Garrison Forest 2015 Magazine by Garrison Forest School

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G A R R I SON F OR E S T 2015

MAGAZINE

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CAPTURING THE GFS CAMPUS For nearly four decades, Karen Mallonee, Middle School Physical Education teacher and coach who retired on June 30, 2015, has turned her lens on the campus and has inspired new generations of camera bugs in her Middle School photography club and Garrison Geographic Minimester course. From top: 1. Karen Mallonee, 2. Amelia Schelle ‘20, 3. Mallonee, 4. Tiffany Yang ‘20, 5. Lila Bennett ‘19, 6. Mallonee, 7. Pia Domenech Lopez ‘19, 8. Charlotte Seymour ‘19, 9. Mallonee, 10. Molly Douglas ‘20

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G A R R I SON F OR E S T GFS .OR G

2015

MAGAZINE

20 Celebrating 10 Years of WISE and Jenkins Fellows GFS’s signature experiential programs reach a milestone anniversary

28 Changing Course Alumnae career-changers chart new paths

34 Garrison Forest Gallery Upper School student artwork

134 From the Archives: Service League 3.

Student service, advocacy, outreach and impact over eight decades

Departments

Letter from the Head of School

Spirit of Giving

Newsmakers

Class News

Farewell to the Forest

Faculty at the Forest

136

Words We Live By: Esse Quam Videri Guest Columnist Rachel Peichert ’10

MORE ONLINE AT GFS.ORG/MAGAZINE

Cover Artist: Photograph er Lilly Nguyen ‘15

Lilly spent her Independent Senior Project at Penumbra Foundation in Manhattan, a nonprofit that teaches 19th-century alternative photographic processes. For the cover art, she was inspired by the energy of the musicians, artists, dancers, jugglers and children playing in the fountain as well as the couples in Washington Square. “I wanted to capture New York City’s verticality, architectural grandeur and fast pace, “explains Lilly, who was Web photographer for the GFS Communications Office. She layers multiple perspectives and different points in time in her Cubist-style, digital collages. Elected to Cum Laude as a junior, Lilly is attending Brown University with plans to take classes at the Rhode Island School of Design. (Photo above is her self portrait.) EDITORIAL STAFF

DESIGN

PHOTOGRAPHY

Sarah Achenbach, Director of Communications sarahachenbach@gfs.org

Mid-Atlantic Custom Media Jeni Mann, Director jmann@midatlanticmedia.com Cortney Geare, Art Director Lindsey Bridwell, Designer Kim Van Dyke, Designer

Dawn Dias-Bulls, F. Paul Galeone Photographers, Gary Harris, Lilly Nguyen ’15, Karen Mallonee, Sakinah Rushdan ’16, David Stuck Photography

Aja Jackson, Associate Director of Communications and Class News Editor ajajackson@gfs.org

10.

Garrison Forest Magazine is published annually. The opinions expressed in the magazine and Class News are those of the authors and/or interview subjects and not necessarily of Garrison Forest School. Garrison Forest makes every effort to include all submitted Class News but reserves the right to edit for clarity, length and content. Alumnae Class News agents are responsible for accuracy in their Class News. SEND ADDRESS CORRECTIONS TO:

Garrison Forest School Alumnae Office 300 Garrison Forest Road • Owings Mills, MD 21117 • gfsalum@gfs.org • 410-559-3136

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From the Head of School

One of the reasons I love my

job is that every day, I get to see and experience the raw potential of our girls. I feel this raw potential at Garrison Forest everywhere I look. As we build on the school’s 105-year history, the fabric of the community and what we stand for remains tightly woven. At the same time, the future is beginning to take shape in exciting ways. ere are enduring and precious things about Garrison Forest that will never change. We are an excellent girls’ school with a caring community and an environment that encourages girls to grow, take risks, gain conﬁdence and learn who they are and who they can become. We are a place of relationships—where the relationships among the girls and those between the girls and their teachers are at the center of what we do every day. Garrison Forest is a beautiful place that is home to many with boarders and faculty families who live and grow together, creating an extended family with our day community. And we are a place with abiding school tradition and school spirit—a place with “Lights” (Light Blue) and “Darks” (Dark Blue)—where the girls embrace what it means to be a Garrison Girl while also embracing the fact that there is not just one prototypical Garrison Girl. It is rare to have such consistency about what a place is. It is the enduring strength of Garrison Forest that we know so clearly who we are. At the same time, it is essential that we continue to evolve and change in concert with the world around us. Today’s Kindergartners will graduate from college in 2031. It is hard to begin to imagine what their world will look like 16 years from now. What did the world look like 16 years ago in 1999? e iPhone would not be invented for eight more years. Facebook (and the social media that has followed) was still ﬁve years away. If we think about how normalized these things are in our lives now, it is an indication of how rapidly the world changes—

