T HE M AG A ZINE O F E MMA WI L L ARD SC HOOL FA LL 201 3
contributors
Emma Marvin ’98
(page 14) The last time I laughed was at dinner last night. Did you know that the average adult laughs just 17 times a day while a child laughs about 200 times a day? I could not live without maple syrup…and my family. My best Emma memories are the ones of daily life—the conversations in the alcoves, the discussions in the classroom, the time on the playing fields, the quiet reflections in the weaving studio. The best advice I was ever given was be true to yourself and what you believe.
Taylor Garrison ’12
(page 91) The last time I laughed was when I got stuck on a jet ski on a sand bar with no cell phone! I could not live without my family. They have always supported my decisions and been there for me. My best Emma memory is sitting on the senior triangle with my best friends on Sunday nights in the weeks leading up to graduation. The best advice I was ever given was to live in every moment. Trudy Hall told my class at our last senior dinner that this next week was “all about the moments” and I think this applies to every day life.
▲ Beatrice Apikos-Bennett ’13 used her digital camera to capture all the places her feet have taken her. Her “moving” photography was showcased in Emma’s end-of-year senior art show.
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T H E MAGAZ I N E O F E MMA W I L L ARD SCHOOL
Gabrielle DeMarco
Director of Communications gdemarco@emmawillard.org Kelly F. Cartwright
Director of Alumnae Relations kfinnegan@emmawillard.org Jill Smith
Class Notes Coordinator jsmith@emmawillard.org Lilly Pereira
Designer www.lillypereira.com Trudy E. Hall
Head of School Please forward address changes to: Emma Willard School 285 Pawling Avenue Troy, NY 12180 518.833.1787 alumnae@emmawillard.org or www.emmawillard.org/alumnae Signature, the magazine of Emma Willard School is published by the Communications Office two times each year for alumnae, parents, grandparents, and friends of Emma Willard School. The mission of this magazine is to capture the school’s values and culture through accurate and objective stories about members of the Emma community, past and present, as they put Emma Willard’s mark on the world.
f e at u r e s
12 Emmagining
As the Bicentennial school year kicks off, exciting upcoming events herald the historic milestone.
14 Home Sweet Home
With a deep love of the land and strong commitment to sustainability, Emma Marvin ’98 stands ready to take over her family’s maple farm and company.
22 Global Girls
Follow five Emma Girls on their deeply personal journeys around the world.
30 The Gift You Gave
The class of 2013 thanks this year’s Emma supporters.
d e p a r t me n t s
02 From the Triangle The Hall of Fame, sisters on the field, student philanthropists, budding politicians, and other Emma news.
08 Faculty Voices On the cov e r This “signature” is brought to you by Emma Marvin ’98. Here, she stands 1,000 feet above the village of Johnson, Vermont, on her family’s 600-acre maple farm. Photo by Rick Levinson.
Q&A with teacher Carol Braun.
10 The Classroom Meredith Legg introduces us to engineering at Emma.
60 Connections Bicentennial book tour stops, and Reunion for the 3s and 8s.
Printed on 100% recycled paper manufactured entirely with nonpolluting, wind-generated energy.
66 Class Notes 69 Memorial List
The Emma Network 73 Anne Collins ’56, a.k.a. “Dr. Fun,” explains why she loves giving to Emma.
91 Taylor Garrison ’12 and Agnes Chapski ’79 connect at Allure magazine.
105 Rebekah Strock ’01 shares her psychology teaching and research experience with current Emma students. 112 Signing Off Why don’t we have a female president? Head of School Trudy Hall discusses the barriers to women in leadership.
From the Triangle p racti c u m This spring, over 120 girls took at least one Practicum—Emma’s independent study experience. Four students interned with New York State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz (below). Practicums this spring took girls far and wide to study journalism at the Troy Record, learn emergency room care at Samaritan Hospital, and volunteer with the American Red Cross. Students also took courses in German, Japanese, Italian, and American Sign Language. Through the program they also stretched their artistic skills in musical theater, oil painting, pointe, hip hop, and tango.
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From the tr ia ngle
Champions for Children: Phila The girls of Phila, Emma’s student philanthropy group, were honored with the Champions for Children of the Capital Region Youth Helping Youth Award. This annual award honors groups who work hard to improve the lives of children in the Capital Region community. Phila was founded in 2004, thanks to the generosity of Michal Colby Wadsworth ’65 and her husband Jim. It was designed to teach girls about the importance of philanthropy in building stronger communities. Each year, members award a total of $5,000 in grants to charitable organizations. Phila members begin the school year by selecting a service focus, then distributing proposal requests and grant applications to organizations that fit their rigorous criteria. Like a traditional foundation, the members evaluate each proposal and meet with representatives from interested organizations. At the end of the year, Phila makes awards to those projects that best meet the objectives of the group and the needs of the community. Charities that have benefitted from the support of Phila include Community Caregivers, Troy Damien Center, Troy Unity House, Troy Boys & Girls Club, Vanderheyden Hall, Room to Read, The Ark After-School Program, Joseph’s House, Jewish Family Services of NENY, Hope 7 school, and Friends of Prospect Park.
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community organizations served
Average Yearly Donations
$5,000
50
+ girls taught the value of philanthropy
Total Donations
$38,000
Signature Look
In her own way, each Emma Girl is helping put Madame Willard’s signature on the world. Those unique signatures (all 8,000 of them) inspired the Emma Willard School magazine’s new name, Signature. We all might not harvest maple syrup or build schools in India, but the passions and good works of Emma Girls past and present combine to tell the story of Emma Willard School—our story. No single signature could tell that story. So, in each issue a new student, alumna, or faculty member featured in the magazine will create a new “signature” for the cover. This issue’s masthead was created by Emma Marvin ’98. Learn more about how Emma is putting her signature on the world of sustainable forestry on page 14.
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O n t h e F i el d
Lacrosse Sisters At Emma, we often hear the refrain, “we are just like sisters.” This mantra becomes particularly common among girls on the same athletic team, as hard play on the field often forges close bonds among teammates. But, what happens when your teammate is your actual sister?
This past school year, Emma had not one, but two sets of sisters on our varsity lacrosse team. Tearing up the turf together were sisters Francesca (Ches) Gundrum ’13 and Olivia (Liv) Gundrum ’14 as well as Natalie Kiley-Bergen ’13 and Elizabeth Kiley-Bergen ’16. For Natalie and Elizabeth, it was a brand new experience to play side by side with each other. “We were nervous about it to start, but it really worked out,” Natalie said. “You build off the relationship you already have. We respect each other and I can tell when something is wrong before anyone else might notice and vice versa.” With a different perspective, Ches and Liv had played on the same team since they were five and four years old. As they sat after their last game together, Ches teared up at the thought of no longer playing next to her little sister.
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“There is defiantly something different about the biological bond versus with the friendly social ‘sister,’” Ches said. “It is this sort of silent communication that goes on that no one understands, but it exists and it is prevalent. It shapes the game and the way we play together.” While they might play similarly on the field, Liv and Ches often couldn’t be more different from each other outside the game. “We have opposite taste in music and completely opposite personalities,” Liv said. “She is like the neatest person you will ever meet and I am so messy and disorganized.” The team made it all the way to the state sectionals. Their final game left each of the girls bruised and sore. Ches got the worst of it with torn ligaments in her ankle, resulting in her walking through commencement with a beautifully adorned white cane and bruises across her arm.
Led by their coaches, Assistant Athletic Director Liz Parry and English Instructor Kit George, the team finished the season with twelve wins and only four losses. “We had really good chemistry this year,” Elizabeth said. “I think the seniors on the team were really inviting. We had some players who hadn’t even picked up a stick before this season.” The resulting bonds between not just the sisters, but all the girls, went deep, according to the players. “I have played one or two seasons with the people who have become my closest friends,” Natalie said. “Athletics are a great way to have variation in Emma life. It is a source of happiness.” “And it is not like at some schools where they force you to play sports,” Liv said. “Here, everyone who plays a sport wants to be there.” And the environment of support was fostered by the larger community at Emma, according to the girls. “There is a different type of attitude at an all-girls’ school,” Elizabeth said. “We would clap and cheer at whatever call it was. Before Emma, it was never like that. Here, we would clap even when the call didn’t go our way.” As Ches packs up for Dartmouth and Natalie for Bowdoin and Liv and Elizabeth begin their first year at Emma without their big sisters, they share their own words of wisdom for the underclasswomen starting in lacrosse. “What you do before the season makes a huge difference,” Natalie advised. “And when you are in the environment, make the most of it.” “Don’t be afraid to make mistakes,” Liv said. “You learn from the mistakes you make, especially in sports. You are going to mess up 100 times before you get it right, so you might as well get to 100 faster.”
