,” he explained. Some of the most successful forms of aid come in simple, unglamorous packages, like a $4 medication to cure the intestinal worms that leave children too sick to go to school, or feminine pads for menstruating girls. Both of these vastly increase class attendance rates. Iodizing salt could prevent brain damage in developing fetuses and raise IQ levels as much as 15 points. “One of the things I would really encourage you students to do is go traveling at some point and spend some time at the grass roots because that is in turn how we can make these kinds of interventions more effective,” Kristof said. Crucial to any effort’s success, he said, is that “we’re actually not making these decisions in a committee here in the U.S., but are listening to local people and learning from them and understanding all the complexities and nuances about how things work on the ground.” Kristof and WuDunn are not the first to speak to Emma Willard on the subject of empowering women in the developing world. Last year, Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, shared his experiences building schools and helping to
educate girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Two years ago, E. Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous, raised awareness among the campus community about the modern-day slave trade. Madame Willard might be heartened to learn about the efforts these visits have inspired. “We were all so moved by Ben Skinner, and I heard a lot of students saying, ‘What can we do?’” recalls Robert Naeher, Newell Chair of Humanities. “So I sent out an e-mail and organized a meeting.” The student group Slavery No More was born, with Naeher as its advisor. Natalia Choi ’11, cohead of the club, describes her motivation for helping to found it: “I remember thinking, ‘Why do I get to live so comfortably when others live in bondage in a life filled with fear and injustice?’ I could not just go on the way I had been living after learning about the conditions of the estimated 27 million people who were enslaved. Although I was daunted by the severity and rampancy of slavery, I knew I had to act.” The group has held movie nights and bake sales to raise money for the Polaris Project, an antitrafficking nonprofit. Club members helped organize the visit by Kristof and WuDunn, with generous sponsorship by two alumnae, Dr. Anne F. Collins ’56 and Lisa Allen LeFort ’72, who also sponsored Mortenson’s talk. Ben Skinner returned to campus to participate in a panel discussion later in the day after the Kristof-WuDunn talk. Slavery No More has also been working for the past year to push Emma Willard toward achieving the distinction of designation as a Fair Trade high school. This would mean that no child labor or exploitation of workers was involved in producing any or most of the food that is served. So far, the group has consulted with the chief financial officer and the head of dining services. The proposal, which was researched, written, and painstakingly rewritten by club coheads Choi and Natasha Kappaya ’10, has gained student council approval and the unanimous support of the faculty. It’s currently under review by the board of trustees. Naeher says the modern abolition movement is something that “especially hit home” with the young women at Emma Willard. And their response is in keeping with the founder’s philosophy. He says, “They are not beaten down by this. They feel moved and then compelled to act.”
Fall 2010
16
Grand
Her mother’s mental illness compelled her grandparents to take over
Parenting
My mom was mentally ill: schizophrenic. Living with a schizophrenic is like living in an alternate universe. The world in which I lived with my mother was not the world most other people inhabited. I had to be extremely careful with my words and actions, so as not to set her off. I was her caretaker in many ways.
by Rachel Westmoreland Granfield ’95
emma
17
When I was 11, her illness got bad enough that she could not care for me anymore. I had no contact with my dad, so going to live with him wasn’t an option. I went to live with my grandparents—it was either that or foster care. This was 1988. My grandfather would have been 67 and my grandmother 63. I remember hating to explain why I lived with my grandparents. Usually I would say that my dad was out of my life. For my mom I used any number of explanations; most weren’t particularly truthful. When I moved in with my grandparents, my life became much like everybody else’s. Every day I had breakfast, walked to school with two friends, came home, had a snack, watched MTV, did my homework, talked on the phone, had dinner, worked on my writing, and went to bed at a fixed time. I helped around the house, but because my grandparents asked me to, not because if I didn’t do it, nobody else would. At first, after living with my mom, being normal felt very strange, but I got to like it. I was fortunate enough to be able to take my grandparents’ love and support for granted—they came to my soccer games, went to my band concerts, sat through the (terrible!) play that my fifth-grade class performed, and did all the other things that parents are supposed to do. If I needed a parent figure, they would absolutely be there. My grandparents were much stricter than average parents about certain things, but other things they didn’t care about. For example, I didn’t have a curfew. But I wasn’t allowed to see PG-13 movies until the day I turned 13.
“ At first, being
normal felt very strange,
My grandparents were careful with their money, but I always had everything I needed. Most of my clothes came from discount stores or were bought on sale, but everything was decent, fit me, and was appropriate for somebody my age. That was another huge change from living with my mom, who couldn’t or didn’t always notice when something fell apart or I outgrew it. Plus, her illness made it hard for her to hold down a job and provide for necessities. My junior year at Emma, my grandmother had a stroke. At that point both my grandparents started having serious health problems. These weren’t things that most of my friends had to deal with. I have a very malleable definition of family. Having lived with grandparents, I don’t see non-biologicalparent families as inferior. I’ve never been committed to the idea of the traditional nuclear family model. I am single, and if I do wind up partnered, it will probably be with a woman. I would like to have children and plan to adopt. My mother died in 2006. I was 29 at the time. We were estranged for about seven years, from my senior year of college until about ten days before she died. I had wonderful grandparents, but at a price: my own parents. But I was lucky to be raised by two people whose only job was my well-being. When I came to live with them, they were retired, and I was their occupation. My grandparents lived on a fixed income and gave up a lot of the comforts of retirement when it became clear that I would be happier at Emma. It still blows me away a little that they were willing to do that.
but I got to like it.”