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

and how quickly we all have to adapt. is is true of our students, too. So, as we think about preparing our youngest students for a world we cannot predict, we cannot rely solely on our old methods of educating students. Yes, we want them to be able to write well and argue persuasively, but we also have to think about the skills they will need to navigate this pace of change. ey will need to be nimble. ey will need to be flexible. ey will need to exist and thrive with a high level of ambiguity. ey will need to be globally aware, and they will need to be able to leverage technology, to create with it rather than only consume it. We need to change the way we teach because the main thing we need to teach them is agility. We want an academic program that is rigorous, yes, but also relevant. One that includes real world experiences, where they are asked to solve real problems, as they do when they participate in a Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) internship or a Jenkins Fellowship, both of which celebrate the 10-year milestone this year. Or when they program and build a robot to accomplish a particular task. Or when they learn about financial literacy through a stock market simulation. So, this is the primary question we are asking ourselves at Garrison Forest today. What do girls need to feel confident and passionate as they enter an unpredictable world? If we do our jobs well, they will get the enduring GFS qualities of community, relationship, spirit and caring. And they will embrace the “new” skills and habits of mind: agility; purpose; initiative; and the ability to think critically to direct their own learning. While the needed skills have changed and their world is unpredictable, who they are as Garrison Girls has not.

Kimberley J. Roberts, Ph.D. Head of School

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A SNAPSHOT OF

Dr. Roberts’ First Year at the Forest

588

meetings with students, parents, alumnae, faculty and staff

breakfasts hosted for the Class of 2015, student leaders and international boarders

68 diplomas awarded

118 collective miles run by the “Run with Roberts” team of students, alumnae and parents who ran the 5K with Dr. Roberts at the 2014 Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure

10,115

emails sent and received

Countless walks taken on campus with family, to enjoy Maryland’s four seasons friendly Interactive Monster introductions during day of volunteering for first-ever Fourth- and Fifth-Grade STEM immersion week with I2Learn

6,340 miles

traveled to meet alumnae

1 BASKETBALL COURT

250

stormed with Grizzly fans after Basketball won the IAAM B Conference tournament and 4 Championship dinners hosted at Lochinvar for Upper School teams and the Chamber Choir

screams from the Lochinvar basement by the entire Fifth Grade Class for daughter Charley’s Halloween party (average of 10 screams/11-year-old girl)

35 PIECES of GFS “bling” on Dr. Roberts’ spirit tunic

5 lbs. of M&Ms eaten by the Leadership Team during meetings

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Newsmakers

GRETTA GORDY GARDNER ’86

Honored as ‘Unsung Hero’ by the Mary Kay Foundation At the September 2014 National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence Against Women (NTF) conference, the Mary Kay Foundation honored attorney Gretta Gordy Gardner with an “Unsung Hero” award for her national leadership in and advocacy for domestic violence awareness. “Receiving this award was a humbling experience and is a reminder to me that as a collective force, we can create the social change required to end violence against women,” reﬂects Gretta, who is one of ﬁve people nationally to