From the tr ia ngle
H al l of Fa me On October 12, 2013, Emma Hart Willard will finally be inducted in the National Women’s Hall of Fame, in Seneca Falls, the birthplace of the American Women’s Rights Movement. On that day, Madame Willard will join 247 other women who have made enduring contributions to our nation, including Emma alumna and feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Founded in 1969, the National Women’s Hall of Fame recognizes the achievements of great American women. Inductees are selected every other year based on their lasting contributions to society through the arts, athletics, business, education, government, humanities, philanthropy, and science. From a group of over 100 completed nominations, an independent national panel of judges conducted a rigorous scoring process and selected our founder for induction. For more information about the Hall of Fame and to make plans to attend the induction ceremony, visit www.greatwomen.org.
condemned faces in candlelight Midnight skin speaks when swollen lips can’t. maps etched on windswept faces record stories of a splintered past and stars of a faded future shadows dance on sunken faces in the lunar concrete room candlelight casts an eerie glow on the coal skin of these voyagers and their minds flit from bloody fields at home to urban dreams and sky scrapers by Maryam Ahmad ’15
Maryam and fellow author Julia Vining ’14 both won Scholastic Gold Medals for their writing this year. This national award is given to just over one percent of the 160,000 students who submit their writing.
Our Bodies Led by resident faculty member Gemma Halfi, students and faculty celebrated Body Image Month with a “These Are Our Bodies” campaign. The campaign had female faculty take the lead making posters describing what they love most about their bodies. The girls were then led in a discussion by peer educators and resident faculty about body image and asked to create their own posters heralding the joys of their bodies. Here is a taste of what they had to say:
“ Though at times I wish my legs were Tyra Bankslong and my skin Proactiv-clear, I know how truly blessed I am to have what I do.” —Murielle “ My body moves to the beat of dancehall reggae, country, and SOUL. My body is built with bones big enough to hold MY SOUL.” —Dominic “ My hands hold the memories of 1,000 high fives… and fist bumps.” —Kia “ These long legs also make me the perfect height for hugs (even though I bump into things).” —Kelsie
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From the tr ia ngle
soc ia l media
facebook.com/ emmawillardschool Showing their true colors, our boarding freshmen, their residential faculty, and student leadership have a blast with their own Holi. The festival is a Hindu celebration of spring some of our girls were lucky enough to experience in India over Spring Break. They were delighted to bring this cultural experience to Emma!
Senior prank today! The whole school is suddenly filled with witches and wizards as the seniors turn Emma into Hogwarts complete with a Sorting Ceremony at Morning Reports, an allday pick-up Quidditch match on the Triangle, and a Triwizard Tournament during lunch.
@emmawillard @emmawillard So this came in the mail today. Eeep! Really hope I get in! #emmawillard #admissionsinfo #admissionsmagazine #coolestschoolever #NewYork
@emmawillard Math indoors? Functions and Trig at #emmawillard takes right triangle analysis outside.
instagram All the lovely damsels. #prom @emmawillard l i ke s
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Faculty Voices
Interview by Gabrielle DeMarco
Carol Braun
From Solutions to Etymology Photographing Carol Braun is akin to trying to capture a bee moving from flower to flower. While teaching, she whirs swiftly from whiteboard to desk and back again, gliding in and out of my viewfinder. As tiny as many of the teenagers she teaches here at Emma, Carol is a ball of energy with a deep love of knowledge in any form. Carol, who is the newly named Henry L. Thompson Chair in Mathematics and department head, is finishing her very first year of teaching at Emma. Talk to Carol for a few minutes and it is clear she has never slacked off at anything in her life. She is also one of those rare individuals who knew from an early age exactly what she wanted to do—be a high school teacher at an independent school. After visiting her class, we sit together in her office overlooking the Triangle at the end of a full school day. She is still buzzing from a long day of teaching as she fits in our interview before meetings with several anxious students looking for extra help on an upcoming test. Here is our conversation: Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Cleveland. I grew up looking at the original of that poster in the Cleveland Museum of Art. [She gestures toward the print of Monet’s The Red Kerchief on the wall behind me.] I actually went to an independent day school [in Cleveland] for grades seven through 12 called Hawken School and I loved it. Starting in seventh grade, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.
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What did you study in college? I double majored in physics and English with the idea of being able to teach both subjects because those are the ones I thought I would enjoy most. And I minored in math and philosophy. You went on to earn your doctorate in physics from Northwestern. What made you decide to teach in a high school as opposed to going into higher education? I really wanted to teach high school because
those are the people who had a big affect on who I am. In high school, your eyes are really opening to how exciting the intellectual landscape is, what is possible, and what is out there. You are trying to figure out what type of person you want to be. Emma is not the first place you have taught. Where are the other places you have taught and in what subjects? I did my undergrad in Valparaiso University in Indiana. I was a TA for physics discussion sessions in the evening, going over the assignments. And I loved it. I completely loved it. So that was my first teaching experience. My first full-time teaching job was at Staten Island Academy. Every teacher has their own style, their way of approaching teaching. What would you say about your teaching style? I am told I am very energetic. I drink a lot of coffee.
facu lty voice s
[She holds up the large silver thermos on her lap as evidence.] I really like being in front of the classroom. That is part of the excitement of it for me, but I am not the “sage on the stage” with all the answers. The other half is trying not to let two sentences go by without making sure it is a conversation with my students. I like all the answers to come from the students, which at a place like Emma Willard works very well because they are very bright young ladies.
independent study. I get a bunch of audio books and I have been cruising through them. So far my favorite this year has been Anne Karenina. I also love language in general. And so I took French in school and was happy a couple years ago when I could pick up a French novel and hadn’t lost my French. And when I was in grad school, I was sick of taking physics all the time and so I took Russian for four years, which was a lot of fun. I also love etymologies.
You didn’t always teach girls. What do you like about teaching girls? I find that there is much less posing. I found that when boys and girls were mixed that there was a lot of acting “too cool for school.” Even with the ones who wanted to work hard, they would often put on a front as if they didn’t care or as if they didn’t work hard. Here, there is no shame—in fact it is a good thing—to be conscientious workers.
Is there an interesting word history that comes to mind? When my husband and I were “wooing” we were exchanging a lot of etymologies.
What are some other things you enjoy doing in the “spare time” you barely have? I love reading, especially the classics. We live pretty far away and so I have turned my drives into a little literature
This is adorable. [Carol laughs.] One of the early ones that I think I actually found and told him about was “apricot.” It comes from…[she walks to the whiteboard. Teachers can’t resist those things for too long.]… “praecox” and “persicum.” Where “persicum” means “peach” and the “praecox” part is like “precocious.” So apricot is really like a “precocious peach” because it ripens earlier than peaches do.
In high school, I was the girl who would have said, “I am terrible in math.” How would you adjust your method for the girls who are down on themselves about math? What I feel very strongly about math learning is that people learn math in different ways and at different speeds. That is something I find myself saying over and over again. Doing math is kind of like playing a musical instrument. You may just have to drill and drill and drill and eventually math skills become like second nature and then you can play the beautiful songs that come with being able to move on to the next level. What do you hope girls bring to the table when they come to your class? I always hope they can take pleasure in the learning itself...that they aren’t getting so wrapped up in the ulterior goals like getting into a good college or being successful. I want them to see there is so much joy in just learning. And even if they don’t feel it on that particular day, that is what I am always hoping to coax out of them.
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The Classroom
by meredith legg • introduction by Gabrielle demarco
Intro to Engineering
Building a New Model Girls huddle over their robots. Pieces of wire and Lego™ litter the wide black lab tables they sit at. Laptops are open as they troll YouTube for videos on building robots. Bits of girliness—pink plastic cups of sweet iced coffee and shouts of “you’re amazing!”—tell you that this isn’t your typical engineering process. This is Intro to Engineering taught by Sara Lee Schupf Family Chair in Instructional Technology and Classroom Innovation Meredith Legg, Ph.D.
This inaugural engineering course presented a learning experience for all involved as Emma Willard became the first all-girls’ school in the nation with a course solely devoted to this typically male dominated field. Civil engineering was experienced by working with Computer Aided Drafting or CAD, as well as creating detailed threedimensional models of an ideal dorm room. Budding civil engineers built bridges as well. Many of their paper viaducts were capable of holding more than 11 pounds of sand. Mechanical engineering was experienced with the help of Emma’s own MakerBot 3D printers, where the girls designed and printed out their own Lego pieces using the revolutionary new printing process. The technique prints out a computergenerated design layer by layer into a desired shape. The Lego robots taught them not simply about mechanical engineering,
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but also offered lessons in computer science as the girls wrote code to program and move their machines. Girls also built a pneumatic classroom together and competed against each other to build gumdrop and spaghetti towers before the semester came to an end. Read as Meredith shares her experience teaching this new Emma class.