Fall 2010
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like family
They started as strangers and now are
The plates in front of each of them are filled with completely different foods. Eggs, fresh fruit, and potatoes for Sarah. For Emma, French toast and bacon. At 50 and 20, respectively, the two women are nothing alike, and their differences extend way beyond what they prefer to eat for breakfast. Sarah is a fair-skinned blonde with sparkling blue eyes, a megawatt smile, and the kind of laugh that can make the most mundane activity feel like a party. Emma, with brown skin and tight black curls that fall down her back, doles out her words carefully, as if she is on a strict budget. “We’re actually complete opposites,” Emma explains. “I like bright pinks and purples, Sarah is more into blues. I like horror movies, and she definitely doesn’t. Sarah likes seafood, and that’s not something I would ever eat. She’s talkative, and I’m very quiet.” What the two have in common is 15 years of shared history, starting when Emma was a precocious five-year-old with missing teeth and pigtails, an imperfect home life, and a hunger for the kind of fun and guidance a mentor could provide. The pair were matched through the Junior/Senior Buddy program run by the King Street Center, a highly
By Kim Asch
emma
regarded nonprofit community organization in their hometown of Burlington, Vermont. Over the years, Sarah and Emma have experienced a lot together— both the ups and the downs and the countless hours of calm in-betweens filled with books and board games, sledding, homework, and craft projects. They’ve taken two trips to Disney World and another to Hershey Park in Pennsylvania, where they ate nothing but chocolate for three days straight. Sarah was there for Emma every week without fail, and when the young girl’s mother faced challenges in her abusive relationship with her boyfriend, Sarah helped Emma in the subsequent transition to living with her father. At the end of every frequent phone call, Sarah would always ask, “Who loves you the most after mommy and daddy?” And Emma would happily answer, “You do!” Emma’s beloved father died unexpectedly soon after she graduated from high school, and Sarah was with Emma when she got the terrible news. Sarah helped Emma and her brother plan the funeral, and she delivered the eulogy at his memorial service. Sarah says her role as a mentor has taught her a lot about her own strength and capacity to love, as well as the community in which she lives. She’s learned
Kathleen Dooher
Sarah Soule ’77 and Emma Boone are at a restaurant enjoying a meal together for what seems like the billionth time since they first met back in 1995.
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Sarah Soule (center) has mentored Emma Boone (right) for 15 years. Now that Emma is grown with her own child, Sarah is mentoring Makayla Bonilla (left).
Fall 2010
20 that there are too many kids right in her own backyard whose experiences growing up do not come close to matching her own magical childhood. “I’ve seen stuff that I was never too exposed to in my life,” Sarah says. Across the nation, nearly 17.6 million young people need or want mentoring, but only 3 million currently benefit from such a relationship. But the statistics are not what drives Sarah. “I get so much more from mentoring than I give,” she explains. “I love having kids in my life, and the consistency of seeing one child regularly has brought so much to my life.” That’s why, several months ago, Sarah went to the now grown-up Emma and asked for her blessing. She wanted to bring another buddy into her “family.”
S
arah isn’t married and doesn’t have any children of her own. When she was 29, she broke off a long-term relationship because her boyfriend wasn’t interested in starting a family. She wasn’t willing to settle for just anybody who wanted to be a father, either, and as she neared her mid-30s she realized parenthood might not be in her future. “I didn’t want to become a single mother by choice, even though it has worked well for several of my friends,” she explains. “I grew up in a fantastic home with two wonderful parents, and that’s the model I wanted to follow if I was going to be a mom.” Sarah’s father was a businessman, and her mother served as a senator in the Vermont state legislature in the early 1980s and then in Governor Madeleine Kunin’s administration. Both instilled in Sarah the importance of giving back to the community. Her work as an admissions and college counselor certainly fit the bill, as well as her volunteer service on the boards of five nonprofits, including the Visiting Nurses Association and the Vermont Mozart Festival. When she turned 35, however, she realized she yearned to connect her good works in a more personal way. Gabriella Tufo-Strouse, coordinator of King Street’s Junior/Senior Buddy program, suggested she become a mentor. It was she who matched Sarah with Emma and has observed the relationship take root, blossom, and outgrow King Street’s formal program over the past decade-and-a-half. “Those two are sweet together; they’re family at this point,” she says.
Sarah loves to share the story about the time Vermont’s U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy visited Emma’s elementary school class in Burlington. After he was finished speaking, he invited the children to ask questions. Emma’s hand shot up. “Do you know Sallie Soule?” she asked, referring to Sarah’s mom, the former state senator. Senator Leahy is a family friend and promptly responded that indeed he did. Did she? “Yes, she’s a friend of mine,” Emma proudly answered. Sallie, who has enjoyed get-togethers with Sarah and Emma over the years, has been a “happy observer” of the way they have enriched one another’s lives. At King Street and nationwide, most of the kids seeking mentors come from single-parent households. Though many of them are low-income, for the most part these kids have strong, loving parents who just need a helping hand from another adult who can spend some time on enriching activities. Still, challenges arise, as they do in everyone’s life. For mentoring to work well, Tufo-Strouse says, there should be a well-developed program with good training and ongoing support for the adult mentors. “Mentors are not going to change a child’s life, but we can enhance their life,” explains Tufo-Strouse. “Sarah
“ Every child deserves to be exposed to good books, meaningful activities, sports, and art, and that’s the main reason I love to be a mentor.”