“Receiving this award is a reminder to me that as a collective force, we can create the social change required to end violence against women.” receive this award. “I will be forever indebted to my family and my mentors for making the investment in me to be stalwart in our collective goal to end gender bias in relationships, education and economics. Esse Quam Videri gives me the fortitude to be true to myself and to my work to make this vision become a reality.” As the chair of the Austin/Travis County Family Violence Task Force and family violence director for the Travis County Counseling and Education Services in Austin, Texas since 2011, Gretta helps the

criminal and civil systems collaborate on behalf of victims. Her experience includes directing the National Domestic Violence Hotline and overseeing national programs as the managing attorney for the Washington, D.C., oﬃce of the legal department of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. With her expertise in best-practices protocol and policy, Gretta is bridging service gaps for families and individuals and increasing community awareness in the Austin region. In 2013, she created and implemented the State Oﬃce on Violence Against Women Safe Havens Grant, which funds a supervised visitation safe exchange center. A former board member of Women Empowered Against Violence, Inc. and the National Organization of Sisters of Color Ending Sexual Assault, and a Garrison Forest Career Day speaker, Gretta, who holds a B.A. in psychology from Vassar and a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law, often mentors girls on leadership development. In September 2013, on the occasion of her induction into the GFS Hall of Excellence, she spoke to the Eighth Grade elective “Women Leaders” about her career path.

National Merit Award Winners Each year, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation honors students for their remarkable achievement in the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT). From a pool of more than 1.5 million students who took the test during their junior year, two members of the Class of 2015 received National Merit honors. NATIONAL HISPANIC RECOGNITION SCHOLAR:

Kiki Dominguez ’15, University of Pennsylvania ACTIVITIES: Co-head of Model United Nations, Debate Club Head, Forum Representative,

Cellist in Upper School Ensemble, Varsity Badminton and Admission tour guide. Also participated in the Upper School musical. HOW ESSE QUAM VIDERI, "TO BE RATHER THAN TO SEEM," HAS INSPIRED HER:

“Our motto has been the guiding philosophy to how I approach work, relationships and life. Garrison Forest has taught me to seek a balance between academics and life.” NATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM SCHOLAR:

Chanler Harris ’15, Hofstra University Kiki Dominguez ‘15 (left) and Chanler Harris ‘15 at the 2015 Commencement.

ACTIVITIES: Ragged Robins, Peer Mentor, Co-head of Anime Club and Poetry Club, Student Diversity Leadership Council Member, Intermediate Dance, Forgotten Women's Book Club member. Lead roles in Upper School musicals, including the Wiz in “The Wiz” and Reno Sweeney in “Anything Goes.” MOST REWARDING GFS EXPERIENCE: “By taking Advanced Placement courses and

making decisions about what activities I want to partake in, Garrison Forest has helped me to learn what I really care about: be it understanding my love for the humanities or that diversity activities mean as much to me as theater and dance.” GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

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Newsmakers

GFS COLLEGE COUNSELORS

Lead Nationally Garrison Forest’s College Counseling oﬃce expertly guides juniors and seniors through the complex terrain of today’s college admission process. Ann Marie Strauss, Director of College Counseling, and Marty O’Connell, Senior College Counselor, are just as busy oﬀ-campus. Both are members of the College Board, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, the Potomac and Chesapeake Association for College Admissions Counseling (PCACAC), the Southern Association of College Admissions Counseling (SACAC) and the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools. Ms. Strauss, who serves on

PCACAC’s Current Trends and Future Issues Committee, presented at the annual PCACAC conference. She is also serving a two-year term on the Counselor Advisory Boards for Furman University and Southern Methodist University as one of 20 counselors selected globally to advise on trends, marketing, involvement of parents, communication and Ann Marie Strauss (left) and Marty O’Connell resources for counselors, scholarship planning and more. emerita for Colleges at Change Lives. Ms. O’Connell, who was vice president Her perspective from years at the collegefor enrollment and dean of admission for level admission process is invaluable to GFS McDaniel College, presented at the SACAC students and students nationwide through conference. She is the executive director numerous speaking engagements.

Class of 2015 College Acceptances

New York University Northeastern University Ohio University

Allegheny College American University

The George Washington University

Pace University, New York City

St. John's University Queens Campus

University of North Carolina at Asheville

St. Lawrence University

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

St. Mary's College of Maryland Stevenson University

University of North Carolina at Wilmington

Georgia Institute of Technology

Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Syracuse University

University of Pennsylvania

Gettysburg College

Philadelphia University

Temple University

University of Pittsburgh

Goucher College

Pratt Institute

Texas A&M University

University of Redlands

Hampton University

Purdue University

Texas Christian University

University of Richmond

Belmont University

Haverford College

Quinnipiac University

The Ohio State University

University of South Carolina

Boston College

High Point University

Radford University

Towson University

University of Tampa

Boston University

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Randolph College

Trinity College

University of Vermont

Randolph-Macon College

Tulane University

University of Virginia

Rhodes College

Ursinus College

Roanoke College

University of Alabama

University of Wisconsin, Madison

Rochester Institute of Technology

University of California, Davis

Auburn University Baldwin Wallace University Bard College Baylor University

Brown University Bucknell University Carnegie Mellon University Case Western Reserve University