One by one, I watched it happen to each girl in Intro to Engineering this spring. For a few, it happened in the first couple of days. For most, it wasn’t until the third
design by starting again at step one. The second goal of the course is for girls to practice persistence, self-efficacy, and self-awareness through a project-based curriculum. These are skills essential for girls who pursue engineering majors in college. As I designed the course, I had hoped that along the way,
“ I heard shrieks of joy from the testing area; it had worked! The team had figured it out! The pride I saw on that student’s face was only matched by her renewed belief that with hard work, she could tackle any challenge I could throw at her.” engineers 1) identify a problem, 2) identify constraints that control solutions to that problem, 3) generate and analyze possible solution ideas, 4) choose one solution to test, and 5) refine their
each girl would see a transformation in the way she thinks about the engineered world around her. For one student, her engineering breakthrough happened in the very first project, the “Ideal Dorm
Room.” Once designed in three dimensions, students translated their designs into two-dimensional plans and built their models by hand as three-dimensional architectural models using foam core. This student and her partner presented a fabulously designed, compact dorm room suite that they imagined would function like a “hobbit house”—half underground, half above—and would be located on the hill overlooking the track. For this student, I knew she was thinking like an engineer when she questioned another group’s design. Pointing out that the group’s design was somewhat sprawling and disjointed, she wanted to know what their overall design concept was? Why they hadn’t used space and materials more efficiently? For another student, I saw her inner-engineer emerge in the final project: the “Lego Robot Challenge.” This student’s group was struggling mightily with the task, and was nearly ready to give up. But like an engineer, this student would not give up. She persisted, making changes to the code, adjusting the robot’s design, and testing the robot over and over and over. After several days of frustrating work, I heard shrieks of joy from the testing area; it had worked! The team had figured it out! The pride I saw on that student’s face was only matched by her renewed belief that with hard work, she could tackle any challenge I could throw at her. Teaching Intro to Engineering is a gift for me. As a civil engineer, I took great pride in elevating my gender’s role in the world of engineering. As a teacher, I now have the chance to open up the world of engineering, a world I love and cherish, to an incredible group of Emma girls. The greatest successes of the first Intro to Engineering course were those moments when each girl tapped into her own inner-engineer. Those are the moments that drive me forward to next semester.
th e class ro o m
or fourth or even final project. No matter how long it took, every girl had that pivotal moment when she stopped thinking like a student and started thinking like an engineer. The goal of this new course is twofold. First, to expose girls to the engineering design process– that is, the cyclical process by which
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Emmagining 200 years. Emma Willard School has seen civil war, 41 of our 44 presidents enter the White House, and America grow from only 14 states. We have seen the first women to vote, enter the United States Senate, become medical doctors, win a Pulitzer Prize, and fly solo across the Atlantic. In honor of all we have been through and all our own Emma Girls have accomplished to change the world, we won’t simply throw a grand party for our Bicentennial in 2014— we will spread this celebration across the whole year! Throughout the 2013–14 school year, Emma will be hosting a series of events called “Emmaginings” in honor of our Bicentennial. Each event will highlight our history and our future in the world of girls’ education. Mark your calendars. Makers Will Abound at Emma
Robots. Food science. Wind farming. Bridge building. On October 12, 2013, Emma Willard School will hold its first-ever Maker Faire on the Emma campus. The Emma Willard Mini Maker Faire will celebrate do-it-yourself creativity and tinkering with a focus on increasing the participation and engagement of women and girls in “making.” Featuring both established and emerging local makers, the Emma Willard Mini Maker Faire will be a family-friendly celebration featuring rockets and robots, DIY science and technology, urban farming and sustainability, alternative energy,
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bicycles, unique handmade crafts, music and local food, and educational workshops and installations. Emma is proudly sponsoring the event in partnership with the Tech Valley Center of Gravity and The Arts Center of the Capital Region. The campus event has been licensed as an official Mini Maker Faire by the national Maker Faire organization (makerfaire.com). In keeping with the tradition of furthering female education as set by our founder, our faire will strive to have the highest female attendance of any Mini Maker Faire. Registration is open at makerfaireemmawillard.com.
The Great Education Debate
In 1814, Emma Hart Willard had a big idea, and she wasn’t afraid to question the educational structure around her to see that idea become reality. Over the course of 200 years, her school has grown vibrantly because it has remained a place where deep inquiry is encouraged and big ideas in education blossom. On January 7, 2014, Emma Willard School will host a day of inquiry and development for educators. As a professional engagement opportunity, Capital District and New England educators as well as Emma Willard alumnae, parents, and prospective parents in education
Bice n te n n ial
will gather to take part in debating the big questions facing teachers and learners today. The day will include keynotes from President of Bard College Leon Botstein and President of Mount Holyoke College Lynn Pasquerella, as well as sessions focused on deep questions facing the modern educational system including: In the age of Google, how much do we need to know? Do standardized tests reflect learning or impede it? Have single-sex schools outlived their usefulness? What should be the role of the teacher as the brick and mortar school becomes increasingly digital? Are efforts to improve teacher accountability improving or hurting schools? This particular event will be by invitation. If you are interested in attending, please contact lmcgrath@emmawillard.org. EmmaTalks
How can one girl change the world? On February 21, 2014, in honor of Emma Hart Willard’s 227th birthday, Emma Willard School will host EmmaTalks. EmmaTalks will spotlight six women, each of whom saw an issue as an opportunity, and through the thoughtful use of time, talent, and resources has cultivated meaningful and sustainable change. The goal of EmmaTalks is to help our expected 800 attendees—students, faculty, alumnae, parents, and guests— conceptualize the challenges that women and girls face around the globe, and the meaningful, productive, and participatory ways that they can serve and shape their world.
EmmaTalks will consist of two distinct program pieces. During the day, Emma Willard School will bring together people from a variety of fields at the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, for an extraordinary Emma-imagined experience focused on global understanding and outreach. Modeling the thought-provoking concept of TEDTalks where speakers from a variety of disciplines are invited to give the presentation of their lives in under 18 minutes, EmmaTalks will cross between and among disciplines. Each of the six talks will also be made available online, allowing our extensive body of alumnae and friends to share them far and wide. Immediately following the presentations and break-outs to network, compare notes, and reflect, Emma students and faculty will return to campus to use the experience to enhance student learning. The girls will be presented with a global project case study. Using the tools demonstrated during the six talks, the students will collaborate to identify potential challenges and obstacles, and brainstorm strategies they might employ to navigate those obstacles successfully. Traversing a variety of themes (education, business, health, science and technology, environment, and human rights), EmmaTalks will promote living examples of women motivated by awareness and driven to shape the world around them for the better.
Learn more about all Bicentennial events at www.emmawillard.org/bicentennial.
Bicentennial Weekend
Mark your calendars and book your hotel rooms for the big Bicentennial Weekend! On May 9–11, 2014, the Emma community from across the generations will come together for a celebration unlike anything ever seen on Ida before. Madame Willard and Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage built an alumnae network second to none in the nineteenth century; we will demonstrate that their vision is alive and thriving two centuries later. During the celebration weekend, we will hold forums and networking sessions to help make meaningful and lasting professional and personal connections among our many Emma girls from current freshmen to rowdy octogenarians. The weekend will teach networking skills to our students and connect them to alumnae who are living out the passions they share. Our alumnae will also be given the opportunity to connect with one another as each envisions the next chapter of their own lives. This modern “Career Day” will continue a long-term plan to grow the links between our students and alumnae. As with all things Emma, we want to include both substance and fun to ring in 200 years. In addition to rousing speakers and dancing under tents to herald in 200 years, the weekend will include expert panels as well as networking and learning sessions on topics ranging from entrepreneurship to food and wine. The weekend is an opportunity to celebrate, reconnect, and launch Emma Willard School into our next two centuries.
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BY G A B R I E L L E D E M A RCO
Vermont maple farmer
Emma Marvin ’98 has syrup in her DNA
photo by R ick Levinson
amp ferns brushed huge leaves against our legs. A squirrel screeched down at us, invaders in her quiet forest. As we walked along the slim pebbled trail, bits of it washed away by recent heavy rains, a little stream flowed past us on its journey down the mountain. Above us, the slender, wrinkled trunks of mature maples stretched toward the canopy to suddenly burst open into the sun in an eruption of silver branches and bright green leaves. We walked past a square cut deep in the earth lined with large boulders. It is all that is left of a long-gone home. The stone cellar, ceding to the moss and ferns around it, is a reminder of what these maples have seen as Native Americans rested between their trunks, hillside farmers and sheep herders used their branches for kindling, and, much later, Emma Marvin’s father first tapped them to produce a food truly rooted to this landscape and culture— maple syrup. “It is very neat to think five years ago I tapped that tree, maybe 10 years ago it was my dad at that same spot, and possibly 40 years ago my grandfather,” Emma said. “There is this family and temporal connection over generations to this particular place.” On the trail of Butternut Mountain, in sporty sandals and loose jeans, with curly hair pulled back in a no-nonsense way off her face, she is every ounce an Emma Girl—truly passionate about what she does. She is passionate about the land and the product her family produces on this Vermont hillside.