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understands this and is amazing at respecting those boundaries.” As Tufo-Strouse set about matching Sarah with another little girl, she was well aware of how rare the longevity of Sarah’s relationship with Emma is. Still, she knew that Sarah was interested in making a commitment far beyond the required one-year minimum, and she vetted the prospects accordingly. Makayla Bonilla seemed perfect. “We got a call saying there was a great match for Makayla but we had to be willing to commit,” recalls Ashley Bonilla, Makayla’s mom. “And that’s just what Makayla, needed—someone who would be in it for the long haul.”
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Kathleen Dooher
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akayla is seven years old with shoulder-length blonde hair, a big heart, and a disposition that is equally prone to intense concentration and utter frivolity. She is officially homeless and has been staying in a succession of temporary lodgings with her mother and younger sister. The first time Makayla and her mom met Sarah at King Street, they played with Silly Putty. Sarah put Silly Putty on her nose, then Makayla put it on her forehead, and then Sarah did too. They both giggled. Just about every Saturday since October, the two have enjoyed an active agenda that would put most parents to shame. They attended a Chinese New Year celebration at the Vermont Commons School, where Sarah works, then went for dim sum at a Chinese restaurant. “I eat anything,” Makayla proudly reports. They attended a cat show, a curling tournament, the musical Oliver!, and a marionette performance of Hansel and Gretel. At Halloween, they screamed their way through a haunted warehouse. “There were people jumping out and scaring kids,” Makayla explains. “She was soooo brave,” Sarah says. “But I learned not to take a child to a haunted warehouse. Big mistake. We went and got hot chocolate after.” While eating lunch at a pizza place, they met the entire University of Vermont women’s basketball team. “She was in awe and said, ‘Is this like the Olympics?’ They gave her an autographed program and introduced themselves and she almost died. She was over the moon,” Sarah recalls. With Sarah’s encouragement, Makayla is becoming an excellent reader and mastering the art of riding a bike without benefit of training wheels. The pair also likes to go to the beading studio to make bracelets and necklaces for each other and for Makayla’s mom and granny. When Makayla turned seven on the seventh, “My golden birthday,” she points out, they went to Sarah’s house to bake a cake. “Kids are kids, and some just happen to be born with a few more privileges than others. But the bottom line is
every child deserves to be exposed to good books, meaningful activities, sports, and art, and that’s the main reason I love to be a mentor,” Sarah says. “I was born into an upper-middle-class family; I was very fortunate. But why can’t Makayla and Emma have the same experiences I did?” At the same time, Sarah says, “As a mentor you have to be strong. You have to realize that you can’t fix everything.” Makayla seems to be getting the gist of this mentoring arrangement. Just recently, during a quick stop at the natural foods grocery store, Makayla spotted a greeting card in the rack and asked to buy it for Sarah. It said “Let’s Be Together.” Sarah felt the tears start and, as they were checking out, Makayla told the cashier, “Sarah is my big buddy, and I am going to give her this card because we’re always going to be together.” Sarah says, “Again, I almost fell over—more tears. She asked for a pen and sat on the floor and promptly drew a picture of the two of us and wrote in her very careful first-grade printing ‘You are the best big buddy’ and ‘BFF’ (best friends forever). I told her it was the nicest present she could have ever given me.”
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mma and Sarah, who has to get going to work, finish up breakfast at the restaurant. Already so different in so many ways, the two women now have this between them: Emma recently became a mother. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Darien, on April 19. It was a difficult conversation when Emma broke the news of her unplanned pregnancy to Sarah. But if Sarah was disappointed, she has also never given up faith in Emma’s bright future. There’s still so much to be proud of, after all. Emma was the first in her family to graduate from high school. She went on to complete an Licensed Nursing Assistant program and now has her own apartment and a full-time job, with health care benefits, that she likes and at which she excels. She’s carving out a career in a wideopen field caring for Alzheimer’s patients. (Sarah teases that Emma can take care of her in her old age.) “The work can get difficult at times, but you just have to stick with it,” Emma says, adding that she remains committed to earning a college degree. Sarah is confident that Emma will be able to juggle the demands of motherhood while taking care of her own needs in addition to navigating her career path. She knows it will be a challenging road ahead for Emma, but Sarah realizes she can’t live her life for her. What Sarah says she can do is what she has always done: offer her love and support. “When Emma needs me, I will always be there.”
Fall 2010
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There are already children born who need homes. Why did I need a whole new one?