Hofstra University Hood College Howard University Indiana University at Bloomington

Rowan University

University of California, San Diego

James Madison University

Rutgers University New Brunswick

University of California, Santa Barbara

Johnson & Wales University (Providence)

Salisbury University

University of Colorado at Boulder

The Catholic University of America

Ithaca College

College of Charleston Clark University Colgate University Connecticut College Davidson College Denison University Dickinson College Drew University Eckerd College Elon University Emory University and Oxford College of Emory University

Kenyon College Lehigh University Loyola University Maryland Lynchburg College Macalester College Marymount Manhattan College McDaniel College Miami University, Oxford Morgan State University

Sarah Lawrence College School of the Art Institute of Chicago School of the Museum of Fine Arts

Villanova University Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Tech Virginia Union University Wagner College Wake Forest University

University of Connecticut

Washington & Lee University

University of Delaware

Washington College

University of Denver University of Kentucky

Washington University in St. Louis

University of Mary Washington

Wesleyan University

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

West Virginia University

Southern Methodist University

University of Maryland, College Park

Winthrop University

Seton Hall University Sewanee: The University of the South Skidmore College

Franklin and Marshall College

Mount Saint Mary's University

Southern Methodist University (School of Engineering)

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Furman University

Muhlenberg College

Spelman College

University of Miami

Westmont College The College of Wooster Yale University York College of Pennsylvania

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Newsmakers

The Middle School Chorus, under the direction of Middle School Music teacher Ginny Flynn, won “First Place Women’s Choir” with a Superior Rating and “Best Overall Choir” at the 2015 Music in the Parks, Hersheypark. This marks the fifth consecutive first-place win for GFS and the fourth consecutive “Best Overall Choir” win. Brielle Herlein ’20 won “Best Soloist” and Fiona Cunninghame-Murray ’20, violinist, won “Best Accompanist.”

The Chamber Choir was awarded a Gold rating overall and “Judges’ Choice” of all ensembles at the Heritage Music Festival in Washington, D.C. in April, a music festival for high school choirs and ensembles. Pictured with Cedric Lyles, Director.

STUDENT AWARDS

Students were recognized with regional and national honors across an array of fields in 2014-15.

Talented GFS artists and writers were recognized in the 2015 Scholastic Arts and Writing Northeast Region-at-Large awards. For art: Mengchu “Michelle” Chen ’15; Hanzhang Lai ’16; Lilly Nguyen ’15; and Ha Youn “Linda” Noh ’15. For writing, from left: Natalie Fay ’19; Mara Cordon Fisch ’19; Yunfei Xu ’16; and Maggie Baughman ’17.

Pianist Hanwen Yang ’17 earned third place in the 2015 Maryland State Music Teachers Association’s Spring Solo Piano Competition at the University of Maryland, College Park.

In December, Virginia Leach ’16 and 19 other high school students from across the country traveled to Stockholm, Sweden for Nobel Week through the National Society of High School Scholars. Virginia attended workshops led by Nobel Laureates, policymakers and science thought-leaders on the world issue of aging.

Fourteen Lower School students had work selected for exhibit in the first-ever 2014 Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS) exhibit at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Cassidy Robinson ’24 (pictured with Lower School art teacher Octavia Beard) had her work selected for the show’s signage.

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

Vasi Argeroplos ’17’s poem “1967” was selected for the 2015 anthology of student writing with a global focus, Bridges, by World Artists’ Experiences. Yunfei Xu ’16 garnered honorable mention. From left: Yunfei and Vasi.

Soprano Ashley Wells ’18 (right) was selected for the second year in a row for the prestigious, audition-only Maryland Junior All State Chorus, earning one of 160 slots from among a pool of 1,200 7th- 9th- grade vocalists (male and female) from across Maryland. Also pictured is Ginny Flynn, GFS Middle School music teacher, and All-State Chorus conductor Stephen Holmes. This was the fourth year in a row that GFS had vocalists selected for this honor.