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As she and her brother, Ira, prepare to take over Butternut Mountain Farm from their father, it is clear she could do nothing else. She is as much a product of these trees as the syrup she helps produce.
Ro o t s Emma literally grew up in the forest, running the hillside along with the sap. The farmhouse she grew up in was down the hill from the tapped trees. Their original sugarhouse with its sloping metal roof and wide plank walls was right across the dirt road. As a child, she would join many of the employees swimming in the family pond after a long hot day in the sugarhouse. Many of those former swim buddies still work in the family business all these years later. “I remember Friday afternoons when we would hop in the van to make deliveries,” she said. “One highlight was always a store in St. Jay where the owner would inevitability offer us a candy stick, which was a real treat.” And in this way, Emma was raised alongside the business.“It was like having a third sibling because as I grew, so did the business.”
When Emma entered elementary school, the family opened their own country store in the tiny town of Johnson, Vermont in 1986. The store, converted from an old country firehouse, was where the school-age Emma would walk to after school to stock shelves with syrup, jams, and other Vermont products, and help check out customers with her mother. Today, she still checks in regularly at Marvin’s Country Store where her once-upon-a-time babysitter is now the store manager. The store is exactly what you want it to be with pansies planted in window boxes outside by Emma and her mother and wooden floors and shelves stacked with maple
ph oto by R ick L evin son
products, Vermont-made jewelry, and even loaves of her cousin’s handmade bread by the register. Lovely amber bottles of syrup in the shape of maple leaves are outlined by the sun in the windows. A tiny baby onesie proudly heralds, “I’m a Vermonster” from a nearby knotty wood table. They also still sell tapping and other maple harvesting supplies to support everyone from hobbyist to professional sugarmakers, spreading the art of “sugaring” even deeper into Vermont. In 1989, Emma’s father opened a larger processing and manufacturing plant in nearby Morrisville, Vermont and began to take in and distribute
syrup for other small Vermont farms, also known as sugarbushes. It was at about this time that Emma headed off to high school. Not yet convinced that maple syrup was her forever life mission, Emma moved to Emma Willard School. In fact, it was an admissions photograph that got her interested in Emma Willard in the first place. “It was a photo of a girl in a lacrosse shirt, with a stick over her shoulder, messy brown hair, and dirt on her knees and I knew I wanted to be that girl.” “On my first visit, I thought no way,” she continued. “At first, I saw the buildings and really thought it wasn’t going to be the
There is this
family
and temporal connection over generations to this particular place.
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The Marvin's Country Store in tiny Johnson, Vermont where Emma Marvin has stocked the shelves with local Vermont cheese, honey, jams, sugaring supplies, and her family's maple products since her childhood.
right fit. They were beautiful, but so formal and traditional. But then I met the teachers and students and they seemed so approachable and welcoming. That changed it all for me.” Her time at Emma would mark the first time she would be away from not only home, but Vermont and the magnetic pull she would discover it had on her. “My parents were always very careful not to make us feel that we had to come back to work for the family business,” she shared. “I think that is why they let me choose to go to Emma.” The culture at Emma revealed to her that long-standing traditions (whether maple sugaring or girls’ education) can be used as launching points to a new, informed future. “Emma uses tradition as a touchstone and a foundation to build on,” she said of her alma mater. After Emma, where she was able to become “that girl” on the hockey and lacrosse teams as well as head proctor and, of course, a member of Emma Green, Emma went on to study natural resource management at Cornell University. From Cornell she quickly gave into the pull of Vermont, but not yet the maples, and started high in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom for two years doing research for a land preservation organization. “I felt like I needed to ask if it was right for me to be spending time somewhere other than the family business,” she mused. “Maple syrup is a special product, local to the world, highly sustainable, endemic to North America, wild crafted, minimally processed, traditional, with strong personal and cultural ties for me, so I began to think about what I wanted to do and I couldn’t come up with
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another product that was better than pure maple.” She opened her arms wide to her surroundings. And then, daughter of the owner, came home to a rapidly growing Butternut Mountain Farms in 2004, where she asked to start as an intern, getting her feet wet (or perhaps sticky) before jumping in full force. That was a decade ago, and today she is already part owner in the enterprise and in charge of its sales and marketing strategy.
Plant The whir of machines, shush of hoses, and tinkle of glass bottles moving down conveyor belts awaiting a filling of hot syrup in the Butternut Mountain Farm processing plant are, at first, an abrupt departure from the woods. But, walk through the processing plant at Butternut Mountain Farm and the smiles, easy conversations over lunch in the break room, and, of course, the light lovely scent of warm maple make it clear that all 72 employees enjoy what they do. And little bits of the culture of the company call out to you whether from the bins for composting used paper towels or the crackles of a radio in the storage room playing mellow country music to whomever should pass through. More than 50 percent of their employees have
been with the company for more than five years, many for decades. Today, the company has grown from producing maple products from its own 15,000 trees on Butternut Mountain to working with more than 350 Vermont maple producers as well as a handful more from Maine, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Quebec. In total, Butternut Mountain Farm grades, processes, and packages maple syrup from millions of trees. And that rich sweetness is incorporated into dozens of different products from maple barbeque sauce and candies to maple mustards and a specially formulated granular maple sugar. The products are sold under a variety of private labels to companies including Williams-Sonoma, Cabot, and Whole Foods Markets. They also sell maple products to mass-market food producers in the United States and around the world. “We try to show the breadth and versatility of maple,” Emma noted. “We want to get people thinking about maple beyond breakfast.” The versatility is apparent even in the variety of sizes and shades of the syrup produced. Like fine wines, maple syrup has surprising variety in its flavor profile and color. The variation in color and flavor comes from a variety of influences—the trees, the forest and soils, the aspect
E a rt h
of the sugarbush, and the weather conditions all combine to create wide variation in color and flavor. To retain quality and consistency, Vermont has adopted a grading system to classify the main commercial varieties of syrup. Each is graded based on clarity, density (easily pourable Vermont syrup contrasts significantly with the slow-moving stickiness of cornbased syrups), flavor, and color. They range from the light “Vermont Fancy” with its buttery, vanilla sweetness to “Grade B”—earthy and caramel with almost molasses undertones. And at Butternut Mountain Farm, each barrel that comes into the facility is taste tested upon arrival and before departure to make sure that each costumer receives the correct product ordered. If simply imagining ingesting that much maple syrup in a year has you queasy, it has done nothing to erase Emma’s enjoyment of it on cereal…in coffee…. “I love it,” she said. “We eat it pretty much every day, at pretty much every meal. Last night we had pulled pork with maple barbeque sauce and my husband got up and put more maple on the pulled pork.”
A maple tree must be over 40 years old before it can be tapped (nearly a decade older than Emma if anyone is counting), with some of the Butternut Mountain trees at easily over two centuries old. Their slow growth makes the conservation of the land their roots dive and weave through important. “Maple is wild-crafted. The syrups we produce come from trees that are part of the forest. We didn’t go out and plant them. As much as maple is part of agriculture, it is also part of forestry because it is a product that comes from what is here naturally as a part of the forest.” You have a different perspective of the world when you think of things in terms of 40- or 250-year intervals, Emma mused. “Conservation of land is really important not just to us here at Butternut Mountain Farm, but to everyone involved in Vermont agriculture. Ensuring that the landscape remains open and accessible is important for all of us who derive our living from the land and this place.” And conservation and agriculture are issues Emma’s family has been passionate about for decades. Her father, David, a trained forester himself, has sat on the boards of the Vermont Land Trust, Shelburne Farms, Vermont Natural Resources Council, and Vermont Sustainable Job Fund in support of Vermont preservation and sustainable farming. Emma herself is on the Vermont Working Lands board of trustees, helping to provide grants to Vermont companies and farms that earn sustainable livelihoods from the land, as well as the board of Friends of Green River Reservoir working to preserve the wilderness-like character of the park, as it is one of the few water bodies of it’s size where motorized water crafts are not allowed. In addition to writing forest management plans for their own farm, staff forester Fran Sladyk, works
Process How exactly do they turn tree sap into the sticky, tasty syrup we all love? Well, it isn’t easy. Here’s a break down:
1
In winter each of Butternut Farm’s 15,000 maples are tapped with a
small plastic spout. Each nozzle is then connected to a series of tubing leading to the sugarhouse.