…and baby
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I
had one serious relationship when I was in my 30s; I thought I’d get married, but I didn’t. I always imagined I was going to be a mom and have a family. All my friends around me were doing the family thing. And there I was in my early 40s—single. I decided, I have to make this happen by myself. It took two years of thinking about it. First, I educated myself. I went to adoption agencies and learned that there are risks with adoption. So then I went to a fertility guy to check out using a sperm donor. He told me, “At your age, we can still do a sperm donor, but you might want to consider adoption as a back-up. We don’t know how long this is going
it my job. I blasted through the paperwork. You go step by step, and there are many exit points along the way. But I never backed down. My referral was sent to Guatemala in May of 2006. At first I put down that I wanted a girl. It’s such a long process, and you’ve had all these chances to say no. And then when you finally go all the way through it, you want your child the next day. I was waiting and waiting for a girl. Finally I said, “Okay, a girl or a boy. I’ll take the next child.” My rationalization was that if I had gotten pregnant naturally, I couldn’t choose the sex. He was born August 19, and I saw pictures of him on August 20. I had pictures from the hospital in
to take, and with adoption you end up with a child.” I realized there are all kinds of risks with natural childbirth as well. So I thought adoption seemed to make more sense for me. I didn’t want to be pregnant by myself. And there are already children born who need homes. Why did I need a whole new one? Being single and older—I was 43 at that point—there were only certain countries open to me. Guatemala was one. I had old Peace Corps friends living in Guatemala City at the time. I emailed them, and the wife had even done some adoption work down there. It is a pretty onerous process. I wasn’t working at the time, so I made
Guatemala City plus a few pieces of medical information. I swear, five minutes after that I just knew that this was my child. Once I said yes, the process started in the Guatemala court system. I went down there twice to visit him, and he stayed with me. I am so glad I got those chances to be with him before he came home. I think we got to know each other a little bit. We weren’t strangers. He came home when he turned eight months. My mom came with me for the last trip when we picked him up. Several members of his foster family came to give him away. We were all crying. My mom was like, “This is just like a birth.” He turns four in August.
makes two
A conversation with Abby Bronson ’79
You don’t know what parenting is going to be until you get there. I remember my mom laughing at me because I am really active— marathons, biking. Mom laughed, “You don’t understand what it’s like to have a baby.” I’ve been kayaking twice since I came home. Your life changes, but it’s in a way you want it to. Your priorities have changed. When he came home I took time off, then had some half-time jobs. Now I work at Children’s National Medical Center, one of the leading children’s hospitals in the country. I am project manager on a Muscular Dystrophy project. I love my job and am so lucky. I am full time but some days come to work seven hours a day, some days more, and work a lot at night or at six in the morning. It allows me the flexibility to do everything I need to do. Sometimes I look at moms who don’t have to worry about this or that. But it is hard for everybody. I think I am more productive because I can make the most efficient use of my time. You make it all fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. I am 48 now but don’t feel like an older mother. Some of my friends are in good relationships, and when you see a really good marriage that works, you want that. I’ve tried online dating and putting myself out there, but I had weird experiences. I am just going to stumble into love at this point, if I do at all, and ultimately I have to follow my heart. Whoever ends up with me, if he does—my son is part of me. Any guy who doesn’t understand what I did and doesn’t want to be part of a family with children isn’t the right guy for me.
Fall 2010
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CSI: TROY
Where only the evidence tells the truth
The dead body is crumpled on the basement floor of the stairwell in the science building when the team of Exhibit A. The body found at the scene of the crime.
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crime scene investigators arrives. They crowd together in the doorway for a moment, peering at the forensic evidence for clues to a puzzle they must solve. What happened here? Who is the victim? Who is the perpetrator? There’s a story to unravel, and it can only be solved by reading the evidence
Gary Gold
correctly. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
By RACHEL MORTON
Fall 2010
The investigators are students in Linda Maier’s science class, Forensics. It’s an elective, a combination of biology and chemistry that exposes students to an expanding field of applied science. “Because of CSI this is of great interest to the kids,” says Maier, who received the 2009 Madelyn Levitt and Linda Glazer Toohey Award for Faculty Excellence and is also the Homer L. Dodge Chair in Science. “They love the crime shows, so I thought this was a good way to engage girls in science.” It is the end of the semester, and the students have already learned the basics of crime scene protocol and laboratory analysis. Today, the class is divided into four groups. Each group has created a murder scene for another group to solve. Members of the adult EWS community are supporting players in these scenarios, each of which has a cast of suspects, a murderer, and a victim. These adults will provide, when asked, hair samples, fingerprint samples, samples of fibers from their clothing. Since this is the seventh year for this class, many of the teachers have already served as suspect or perpetrator, and some of them have really gotten into the role. This year, Valerie Carlson, the theatre director, has signed on as one of the perpetrators. “She wrote back the funniest note to the kids when they asked to speak to her about the crime: ‘I can’t believe you would ever think I would do something like that!’ She got right into it,” Maier laughs. Each murder scene has a body (usually a paper cutout) and lots of evidence in the form of fingerprints, shoeprints, DNA evidence, spilled liquids that must be identified, bullet holes giving information about location and trajectory. Plus, as in any real crime scene, lots of extraneous information that has no bearing on the crime. The first thing students learn in Maier’s class is how to work a crime scene. “They need to approach the scene like an investigator,” she says. “They have a
At this crime scene, students peer into the darkness under the stairs and gape at the scenario composed for them by their classmates.
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Checking for fingerprints.