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Newsmakers

Middle School National Latin Exams scholars, from left: Cum Laude certificate honorees Ellie Blue ’19 and Charlotte Seymour ’19 and Maxima Cum Laude honoree Marion Riley ’19.

Latin students were recognized for their superior achievement on National Latin Exams (NLE) and National Classical Etymology Exams (NCEE). Upper School award recipients, from left: Eryn Frazier ’17 (NLE Cum Laude certificate); Channing Capacchione ‘17 (NLE Cum Laude certificate); Maggie Baughman ‘17 (third consecutive NLE silver medal and second consecutive NCEE gold medal); Chanler Harris ‘15 (third consecutive NCEE gold medal); Alex Tunkel ‘16 (NCEE bronze medal); Racquel Bazos ‘16 (NCEE fourth consecutive gold medal); Greer Metzger ‘16 (NLE Cum Laude certificate); and Allie Gibbons ‘15 (NLE silver medal). Not pictured: Sophie Brooke ‘15 (NLE Cum Laude certificate).

Upper School artists Amanda Rein ’17 (left), Julia Walker ’16 (right) and Yeree Kang ’16 (not pictured) were selected to exhibit their work in the 2015 Towson Arts Collective annual show of student art from Baltimore County public and independent high schools.

Jackie Magaha ‘16 (standing) competed in the Vex Robotics 2015 World Championships in Louisville, Ky., against teams from 27 countries. Her three-member team, the Super Sonic Spark, is part of the Carroll County 4-H program and one of only 12 teams from Maryland selected. The team won a design award for a dual claw implementation and a community service award for its community outreach for STEM education.

Artists Lilly Nguyen ’15 (left) and Yeree Kang ’16 had works selected for the Maryland Art Education Association (MAEA) show, exhibited at the State House in Annapolis, and for the Association for Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS) art show at the Walters Art Museum. This was Yeree’s second year as a MAEA-selected artist. Lilly also received the 2015 Rhode Island School of Design annual Book Award, recognizing her scholastic and artistic achievements.

Veteran fundraisers for the Susan G. Komen Foundation Cammi Paladino ’17 (left) and Kristine Hilbert ’17 were once again awarded Pink Honor Roll status by the Komen Foundation to recognize the high level of dollars raised and commitment to breast cancer research and advocacy by these two powerhouses. Together, they raised more than $3,000 in 2014.

Artist Kendall Shriver ’15 was selected for the National Gallery of Art High School Seminar program. She spent 60 hours at the National Gallery, working with curators, educators and art historians on an in-depth research project on James McNeill Whistler’s “Symphony in White” and Anthony van Dyck’s “Queen Henrietta Maria with Sir Jeffrey Hudson.” Also pictured is BJ McElderry, GFS art teacher.

The Eighth Grade Future City Team of (from left) Carrington George, Serena Shafer, Alyssa Magaha and Lauren McEachin won second place at the Mid-Atlantic Future City Competition, a national engineering/city planning/architecture competition for middle school students. GFS was the only Baltimore independent school competing against 24 other schools from across Maryland, Virginia and D.C. Their challenge? Determine a protein and a vegetable source to sustain their “future city” of Esperanza, a fictional city in Antarctica.

Olivia Herlein ’18 won third place in the annual Yom Ha’Shoah Essay Contest, sponsored by the Ponczak-Greenblatt Families’ Holocaust Education Endowment Fund. Her essay, “Don’t Stay Silent,” was inspired by the required GFS Ninth Grade readings, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project by Jack Mayer, two Holocaustrelated works, as well as the September 2014 visit to Garrison Forest by Holocaust survivor Rubin Sztajer. Olivia received her award at the Baltimore Jewish Council’s 2015 Holocaust Commemoration Yom Ha’Shoah at Beth Tfiloh Congregation.