2
In the late winter, as the morning sun warms the trees above freezing,
the maple sap starts to run. Large vacuums encourage the movement of the syrup through the tubing. Excess gases are taken out in one line and sap moves through another into huge stainless steel vats in the sugarhouse.
3
Sap goes through reverse osmosis to remove much of
the water from the sap. The resulting, thicker sap is then sent into a large evaporator where it is boiled down to the right consistency. Boil syrup too long and it will crystalize. Take it out too soon and it will spoil. The extreme amount of water coming off the boiling mixture can literally peel the paint off walls.
4
The syrup is then pumped into large barrels and transported
to the main Butternut processing plant where it will be tasted and graded before being packaged and sold across the country.
GRADE A
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with other area landowners and farmers to draft management plans for their forestlands as well. In total his work covers more the 65,000 acres of the state—an area that includes a significant portion of the highest maple producing forests in the world. From larger efforts like leading conversation groups and writing forestry plans to little things like motion detecting lights and
“It is really important to know where every drum of syrup comes from. We want to be sure that we are true to our origins statement. So, if a product says that it comes from Vermont, we can absolutely guarantee that 100 percent of that product is Vermont made.” To achieve this, every drum from 5-gallon containers to the big drums from farms with 50,000 plus trees gets “a face and name,” as Emma
On Creating a Sustainable Business: Butternut Mountain Farm works hard to limit the impact of their work on the environment. Everything from the size and shape of the taps they use for their trees to the paper in their printers is carefully considered. So what advice does one sustainability-savvy business owner have for another? We asked Emma Marvin: Focus on the obvious opportunities. A good place to start is with efficiency. Can you work smarter? This not only allows you to be more sustainable, it also allows you to get the most bang for your buck. What business owners often find is that greening the process often greens the bottom line, too. Sustainability and good business practices so often go hand in hand.
composting of food scraps from lunch and factory filter presses, the Marvins seek to have as little impact as possible on the environment. One hundred kilowatts of solar panels twinkle in black on the roof and every tap, drum, piece of piping, box, bottle, and bit of paper possible is either reused or recycled. Operations employees work four, ten-hour days so that emissions from vehicles and electricity use can be reduced and energy spent in set up and break down of equipment is limited. And it is not simply about sustainability, but community. Through all the growth, the Marvins work to remain true to their Vermont roots. “The relationships we have with the sugarmakers we work with here in Vermont and outside of the state for that matter are really at the core of Butternut Mountain Farm,” Emma stated, as we stopped in the middle of a massive, cool storeroom lined from wall to wall and up to the ceiling with 50-gallon drums of maple syrup.
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described. And in many cases, she literally means a face. As we walked amongst the drums, she checked the labels and talked about her connection to each harvester. “…Boyden Family Farm in Jeffersonville. I work with her daughter doing design.” “…David Allard. He owns Lyndon Furniture Company and made the maple tables in the break room.” “This is Ruth…” This time I actually put a face and name to the syrup because when she is not sugaring her 18,000 trees, Ruth is working at Butternut Mountain Farm helping to batch barrels. Local matters in the Marvin clan. In fact, each year the Marvins enjoy trying to see just how much of their Thanksgiving dinner can be locally sourced. They even buy local Vermont cranberries, root vegetables from Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), and, of course, Vermont maple. And when you are this connected to people and place, global threats
to the climate are even more acute. Emma and her family keep close tabs on how threats like invasive species and climate change could affect maples. Not surprisingly, their family also has deep roots in maple research as her grandfather, James Marvin, helped to found the Proctor Maple Research Center at the University of Vermont, the world’s only research facility dedicated to maple research. Research is already showing that the season for sap runs, which typically lasts from late winter to early spring, has been reduced. Fortunately, technology changes in the harvest of sap have been able to counter these impacts thus far, according to Emma. But, other threats are on the horizon. As the climate warms, invasive species are more easily moving into areas they couldn’t have previously survived in. And when invasive species take hold, they have no natural predators, allowing them to quickly spread and smother many native species. One tiny invader, the Asian longhorned beetle, has been making a steady march across the country. Their favorite food—maple. “Inevitability, someone will bring infested wood into Vermont while going camping, but we’re trying to prevent that through public education.” Emma said. “And they are hard to identify until there is a fullblown infestation.” Upon entry to the processing plant, photos of the speckled beetle lined the walls like an old western’s wanted ad. While such a tiny invasive species doesn’t seem threatening to something as massive as a tree, Butternut Mountain’s namesake tells another story. Sadly, very few butternut trees actually still exist on the mountain as nearly all of them were wiped out by an invasive fungus in recent decades. We passed several lone stragglers on our way up the mountain, nearly leafless and gnarled as arthritic hands.
And the forest provided even more clues on the potential of climate change. “We will see the intensity and frequency of storm events increase. We already have,” Emma said as we passed by the bodies of nearly 100 dead trees stacked by the road leading up to the sugarbush. They were causalities of Hurricane Irene. “When they take 40 years to regrow, you simply can’t go out and replant.” It was poignant at the end of a day so focused on what these old giants can produce, to see trees stacked like plain campfire wood. Their trunks, all pressed together, were too big to wrap your arms around. Some of them were likely more than one hundred years old.
G r ow t h Today, Emma is going through not just a career transition, but a family transition as the ownership and management of Butternut Mountain Farm is passed on to her and her brother. “This is a transition that has been going on for some time and will continue for an even longer time to
Ensuring that the
landscape
remains open and accessible is important for all of us who derive our living
from the land and this place.
come,” she said as we departed from Butternut Mountain, leaving the trees and sugarhouse behind us. As though in a parental exercise of getting along, she and her brother now share a small office in the main processing facility. But, that hasn’t stopped them from growing closer through this process. “Our skillsets complement each other, and our value sets are similar. Our skillsets and perspectives are different enough though that we challenge each other, and that is always a good thing.”
When asked about what it was like to be a woman working to run a business, Emma was thoughtful. In the end, for her, it came back to family. “It is less about gender dynamics than family and friend dynamics. These are people who have known me since I was a child, which changes the whole relationship that you have. They are so much more than just employees or coworkers. You know them and they know you in ways that are a lot different than other workplace relationships.” And it is family that comes through at Butternut. The entire family has put their passion into the same thing for generations. From the hand-carved signs on the sap lines crafted by her sister-in-law, to the beautiful wood paneled sugarhouse where they evaporate their own syrup built by her brother, the fresh baked bread from her cousin in the store, the thousands of taps hand-installed by the family, to Emma’s youngest daughter shouting the indignities of high fructose corn syrup to anyone who will listen— sugar is in their blood and most certainly in Emma’s.
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Spring Break brings Emma Girls around the planet to listen, learn, and serve
Global
Girls 24 Udaipar, India Lauren Yerry ’15 Justine Hu ’15 26 Beijing, China Daniela Pontaza ’16 27 Madrid, Spain Samantha Kreda ’13 28 London, England Beatrice Apikos-Bennett ’13
While Spring Break for many teenagers means warm beaches and far too little clothing; Emma Girls could be found around the world wrapped in Mackintoshes and traditional Indian dupattas learning about other cultures, flexing their language muscles, and performing acts of service in the communities they visited. What follows are snippets from their personal travel journals.
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1 2 Lauren Yerry ’15 & Justine Hu ’15
india
3 1 Justine Hu transporting rocks on the site of what will soon be a new school. 2 The girls help protect homes from the elements with a mixture of cow manure and water. 3 Ranakpur Temple 4 Visiting a completed school where children learn, community members pump clean water, women gather for alternative income projects, and students eat from the nearby community garden. 5 The girls experience a water walk similar to the one women in the community make multiple times a day.