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kit of materials—bags to put evidence in, markers to label evidence with a chain of custody, graph paper to make drawings about where they found their pieces of evidence. They sketch the scene. A real investigator first walks the grid.” This walking of the grid means that one person alone does the first thorough sweep of the crime scene, documenting details, making observations and measurements, all before the horde of other investigators enters and begins trampling all over the evidence. At this crime scene in the science building basement, the four members of the investigating team peer into the darkness under the stairs and gape at the scenario composed for them by their classmates. This is an especially intriguing crime scene because the body isn’t just a paper cutout, but a three-dimensional figure made of stuffed pants and shirt, and in the shadows of the stairwell it really does look like a corpse. Perhaps that’s why the student investigators forget their crime scene protocol, and instead of letting one of their group walk the grid, they all excitedly enter the crime scene after snapping on their rubber gloves. There are dark liquids around the body—blood? Coffee from the upended cup? There are sheets of paper partially covered by the body. A bullet hole is in the wall. One student snaps photographs, another calls out incriminating evidence. “We need to collect the cup and the note,” says one student. “I really want to read that note!” One takes out tweezers from her crime scene kit and removes the coffee cup. “Paper bag or plastic bag?” she asks. “The lid will probably have DNA,” another observes. “Brown-bag it.” “What if he was standing there, got hit, fell, bled out,” one girl suggests, and with the flashlight she is holding, she indicates with her beam of light where these events transpired. Another speculates: “What if he was dead and whoever found him freaked out and spilled a cup of coffee?” This speculation turns out to be correct. According to the scenario written for this particular crime by another group of students, “Mari” came into the stairwell after her coffee break, and “walking down the stairs, she was hit by the metallic stench of blood. Hurrying down the stairs she was faced with the gruesome sight of John’s murder. She was so shocked, she dropped her coffee cup.” So, nicely reasoned, but Maier, who is walking from one crime scene to the next, watching how her students approach their task, has observed that of the four crime scenes, only one is walking the grid. “It’s all about the
Gary Gold
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Students learn hair and fiber analysis, toxicology, and ballistics.
TOP: Gary Gold, RIGHT: Kristin V. Rehder
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evidence,” she says. “They shouldn’t get wrapped up in ‘I wonder what happened.’ The group that gets too involved in the ‘what happened’ doesn’t have time to analyze their data well.” One thing they learn in this class is that collecting and analyzing evidence isn’t as easy as what they see on television. “You don’t get a fingerprint analysis back in three minutes,” says Maier. “You spend hours doing fingerprinting, and you look like a coal miner when you leave the scene of the crime. You don’t have a computer screen that will tell you in two minutes who the perpetrator is.” Maier brings in practicing forensic scientists who debunk TV’s CSI myths. “There’s a lot of fiction in these crime shows,” says Maier. “In a trial it’s frustrating because the jury is believing ‘CSI world.’” The jury thinks, ‘If there are no fingerprints, they didn’t do it!’ It makes it difficult for prosecutors these days.” Students in the class learn how to do hair analysis, fiber analysis, fingerprinting, toxicology, DNA forensics, and serology, ballistics, and impressions. And all of this will be necessary as the students try to make sense of the crime scenes with which they have been confronted. Maier invites outside speakers. A physician comes to talk about autopsies. A state trooper, part of the canine unit, arrives with his dog. A sexual assault nurse talks about the evidence necessary for prosecuting that crime. They talk about famous cases like JonBenet Ramsey, Son of Sam, the Zodiac Killer, O.J. Simpson, and Princess Diana’s death. They all read The Bone Collector, Jeffrey Deaver’s novel about a NYPD criminologist. “We come to the conclusion that most criminals are pretty stupid,” Maier says. “Most criminals don’t get away with it because they brag about what they did.” Once the evidence has been collected and analyzed in the laboratory, each group will make a PowerPoint
presentation to the class explaining what they found, the connections they made, and the conclusions they came to. “We’ll be able to see, did they find the person? Was it based on guessing or forensic science?” explains Maier. “In addition each student writes a short paper telling how they analyzed what evidence, what conclusions they made, and what the final decision was.” Though the class is exciting and great fun for everyone involved, it is first and foremost a science class. Students get to exercise their creative imaginations in solving a crime, but what they are learning are skills for a grow-
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Linda Maier teaches students that analyzing evidence isn’t as easy as what they see on TV.
ing field. More and more colleges and universities are offering concentrations in forensic science and forensic anthropology. One alumna of the class went into law enforcement. Others might choose to go to medical school to become coroners or medical examiners. “You don’t convict people based on stories they tell you,” Maier says, summing up the entire philosophy of the course, and perhaps of the criminal justice system. “The jury can lie, the judge can lie, the lawyers can lie, the witnesses can lie. Only the evidence tells the truth.”