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Newsmakers

VASI ARGEROPLOS ’17

Garners Presidential Honors for Her Nonprofit Leadership In March, Vasi Argeroplos was named a 2015 Prudential Spirit of

Community Distinguished Finalist and President’s Volunteer Service Award Winner, honors in a long line of accolades for her leadership of Okay to Play, the nonproﬁt she founded with her brother Niko in 2010. Okay to Play collects used cellphones and other electronics, sells them to a recycling company and then uses the proceeds to purchase toys, books and sporting goods for children in hospitals, orphanages and foster homes. e Prudential Spirit of Community Awards is the United States’ largest youth recognition program based solely on volunteer service. e program also distributes President’s Volunteer Service Awards on behalf of President Barack Obama to students who qualify based on the number of volunteer hours they have completed. Vasi’s devotion to Okay to Play goes well beyond hours, and the impact she and her brother are having is well-deserving of an award. To date, they’ve raised $50,000, kept an estimated 2,000 used electronics out of landﬁlls, recruited students across the globe to

help and distributed hundreds of toys to children in the U.S., Afghanistan and Greece. “e most impressive thing about Okay to Play is that it uses social entrepreneurship to tackle societal issues Vasi Argeroplos with her Prudential Spirit of on multiple fronts,” Community Distinguished Medal. notes Dr. Kim Roberts, Head of School. “Vasi is addressing both environmental sustainability and the needs of underprivileged children while also building a scalable model for social change that involves other teenagers.” To learn more, visit okaytoplay.org.

SARA BLEICH, PH.D. ’96

Wins National Public Health Research Prize

“When I took the job at Hopkins, I promised myself to give back to the low-income neighborhoods in Baltimore where I was raised. To be recognized for this work is hugely rewarding and motivating.”

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2014

Sara Bleich, Ph.D., associate professor of health and policy management, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, received the $10,000 Frank 2015 Prize in Public Interest Communication for her public health research. Awarded in February at the Frank 2015, a conference sponsored by the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications, the Frank Prize is named for the late Frank Karel, a pioneer of public health communications. The prestigious award celebrates peer-reviewed research that informs the growing discipline of public interest communications. Sara's research examined the impact of easily understandable calorie information on adolescent purchases of sugary beverages. Sara posted brightly colored signs with the calorie information on beverage cases in corner stores in low-income, predominantly African-American Baltimore neighborhoods. The signs presented the number of calories in a 20-ounce bottle of soda by indicating that each bottle included 250 calories, had 16 teaspoons of sugar, would take 50 minutes of running to work off those calories, or would take five miles to walk off the calories. "After collecting data for over 4,500 adolescent purchases, we learned that adolescents who saw signs explaining the number of miles they would need to walk to burn off the calories in a sugary drink were more likely to leave the store with a lower-calorie beverage, a healthier beverage or a smaller size beverage," says Sara, who serves on the Board of Trustees for Garrison Forest. "The most interesting finding was that these healthier choices persisted six weeks after the signs came down.” The Frank Prize continues the international recognition Sara’s expertise in obesity prevention/control has received. As a Ph.D. student in health policy at Harvard, she received the Harvard Graduate Prize Fellowship. Sara’s abstract was awarded the “Most Outstanding Abstract” at the 2006 International Conference on Obesity in Sydney, Australia, and in 2012, the Obesity Society recognized her with the “Best Research Manuscript” in the journal Obesity. Sara is frequently interviewed by the news media to disseminate new information from her research and to provide obesity-related research. Recent appearances include Good Morning America, NPR and Time magazine.

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Newsmakers

POLO’S IN-DEMAND EXPERT: Cindy Halle CINDY HALLE’S HUMILITY and self-deprecating sense of humor make her chuckle at the notion that she is a queen of the “sport of kings,” as polo is often called. But years of being tapped by the national polo community to consult, lecture, coach, play and umpire are evidence that the title fits. As Garrison Forest’s polo coach from 1986 to 1997, returning in 2007 after raising a family, Ms. Halle has led the Grizzlies to several of their 13 national championships. Her former players routinely play on nationally ranked collegiate teams and garner United States Polo Association’s (USPA) awards. A former Polo Magazine “Coach of the Year” and USPA-certified umpire, she serves on the USPA interscholastic/intercollegiate rules review committee and has been tapped to create a new instructor certification program. Whatever the task, Ms. Halle brings her high standards of play and horsemanship, depth of knowledge, unflappable attitude and boundless enthusiasm to the sport.