“ We were really going to give children the gift of education, and therefore the chance for a brighter future.” Culture Shock Lauren
…When we finally arrived on the soil of Udaipur, a sudden rush of adrenaline came over us. After countless flights and bus rides, we had reached our destination and our excitement grew, as we were about to embark on the journey of a lifetime. Our trip leaders surprised us all with the gift of colorful dupattas. Our community facilitator showed us how to wear them on our head like the women do in the culture. Then we had another bus ride to a little village called Lai where the Me to We program completed their first school and it was where we first learned about the five pillars: educa-
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tion, alternative income and livelihood, health care, clean water and sanitation, and agriculture and food security. Me to We tries to introduce these specific life needs into little communities in India that don’t have the right resources to create them for themselves. I’m not gonna lie; our arrival was a little overwhelming. I was extremely homesick. It was a brand new experience for me and it took some time to adjust… Building a Connection Justine
…After eating breakfast at a hotel by a gorgeous lake, we visited a school that had already been built by Me to
We. The school the community had before was just one small classroom in a small building made of brick and mud. There were no windows, so it was pretty much pitch black inside. The new school Me to We built was much more comfortable and spacious. This got me excited because I finally realized this is what we were going to do in India. We were really going to give children the gift of education, and therefore the chance for a brighter future. Afterwards, we visited children at [another] school, and participated in a welcoming ceremony. The students
sang two songs for us, so we sang them two in return–one in Hindi, and the first verse of our Alma Mater. They also painted a red dot on our foreheads, gave us a colorful string bracelet, and a marigold flower necklace. Once the welcoming ceremony was over, our bus took us to the new school construction site. I loved
4
5 working there–it was super fun. My group’s first job was to move the rock pile to a different place. My favorite part of the job was shoveling; putting rocks into bowls. We developed an efficient system that involved teamwork… Wishes Lauren
…We went to the work site for the first half of the day and we continued our jobs from the day before. Then we went to the Ranakpur Jain temple, and learned about the traditions of Jainism, and the history of the temple itself, and how it was constructed. As we left, we got to make a wish under the wishing stone that was put above the entrance.
A Day in Her Shoes Justine
…This morning we experienced what it would be like to actually be an India woman living in Udaipur. First we fed some animals, then we fetched water on our heads (balancing the pots of water on your head is actually not as easy as it looks; I got completely soaked), then we made some bread, known as roti, and finally, we strengthened the woman’s house with a material made from water, mud, and dung. In the afternoon we visited a women’s self-help group. We ground corn to turn it into chicken feed. I was so bad at this I think I broke the record for distance in splattering unground corn everywhere. At night, we did an alternative income activity where we were in groups and had 400 rupees to buy essential things we needed for our “family.” We got pretty good deals. But in the end, after learning the actual prices and figuring out we could feed the family if we only had two meals a day, those deals didn’t seem too great… Writing on the Wall Lauren
…Today was a full work day. We did foundation filling and we finished painting a mural for the kids. In the end we were all given a rock. We threw it in with the foundation filler and made a wish. I think back on it now and I realize how much it meant to me that our group went into this project together and grew closer as the days went on. It felt nice to know we accomplished so many tasks that were given to us as a collective group. It made me feel like we made a difference… Colorful Goodbyes Justine
…After our last yoga session, we headed over to the school we went to on our first day, the one where the welcoming ceremony took place…except, this time, it was a
farewell ceremony. We were given handmade cards the children had made for us. I think that card is going to be something I will keep for a very, very, very long time. After that, we were free to play with the children. By the end of the visit, I had learned an Indian hand game. Next came our three surprises. For the first one, they told us a quick story about the Hindi festival usually celebrated in March called Holi. Then, they told us to line up in front of the building and then… SPLASH! We were all soaked from head to toe; water had been poured on us from the balcony! Well, at least it was a good way to refresh ourselves from the heat. ;D We were split into two teams. The goal of each team was to hide their own colored powder in imaginative places within their territory and to find the other team’s colors and cover the other team with their own color. It was such fun! Our second surprise was henna. It was wonderful, and the intricate art was just so…beautiful! It was awesome. Our last surprise was a little activity called “The Tunnel of Love.” Basically, there were two lines of people facing inward. One blindfolded person would start from one end of the tunnel and walk forward. When she passed one person, that person would whisper something in her ear—something positive they feel towards the blindfolded person—and lead her to the next person. This would go on until the blindfolded person got to one of the trip leaders, where she would receive a beaded necklace. I thought about all the things I said I wanted to do, and the reasons why I wanted to come. I smiled because I had made a difference, a small one, at least. I had learned things only a handful of people had ever experienced, and I had gained skills that would benefit me—and hopefully the world…
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“ I had some time to practice my Chinese and learn more about the culture.”
Daniela Pontaza ’16
1
china
1 The Great Wall 2 Teaching English
and learning Chinese at the same time!
3 Dani [right] at
the Forbidden City
3 visited a Muslim mosque and had time to shop at a street market. After that we went on an overnight train to Shanghai.
2 Working Through Language Barriers
We went to visit a children’s school in Beijing. This school is run by donations! The kids were very patient when I tried to speak with them in Chinese.
sat in on an English class and talked to some of the students. They were really nice and friendly. Later, we went to the summer palace. It was beautiful! We went to dinner at one of China's famous colleges. Then we had a bike tour!
Great Wall in the Snow
Today we visited one of the Seven Wonders of the World. We went to The Great Wall of China. Not only was it an unbelievable sight, it was snowing. It was incredible! Afterwards we went to a market where you could haggle. It reminded me of Mexico!
Forbidden City
The Forbidden City! It was huge and full of history. Then we took a ride on a rickshaw, which is a cart connected to a bicycle. The rickshaw got us to the house of a local family. We had dinner there. The Warriors
Biking Through Beijing
We visited a local high school in Beijing. While we were there, we
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I had a great day today! We started by seeing the famous Terra Cotta Warriors and Horses. Then we
…And Singing Ensued
Hi! Today we went on a trip to Suzhou. It was a beautiful water village! I did not know this until today, but this village was where Mission Impossible was filmed! After this, we went to karaoke. It was fun! We sang to pop songs and had a good time. The Journey Home
Our last day in China is here! How fast does the time fly! Wow...It was an unforgettable journey. I will always remember this trip! I had some time to practice my Chinese and learn more about the culture. Well, right now we have been flying for 10 hours. We are almost in New York! I can't wait to see my family to tell them all about this adventure.
4 Segovia 5 Rain doesn't stop Sam [right] from enjoying the Plaza Mayor in Madrid6 Sam [far left] at the aqueducts of Segovia
4
SPAIN Gelato and the Plaza Mayor
5 The Rain in Spain Falls Gently on… Everything
…“Rain, rain, go away,” quickly became a popular phrase. It seemed if you walked outside and the sun was shining, the next minute rain would be pouring down on your head. We were all troopers and refused to let the rain get us down. We trekked on and on through Madrid, looking at the famous cathedrals and buildings surrounding us. I was extremely elated that at the last few minutes of packing for the trip I decided to include my sunshine-yellow raincoat. Although it made me stick out like a sore thumb, I found protection from the downpours inside that little yellow wonder. Although all of this may seem dark and dismal, I learned that a little rain can’t get me down, because after the rain comes the rainbow, which makes up for everything…
…Gelato. Sweet, creamy, velvety, chocolaty goodness. Mix all of those sensations with fudge and chips of almonds and you have Ferrero Rocher gelato. I am an ice cream fanatic. Anything with ice cream in it makes my taste buds tingle. I fell madly in love with Ferrero Rocher gelato the first time I put the taster spoon into my mouth. I walk to the Plaza Mayor almost every day to get a cup of mouth-watering gelato. At the Plaza Mayor you can find anything from an authentic Spanish pastry to a burger from McDonald’s. I was able to find souvenirs for my friends and family, grab lunch at a café, and finish with a bowl of scrumptious gelato for only a few euros. We were able to get a real taste of the culture and practice our Spanish with the local shop owners all in one delightful, convenient location… Language Immersion
…The language classes we were taking at Colegio Delibes [in Salamanca] add to all of the
6
Samantha Kreda ’13
fun. During class, I was able to talk about issues in the United States and hear the viewpoints of people from all around the world, which was really interesting… Sainthood and Segovia
…We are off to another adventure: to witness the allure of two exciting cities, Ávila and Segovia. Our first stop was Ávila. We were able to see the famous City Walls, taste the traditional egg yolk candies, and witness the people’s devotion to Saint Theresa through the monuments and statues devoted to her. Our next stop was Segovia. When we first arrived, the sky-high aqueducts that guard the city greeted us. We ventured onto the Plaza Mayor to have lunch, walked around the side streets, and ended at El Alcázar de Segovia, a castle and tower located on the outskirts of the city. We climbed all the way to the top of the narrow tower and took amazing pictures of the spectacular view…
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1
1 Big Ben 2 Beatrice
[left] on the plane ride "across the pond" 3 The whole group before St. Paul's Cathedral in London 4 221B Baker Street for the Sherlock Holmes Museum 5 Face-to-face with the Rosetta Stone
Beatrice Apikos-Bennett ’13
2
england “ I would go again in a heartbeat—for the things we saw, the knowledge passed on to us by the people we met, and the experiences I would not have gotten any other way.” JFK to LRH
…Arriving in London, we met up with the assistant drama director [from Felsted School] who took us by bus the 80 minutes to Felsted School in Dunmow, where we stayed for the majority of our trip. We were given a bit of time to get situated in our dorm rooms before we were whisked away for a tour by Charles, the theater director who brings Felsted School to Emma to perform every other year. Later,
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it was off to the Lord Rich Hall, or the LRH as we called it, for an international dinner. We were seated by age and quickly struck up conversations. Dinner was served, followed by a performance of different talents. [Emma Girls and fellow travelers] Melodi Dincer and Acacia Larson represented America. The two seniors sang I Will Follow You Into the Dark, accompanied by Acacia on guitar…
Museums to Musicals
…We were introduced to the quintessential and aptly named “English Breakfast” or fried toast, beans, sausage, eggs, and chips (French fries). Then it was off to London for the day. Charles gave us a walking tour of the big important things to see. We even experienced a bit of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, which was centered in Trafalgar Square. After seeing the important buildings we took a walk down Carnaby Street, a major shopping street, and down Oxford Street to look at the shops… Harry Potter and the Rosetta Stone
…We packed up our things, loaded into a mini bus, and went to a surprise location—The Making
3 4
5
You can help too! Many of the girls were able to take these trips thanks to the generous support of Emma alumnae and friends. If you would like to consider a donation to help support a global learning or service opportunity for an Emma Girl, go to www.emmawillard.org/support-emma.