Fall 2010
connections Dear Alumnae: Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” but I think some would beg to differ. Fortunately, as EWS grads we have the benefit of both. This September marks the arrival of the freshman class whose graduation will coincide with Emma Willard’s bicentennial in 2014. As our school considers how it will celebrate this landmark anniversary, the question is, how will you get involved? The AAC has held lengthy discussions about how to better use our “imagination and knowledge” to support the school in this endeavor. First, we have decided to expand the AAC meetings to a full weekend, allowing us to hear from key faculty and staff members, tour the campus, and interact with students. Second, AAC members will take on responsibility for spearheading alumnae events in their regions of the country. Third, there will not be an election of a new slate of council members this year, as the Governance Committee will spend the next nine months developing a skills matrix which will determine the qualities that the AAC needs most at this point in time. Fourth, the alumnae relations staff will assume administrative responsibility for the Distinguished Alumnae Achievement Awards Program; the AAC’s Awards Committee will, of course, continue to select the award recipients. Finally, the AAC will meet faceto-face on campus in the fall and spring, and will conduct its business during the winter (when travel to Troy is most treacherous) via conference call. You will receive blast emails, phone calls, and other correspondence, just in case you didn’t have a definitive answer to my question, “How will you get involved?” We will be in touch! Sheila Stenhouse Lee ’81
President, Alumnae Association Council
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2010 Distinguished Alumnae Awards Susan Williams O’Sullivan ’65 Life Achievement Award Susan Williams O’Sullivan has enjoyed a distinguished career as an expert in human rights and foreign policy. In her work for the Department of State, she has served on the U.S. delegations to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the Commission on the Status of Women. She has become the State Department’s leading expert and principal advisor on issues of human rights in China, advising a succession of Assistant Secretaries and Secretaries of State in three presidential administrations. Over the years, the scope of her leadership on human rights issues has expanded to include diplomatic missions to Cambodia, Viet Nam, Thailand, and Indonesia, and the development of a post-conflict reconstruction strategy in Kosovo. She has played a key role in the release from prison of numerous human rights activists. The Department of State has honored Susan with two Superior Honor awards, two Meritorious Honor awards, and one Award for Heroism. She is a woman of great conviction, and she has used her considerable intellect, talents, and compassion to make the world a better place. Erica Ling ’75 Accomplished Alumna Award Design has been Erica Ling’s vocation, and she has used her considerable talent to benefit the arts and education. Her career includes work at several major architectural firms, where her projects included the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia, the Newcomb College of Art building at Tulane University, the University of Connecticut Law Library, and the Virginia Museum of Art master plan. Her typological study for the Musée d’Art in Haiti resulted in a collaboration with Michael Marshall Architecture and the artist Margaret Adams Parker in the international competition to design the Contrabands and Freedmen’s Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. Emma Willard has benefited immeasurably from her donations of wisdom and expertise. During her tenure
L-R: Emily Neubauer ’00, Evelyn Reading ’50, Erica Ling ’75, Trudy Hall, and Michal Colby Wadsworth ’65.
on the board of trustees, she has contributed to two master campus plan projects. The outcomes include the Hunter Science Center and the Cheel Aquatics Center, as well as the new community life spaces in Sage and Kellas. Emily Neubauer ’00 Outstanding Young Alumna After studying astrophysics at Yale, Emily worked in the non-profit sector advocating for women’s health and reproductive rights, an interest she attributes to the “girl power” ideal that she experienced at Emma Willard. Her love of physics and her humanitarian concerns soon converged. Her focus became medical physics, a field in which she could fulfill both passions. After three years as a photon dosimetrist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Emily has entered the master’s program at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She also finds time to mentor undergraduates and staff events for political candidates. Through her chosen vocation, her academic work, and her volunteer activities, Emily is focused on making a meaningful difference in the lives of others.
Evelyn Reading ’50 Humanitarian Award For fifty-five years Evelyn Reading has devoted her life to service, initially on behalf of arts and international organizations, more recently to Hospice work, pastoral care for the homeless at the Barbara McInnis House, and service as a trustee of the Center for Spiritual and Ethical Education. She has worked tirelessly to provide comfort to people in need, illuminating, for example, the needs of the homeless population in her hometown of Weston, Massachusetts, a suburb assumed to be immune to such social problems. Evelyn has a vision of how the world should work, and she is committed to making her vision a reality through educating others. Michal Colby Wadsworth ’65 Service to Emma Willard Award Michal Colby Wadsworth has donated countless hours of her time on behalf of Emma Willard. Even prior to joining the Board of Trustees in 2001, she maintained a strong connection to Emma Willard, serving as her class’s reunion chair in 1995 and class giving co-chair in 2000. Last year she again led her class’s fundraising efforts, this time for its 45th reunion. Michal has served on the planning and executive committees for Emma Willard’s $75 million Idea Campaign, and as chair of The 1814 Association, a role she has played since 2006. This past year, recognizing the importance of philanthropic support at every level, Michal and her husband Jim offered the Wadsworth CommUnity Challenge. The result: a dramatic increase in the number of gifts from alumnae, parents, and every other constituency. With her trademark eloquence, passion, and humor, Michal has shared her belief in Emma, inspiring others to join her in ensuring that the school has the resources it needs to advance its important mission.
Fall 2010
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1. 1970 reunion co-chairs Barbara Nash and Rachel Goodstein in animated conversation.
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2. The Class of 1950 showed some real class spirit in the parade! 3. Members of the esteemed 50th reunion class, the Class of 1960, shared smiles.
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4. The Class of 2000 was all smiles all weekend long! 5. Sixty-five years later, the Class of 1945 returns for reunion—an inspiration to us all!
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6. The Class of 2005, with over 40 alumnae returning, arrives for its first reunion weekend. Ladies, we hope you had a grand time! 7. Jean Davis Davison ’55, Keven Ryan Bellows ’55, and Kitty Davenport Bernard ’55 enjoyed catching up at the Welcome Home reception. 8. Vivienne Kaye West ’80 convinces daughter Lucy to attend Emma Willard for no other reason than to be in Revels! 9. Amanda Leff ’95 and Parker Hamilton Poling ’95 catch up with Associate Head of School Trudy Hanmer. 10. The Class of 1990 maximized on their alcove time.
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11. The rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of the Class of 1965; their boas brightened the day!
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12. Mary Foster Conklin Bowen ’75 enchanted us with an evening of cabaret. 13. The Class of ’85 at the end of the indoor parade route; thanks for your good spirits!
Fall 2010
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’85: Front row (l-r): Anna Pruitt, Laura Bedford O’Donnell, Wendy Kercull Row 2: Vivian Brady-Phillips, Elizabeth Bogner, Dana Alexander Kaleta, Jennifer Stearns Mottur, Wendy Graham, Jennifer Schmelter Rivera Top row: Kristen DePoy Blaeser, Britton Davis Watson, Ceil Madden, Melissa Osborne Gressier, Sarah Miller Hale, Jennifer Zalucky
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’50: Front row (l-r): Evelyn Reading, Jean Karet Rachlin Middle row: Susan Carter Harris, Dorothy Beiermeister Schneible, Sandra Stewart Harris, Elizabeth Page Vining, Patty Ide Williams Back row: Nancy Meyer Russell, Marcia Lindsay Ahlborg, Susan Parker Putnam ’55: Front row (l-r): Margery Clifford Henneman, Suzanne Harter Edwards, Shirley Manchester McDowell, Keven
Ryan Bellows, Sandra Baker Prescott, Jean Davis Davison, Kathryn Davenport Bernard, Dianne Fuller Doherty Back row: Margaret Thomas Wescott, Norma Humphries Stehli, Elizabeth Ernst Tepper, Ann Gumaer Johnson, Gesine Schuette Krogh, Elizabeth Davenport Fish, Carol Nugent Blackwood ’60: Front row (l-r): Susan Decker Hendricks, Maureen Shea, Virginia Hall, Anne Purdy Massey, Linda Harrison Ditmore Row 2: Susan Thurston Campbell, Margery Fleigh, Barbara Clark Claggett, Beverly Burke Gunther, Sarah Crary, Mary Williams Garrett, Betsey
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Rubin Rosenbaum Row 3: Sally Ann MacNulty Ryan, Carol Craft Schaefer, Louise Tripp Platte, Diana Muller Gray, Nancy Woodrow McKelvy, Kathleen Bartle Esposito, Katherine Deane Schubart, Jean Kellogg Pettibone, Ann Burgess Wolpers, Polly Atchley Allen, Ann Shroder Schein Top row: Alison Gordinier, Elizabeth Bauer Farnham, Gretchen Beck Green, Kendra Stearns O’Donnell, Mollie Johnson Nelson, Elizabeth Coxe, Sophia Pinkerton Dena, Emily van den Bergh Schmalzer ’65: Front row (l-r): Leslie Quinn Stanton, Elizabeth Grubb Lumb, Deborah
’95: Front row (l-r): Sarah Volinsky, Parker Hamilton Poling, Amanda Leff, Andrea Hanley Row 2: Lauren King, Kelsey MacMillan Banfield, Sandra Collins Top row: Sarah Marsh Leonard, Kristen Lepore, Ashley Gardner
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’00: Front row (l-r): Emily Neubauer, Nicole Lemanski Row 2: Lauren Dorgan, Maureen Melcer, Megan Toohey, Carolyn Bennett Neary, Lauren Ford Row 3: Leslie Crowell, Phoebe Siter, Marla Keene, Katherine Wiley, Tory Peterson, Lucia Bartholomew, Alexis Kostun Clement Top row: Rachel Neugarten, Jessica Miller Rossetti, Jodi McQuillen Roque, Laura Osterman, Ariana Gadd, Hannah Fry Henn
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’90: Front row (l-r): Christiana TampasWilliams, Julianna Morgan, Linda Stewart, Elizabeth Williams Renkens, Elizabeth Greenberg, Jennifer Marsh Norton, Jennifer Ryan Hagar Row 2: Abra Nicolle Nowitz, Susan Daigneault Olekoski, Carrie Wyeth, Heather Kersch Dunham, Karen Gorss Benko, Darrien Segal, Jenika Conboy Row 3: Jessica Kingsley, Jenya Rose, Cristin Albert Palacios, Samantha Moran-Vining, Christina Manning, Caroline Hong Top row: Lorenda Robinson, Elizabeth Palmer Piepenbring, Ayana Gordon, Hillary Webb, Tessa Dickenson Simon
Johansen Harris, Barbara Snyder Lott, Victoria Laddey DeMuth Row 2: Michal Colby Wadsworth, Carol Curry Hathaway, Marcia Forni Feldman, Evelyn Tulp Norton, Ansley Smith Siter Top row: Eileen Rea, Anne Sherman, Katy Haight Milford, Brooke Giddings Hagerman, Stephanie Lovejoy Thompson, Julia Berwick, Jennifer Bergin Cottrell ’70: Bottom row (l-r): Anna Hill Price, Rachel Goodstein, Barbara Nash Row 2: Nicola Seibert Coddington, Sally Green, Elizabeth Buchman Weeks, Gale Mosser Spadafora, Elizabeth Clarke Row 3: Susan Sutler, Betsy Smith Ivey, Sara Schrager,
Jacquelyn Williams, Rebecca Martin Evarts, Nancy Buttenheim, Kathleen Brownback Row 4: Patricia Chamness, Alisa Cahill Henderson, Sandra Wood Forand, Elizabeth Armstrong, Ann Kennedy, Denise McCaskill, Joan Diaz Top row: Bonnie Walker-Armstrong, Linda Strohl, Donna Krupkin Whitney, Ann Gambling Hoffman, Venessa Barabino Rosemond ’75: Front row (l-r): Karen Gordon Styslinger, Mary Conklin Bowen, Susan Norton-Scott, Erica Ling, Susanne Garfield Top row: Acha Lord, Antonia Stolper, Janis Cohen
’05: Front row(l-r): Kelly McDonald, Katherine Bringsjord, Meg Hooker, Bailey Rogers, Samantha Corey, Meaghan Gallagher, Sarah Hyde Row 2: Kaybern Cuffy, Atiya Simmons, Mrinalini Gupta, Tess Marstaller, Zoe Foss, Meredith Hunter, Sophia Michelen, Tasia Hanmer, Alana Chin, Sofia Aboitiz Row 3: Ashley Gardner, Aneesa Yadali, Diana Thyssen, Alyssa Goodman, Sierra Murdoch, Genevieve Gadenne, Kelly Moran, Laura Stover, Nicole Andersson, Caroline Maloney Row 4: Laurel Boshoff, Kathleen Mendoza, Chrystel Valdez, Sarah Rosenblatt, Samantha Smith-Bowman, Ashley Hongisto, Abby Wilpers, Allie Lopez, Anna Krementz Also present, not pictured: Monica Taylor, Bridgitte Mott, Greer Schott, Katherine O’Connor, Abby Sussman, Lura Clinton, Allison Bates