It’s Elementary, My Dear Beatrice
of Harry Potter Warner Bros. Studio Tour! Then, after a quick lunch, it was off to The British Museum. There, we had quite a while to look around and marvel at the worldly treasures collected in that one place. Our group went straight to the Rosetta Stone. From there it was back to the hotel to get dressed for dinner and a show—We Will Rock You, a Queen rock opera. Over the top in every way, but crazy fun!…
Theatre in London
…We walked through London and across the Millennium Bridge to see the Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern Museum. We then began the long walk back into London to go to the Apollo Theatre to see A Curious Incident of The Dog in The Night Time…
…On our last day in London, I chose to go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum; Sherlock Holmes being one of my childhood literary idols. I was very excited to get to see 221B Baker Street. This entire experience was invaluable to me, mainly because I got to spend it with the incredible people I met at Emma. A trip to London is a gift in and of itself, but a trip with the strong, independent women I got to go with created lasting memories. I would go again in a heartbeat—for the things we saw, the knowledge passed on to us by the people we met, and the experiences I wouldn’t have gotten any other way…
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Connections
Saying Goodbye to The Maestro When news spread of the death of Emma Willard School’s Director of Vocal Music Emeritus Russell Locke in July, generations of students, teachers, and colleagues celebrated a beautiful, musical life. Russell, or Mr. Locke, as so many will forever know him by, joined Emma Willard in 1953, and although he formally retired in 2003 after 50 years with the school (a quarter of its long history), he remained a vibrant presence on campus.
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Raised in Illinois, he lived in Troy since his arrival at Emma. He was an exceptional academic and scholar, attending Harvard University to earn both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He spent a year in Paris as a Harriet Hale Wooley Scholar directly after World War II where
he studied organ with André Fleury and musical research with composer and conductor Nadia Boulanger. He was a professor at Bowdoin before he joined us at Emma. He was also a board member of the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Troy Chromatic Concerts, and Friends of Chamber Music. His legacy of teaching and deep scholarly love for music live on in the musical library he created for Emma, which includes notated programs from every concert performed at Emma during his half-century tenure. But, he was so much more than the degrees he earned or the knowledge he kept. He was a teacher, friend, coach, and confidant. He helped thousands of girls use and test their powerful voices through beautiful song. Today, around the world, women sing with loud, proud voices thanks to his teaching, guidance, and belief in them. He gave more than half his life in service to our school. His legacy and his voice live on in the students he taught and the teachers he mentored. Here are just a few words from the voices he brought together in music and in life: “He led me in choir and inner choir, 30 years after he led my mother. We remember him fondly and will mourn his passing. Today, he sings with the angels.” “My heart is breaking. I hoped he would live forever. I always made a special trip to visit him at his home on Lillian every time I returned to EW. He was a treasure beyond words. He gave me such a gift when he passed on his love of music to me. I am blessed to have had him in my life.” “I have lost the dearest of friends. I will miss him so much. So brilliant, so perceptive, so beautiful, so kind. When they built him they broke the mold.” “There is no question that Mr. Locke stands out as a super star in the
“Thanks for all the musical guidance, Maestro Locke! The angel choir will be singing more heavenly than ever! Hallelujah!”
“Mr. Locke taught us the value of serious hard work along with the values of quarter notes. He demanded and gave respect in equal measure. Rarely have I encountered teachers of his caliber in the 30 years since my graduation. My mom and I both had the honor of singing for Mr. Locke. I’ll never forget him and the gifts of music he gave us all.”
“I have supported Emma Willard School because of him. Yes, there were other wonderful teachers. Yes, I loved my classmates. Yes, the correlated curriculum resonated deeply. And yes, the majesty and grandeur of our beautiful campus are deeply appreciated. But, Mr. Locke changed my life and any struggle, any obstacle, and most importantly all the joy I’ve encountered was always met or celebrated with him right there at my back.”
“He was so instrumental in my life unfolding as it did. Dear RL, you are cherished beyond measure!”
Distinguished Almunae DISTINGUISHED YOUNG ALUMNA AWARD (5–20 years out) Jessica Harper ’93: For her passionate commitment to exploring the transcendent beauty of the quotidian, and for sharing her tremendous gifts generously with students. DISTINGUISHED ALUMNA AWARD (25 or more years out) Rebecca Jones ’88: For achieving remarkable success as a compassionate, influential educator, and for fostering the tradition of all-girls’ education. SERVICE TO EMMA AWARD Anne DePrez ’73, Board Chair: For generously devoting her time, integrity, and resources to sustaining the powerful education each Emma Girl receives, and will continue to receive as this institution operates in the model she has lovingly helped shape.
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Emma Willard constellation. May his memory shine on in the countless hearts of those who were inspired by him to sing with joy.”
Our History Book Tour
Wrought with Steadfast Will: A History of Emma Willard School has already been shared across the country at nine different book tour locations. If you have not yet had the opportunity to enjoy a book tour event complete with reading and personalized book signing by author and Associate Head Emerita Trudy Hanmer, do not despair. There are still many stops left on the tour. Come and learn about our history and enjoy the company of Emma alumnae in your area. The book tour stops are the perfect way to spend an evening reconnecting with your school in our Bicentennial year! Avon, Connecticut September 26 Belle Terrace at Avon Old Farms San Francisco, California October 8 Hyatt Regency San Francisco
Be sure to purchase your book online prior to the book
Pasadena, California October 9 Il Fornaio
signing at www/ emmawillard.org/ bicentennial.
La Jolla, California October 10 La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club Philadelphia, Pennsylvania October 30 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel London, England November 13 Home of Anna Quick Palmer ’88 Portsmouth, New Hampshire November 20 Discover Portsmouth Center Norwich, Vermont November 21 The Norwich Inn For more details on upcoming stops, contact alumnae@emmawillard.org.
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1. A recording of Emma Willard’s return to Commencement. “Remember the hive!” 2. Deb Geraghty ’88 and Heather Leigh-Wells ’88 enjoying the parade fun.
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3. Walk this way—the Dixieland way. 4. State of the School address. 5. Strong heart, strong body. 6. Kathie Mills Berry ’53 and Betts Howes Murray ’73—A Taste of Engineering. 7. Sunrise Yoga and coffee! 8. Michal Colby Wadsworth ’65 and her husband Jim. Michal was honored for her years of service on the Emma Willard board. 9. Members of the class of 1998 parading in style—wow, what a class! 10. Peace, love, and friends for the Class of ‘73. 11. Friends forever! 12. Alumnae Chapel and the beautiful choir voices. 13. Bretta Oluyede ‘08 and Debra Spiro-Allen.