connections
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’80: Standing (l-r): Andrea Freeman, Lucia Ewing Greenhouse, Pamela Skripak, Susan Muchmore Freeman, Vivienne Kaye West, Lucy West Sitting: Meredith Hobart, Meredith Manning, Laura Pearle, Kathryn McHugh, Milena Hileman, Rayona Taylor Bennett, Stephanie Sullivan Ciampa, Donald Campbell, Elizabeth Speers, Ruth McKay
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women’s work Beyond the Comfort Zone Dana Alexander Kaleta ’85 Leader of Adventure-Travel Trips I was a competitive runner and perfectionist. If I wasn’t in first place I might as well have failed. And that mentality wasn’t healthy. After a bunch of knee surgeries, I started backpacking and hiking. This new pursuit has been a gift of real transformation. It’s enabled me to realize that it’s not about me. It’s not about winning. It’s about sharing some amazing places. The idea is to get to a point, and it sounds corny, where you go home feeling like you accomplished a personal goal or went beyond your comfort zone. That to me is more important than getting to point B or achieving the summit. If it happens, it’s a very empowering thing. The relationships being forged on these trips are very unique. There are places and different points where it is very emotional. It’s emotional when someone sits on a rock and says, ‘I can’t go any farther.’ Maybe it’s about a bad day, or a bad job. It manifests itself. I can lead people on a journey, but I can’t do it for them. I can prepare meals and help you pitch a tent and make the maps. But it’s only the individual who can find it within herself to do the physical part of it. Sometimes the Grand Canyon is the good analogy ’cause you have to rise out of it! People feel overwhelmed that they have to do this huge elevation to get out. I tell them, you’ll be amazed that you’ll find it within yourself.
emma
I emphasize slow and steady. I go as fast as the slowest person in my group. One of my first trips to the Grand Canyon was with Wendy Graham ’85. It was sometime between our first and second Emma reunions. Wendy’s parents, who are 72 years old, just came on my Costa Rica– Nicaragua trip. I try hard to keep clients’ carried weight at 25 pounds or less. I am carrying the group gear—water filters, stoves, cooking pots and pans, and food. Then I have my own gear. I probably carry a minimum of 50 pounds for a trip with six to 10 people. When we took a monthlong trip, I carried 70 pounds, and that included climbing gear—we had to dress for snow and ice and everything in between. I feel like my knees are catching up with me. My husband recognizes what it means to me and that when I come back I am more energized to be a great mom and partner. I couldn’t pursue this without a wonderful husband and supportive kids. My daughter said years ago, “If I spend one more birthday on a mountain or trekking with a llama, I’m going to throw up!” I am not real motivated when I’m home. I hibernate here in the winter. I’m a real wimp with low temperatures. I don’t go to the gym. Not a big workout person. I wish I were.
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Thanks to the generosity of more than 2,500 alumnae, parents, faculty, and friends, Emma Willard achieved the Wadsworth CommUnity Challenge!
As a result of this success, Michal Colby Wadsworth â&#x20AC;&#x2122;65 and her husband Jim have contributed an additional $250,000 to Emma Willard! In fact, their challenge inspired so many of you to give, we are thrilled to announce that the Annual Fund enjoyed a record breaking year by surpassing $1.8 million for the first time in the schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history! Through your collective support, you help Emma Willard empower girls to make a difference in the world. On behalf of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Emma studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the beneficiaries of your generosityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;our warmest thanks!
emma willard school 285 Pawling Avenue Troy, NY 12180
SAVE THE DATE
Reunion 2011 June 10–12 Look for your invitation in late May with all the details of the weekend’s activities.
Classes of 1931, 1936, 1941, 1946, 1951, 1956, 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, 2006 If you’d like to volunteer for reunion, please call or email the Alumnae Relations Office at 866-833-1814 toll-free or alumnae@emmawillard.org.