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1943: Janet Hannon Davie, Patricia Riple Perkins, Margaret Johnson Emery 1948: Jane Walker Fryling (center) with her daughters Linda Fryling (left) and Sue Bliven 1953: Front Row: Cynthia Kayan, Ruth Oppenheim Legon, Ellen Braestrup Strickler, Dorothy Sturges, Judith Gibson Conklin, Elizabeth Warncke deRham, Donna Applegate White; Back Row: Mary Kniffin Gillett, Janet Trostel Martin, Marcia Sherwood
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Martin, Marion Nelson Ruth, Katharine Mills Berry, Ann Jefferson Barnes, Julia Harrington Kilby 1958: Front Row: Emira Habiby Browne, Anne Schaeffer Eaton, Joan Ozman Horsey, Peggy Doud Christie. Second Row: Susan Earl Klebl, Ardelle Fenn Darling, Gretchen Hall Green, Diana Fong Chan, Susan Hyde Scholl 1963: Front row: Amanda Irons Donovan, Jill Schropp, Marsha Lewis Herman, Lee Kinney Marshall, Eve Bartle Lesses,
Bonnie Scott Jelinek; Second Row: Clare Tweedy McMorris, Rae Tyler Millman, Gaye Taylor Snyder; Third Row: Marian Condon, Elizabeth Caney, Jane Andrews Slaten, Karin Ringdahl Snyder, Emily Morse Camp, Elizabeth Hunter Solomon 1968: Front Row: Elizabeth Harte Owens, Hollis Ford Ridgway, Diana Westbrook, Anne-Laurence Dodge, Janice Ball, Elizabeth Johnson Fotheringill, Lynn Polan; Second Row: Elizabeth Mullens Campbell, Karen Lundquist Peterson, Heidi Porter Webster, Susan Hoff Haynes,
Ruth Scovill, Judy Buttenheim Stevens, Dorothy Jacobson, Paula Brody, Meredith Purdy Clapp. Back Row: Katherine Poyntz, Pamela Wiggin Barry, Julie Meck Peet, Guerda Edeline Harris, Jennifer Adler 1973: Front Row: Anne Schuster Hunter, Betts Howes Murray, Margot Menkel, Dimmis Weller Zeigler, Mary Nelson, Megan Maguire de Roulet, Susan Gawler, Janet Sebastian Thompson, Georgia Renfroe, Ronna Cohen; Second Row: Carol Gundersen Haid, Mary Wright Engelhard, Sarah Bucknell Treco,
All photos by Mark Van Wormer
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1993: Front row: Anne Johnson, Bridghe McCracken, Betsy Duryea Biernat; Second row: Catherine Carroll Aarts, Heather Milne Ritchie, Jessica Harper, Susanne Hathaway, Isabel Gunther 1998: Front row: Emma Sonduck, Katherine Carella, Suma Reddy, May Van Norman, Rebecca Shenn Anavim, Hima Reddy; Back row: Emma Marvin, Julie Massry Knox, Marlena McNamee 2003: Front row: Maggie Webster Piccirillo, Natalie Weinstein, Elizabeth Toohey, Jane Phelan, Jenna Barci Hopewell, Elizabeth Foretek; Second row: Victoria Atkinson, Lauren Moses, Amy Clore, Durban Swartz, Mara Grbenick, Esther Allen; Third row: Jordan Merrigan, Elizabeth Appel, Victoria Rosen, Sterling Rice Donnelly, Virginia Fisher.
Catherine Elliot, Hester Campbell, Ann Williams Chiara, Sarah McCarthey, Sara Johnson Meyers, Anne DePrez, Nancy Warren Beard, Lindsay Gedge Strand, Patricia Whittle, Linda Cahill Forkey, Diana Baxter; Third Row: Stephanie Sides, Betsy Johnson, Katherine Spelman, Carolyn Beach Welcome, Michelene Fox Wilson, Dana Strong 1978: Front row: Laura Bostick Hankin, Cynthia Skripak, Daniel Jenness, Marea Himelgrin Jenness, Maria Litynsky Foss; Back row: Jill Friedlander, Ruth Jones,
Gwenllian Krause, Dorothy Cockrell, Andrea Berleant Milman 1983: Front Row: Jennifer Fidance Weldon, Leanne Lipton, Chung-a Oh Hsu, Lena Vanier; Second Row: Christine Albertsson, Catherine Uroff Brill, Sarah Ashton, Jennine Shohan Pommier, Jacqueline Droesch Brown, Elizabeth Medford Mester; Third Row: Laura Talbot, Susan Koerner Pearson, Hillary Denton Kohler, Samantha Clist Coates, Margaret Bownes Johnson, Amy Cole, Bernice Dicks Yale
1988: Front row: Odile Weissenborn, Jenifer O’Brien Moses, Grace Moses Second row: Deborah Geraghty, Anna Quick Palmer, Sarah Kinkade, Rosana Anwar-McGann, Kara Green, Heather Wells, Laura Maider Dolan; Third row: Alise Shuart, Jennie Nyulasi, Teki Cruickshank, Noel Nowicki Knowles, Mera Okerlund Colling; Fourth row: Kassandra Duane, Emily Cross, Laura Stewart Gouveia, Lissa Heald Skurnik, Rebecca Jones, Susan Jankowski Vacchi, Cara Wall, Anna Levak, Lila Levak
2008: Front Row: Lila Glick, Nora Breedlove, Karen Toro, Roxanne Tehranian, Harriet James, Hilary Rosenthal, Brynn Taylor, Caitlin Clarke, Eva Bochem-Shur, Elizabeth Schultz, Charlotte Richards; Second row: Ji Mi Lee, Michelle Leung, Francesca Limoli, Claire Sacco, Meredith Guetig, Alyssa Russin, Ariel Thompson, Sung Won Hwang; Third row: Nicole Heyman, Alexis Murphy, Erin Scully, Alexandra Monson, Danielle Volman, Sydney Chun; Top row: Bretta Oluyede, Megan Sypher, Angela Kung, Sara Eisemann, Shara Azad, Elizabeth Silliman, Helen Brokaw
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Signing Off head of school trudy hall
Lean in, Way in I hope you have Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In on your bedside table. Forget the hailstorm she has received. I urge you to remember the leadership gap between genders she highlights has been researched extensively. It is real. Sheryl is simply urging us to engage in conversation about it. So, let’s talk. The statistics are not good. The 2012 McKinsey survey of over 4,000 employees noted that 36 percent of men had corporate aspirations while only 18 percent of women saw the C-suite in their future. Catalyst tells us women CEOs are a mere four percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. Of 13,000 members of Congress in our history, only two percent have been women, and of 2,137 governors, only 31 have been women. Even in the non-profit world, recent stats from the largest 400 charities show a mere 19 percent are led by women. Sadly, research notes what underpins many of these statistics is a fear of the social backlash that comes right along with ambition for many women. Professors at the Simmons School of Management teamed with researchers from Girl Scouts to assess just when these fears take root. Their findings haunt me. Middle-school girls receive the primary—and well-meaning—advice of, “do what makes you happy.” Yet, they hear this advice “while being surrounded by a gendered landscape promoting stereotypic messages about what girls can and should do or not do.” Ugh. As a result, many of their goals reflect these stereotypes, with one in
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four middle school girls opting for a traditionally female-dominated job as their top goal. But, when asked what career they would pick if they were a boy, the girls immediately switched to STEM, business, and other male-dominated careers as top choices. It is just as we feared: this stuff is built into our culture; it is in the air we breathe. So how do we transition from a society where 12-yearolds barely see a place for themselves in boardrooms? This summer I attended the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools annual conference where we heard women leaders share lessons from their journey. Together, they demonstrated how to instill unwavering ambition in our girls. It was a powerful experience. I came away with three firm convictions. First, all-girl settings can make a profound difference in girls’ lives. But, you expected me to say that didn’t you? Second, we are getting in our own way. When we shy away from risk for fear of failure, when we pull back for fear of social reprisal, we are reinforcing the very culture that fuels those fears.
And third, when you call out gender biases, you change the dialogue about women in power. The media is more than comfortable to call out a female leader for her hairstyle, parenting, or wardrobe choices. It feels harmless, but the poll numbers for female political candidates drop markedly anytime these comments are made by political commentators—unless we name it. And if this happens in politics, think how it also affects the workplace. Fortunately, I live at the intersection of these realities. I get to think deeply about girl-centered programming that fosters leadership ambition and cultivates healthy leadership behaviors. And I am fired up to do just that. I invite you to join me on my mission. Send along any good research links or articles you may have discovered on your quest for female-friendly cultures, programs, and practices. And when you see another women being called out: Name it. We owe it to the next generation of girls to name it so we can change it (nameitchangeit.org). After all, don’t we all want to live to see the first female president?
Connect with the Emma Network!
Directory Quickly and securely access contact information for classmates and friends.
Maps Discover the alumnae living in your area. You’ll be amazed by the strength of our network.
News Learn what Emma and our alumnae are doing around the world.
Each alumna of Emma Willard School joins a select network of women who excel at everything from poetry to lobster fishing and who span the entire globe. Looking for more information on Boston College for your daughter? Interested in switching to a career in journalism? Looking for an apartment in Boulder? Itching to travel to Singapore? An Emma Girl is there to help. How can you tap into the Emma Network? Download the Emma app, built exclusively for Emma Willard School alumnae! Download it for free at www.emmawillard.org/alumnae/alumnaeapp Please note Emma Willard School is committed to protecting the privacy of our alumnae. The Emma alumnae app uses email verification and is only available to confirmed alumnae of Emma Willard School. Should you have questions about the app, please email alumnaeapp@emmawillard.org.
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SAVE THE DATE
Bicentennial Celebration Let us come together to put her
May 9–11, 2014
signature on the world.