I grew up in California working at a hunter/jumper barn in exchange for lessons. I wanted to ride more, so I started exercising some nearby polo ponies. I began playing in 1977 at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), which was the only college polo club in California at the time. [She won four women’s intercollegiate titles for UC Davis.] I enjoy using my experience to help better and grow the sport. I am one of five certifiers for polo instructors for the USPA instructor certification program. We are creating a process to fairly and accurately assess polo instructors’ knowledge and skills and help them improve and to standardize instruction. It’s important to have women represented in the umpire ranks. Umpiring polo is very challenging, and I have worked hard to attain my “B” rating. Of the 17 arena umpires rated “B” or higher in the country, only three are female. Because of my commitment to GFS players and programs, I can only umpire a few college tournaments, but it’s good to see the game through an umpire’s eyes. I often get to reconnect with GFS alumnae playing in college.

It’s exciting to watch GFS polo grow. We now offer three levels of teams playing three seasons and several interscholastic coed teams of area high school students. Last year, we began introducing polo, riding and dance to every Fouth

and Fifth Grade class through the Lower School Physical Education programs, and it’s generating more interest in polo.

The lessons learned in polo transcend the ring or arena. We’ve always been supportive of Philadelphia’s Work-to-Ride program that teaches riding and polo to underserved youth. Their teams frequently play at GFS, and our players are good friends with the teams. I’ve always wanted to try a similar program here. Six years ago, I founded the GFS/Middle Grades Partnership (MGP) “Introduction to Horses, Riding and Polo” summer program. Through the GFS James Center, we host middleschool-aged girls from Baltimore City schools on our campus over the summer for academic and cultural enrichment. We have received donations to buy boots and helmets for the girls and cover the horse expenses, and our students and alumnae help me teach. It’s amazing to watch girls who have never touched a horse become confident and proficient. Most of them progress to walking and trotting independently and hitting a polo ball. It’s an experience that they wouldn’t otherwise have, but more importantly, I want them to realize that they can take a risk, try something unfamiliar and succeed.

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Newsmakers

BANNER YEAR FOR GRIZZLY SPORTS The 2014-15 sports season was one for the record books for the Garrison Forest Grizzlies! For the first time since 1997, Varsity Badminton won the IAAM A Conference championship, defeating Roland Park Country School to win both the individual doubles championship and the team championship. Varsity Basketball topped its incredible 20-1 season with a solid victory over Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to clinch the 2015 IAAM C Conference championship, GFS’s first basketball championship since 1993 (and the inspiration for a poem, see right). Varsity Indoor Soccer, with its 1-0 shutout over John Carroll High School, clinched the IAAM A Conference championship. Golfer

IAAM All-Stars

Soccer: Lydia Kelly ’16

Badminton: Hyejun Bae ‘17, Dakota He ‘16, Cece Witherspoon ‘15

Softball: Madison Wilson ‘18

Basketball: Marina Lazarides ’17, Aliyah Smith ‘15 Cross Country: Sofia Maranto ’16, Jill Newton ’15 Field Hockey: Natalie Adamez ’17, Allie DiPietro ’15, Kara Frazier ’16, Ariyel Yavalar ’15 Golf: Ana Paula Carranza ‘18, Megan Lansman ‘17 Indoor Soccer: Isabel Davis ’16, Laura Hancock ’15, Lydia Kelly ’16 Lacrosse: Sam Fiedler ‘17 Badminton Team with coaches Rick Wiker (kneeling, left) and Kim Marlor (back row with trophy).

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

2014 National Field Hockey Coaches Association, National Academic Squad Scholars of Distinction, recognizing seniors who have achieved a minimum cumulative, unweighted GPA of 3.9 out of 4.0 through the first quarter of the 2014-15 school year: Allie DiPietro ‘15 and Ariyel Yavalar ’15

Equitation Team

Ana Paula Carranza ‘18 won the IAAM B Conference championship tournament, while Varsity Golf, the regular-season championship team, earned runner-up tournament status. The Equitation Team was the Interscholastic Equestrian Association (IEA) Zone 3, Region 1 Champion. Varsity Field Hockey won the IAAM A Conference regular season—its seventh regular-season win in the past nine years—and Varsity Cross Country earned a second place in the IAAM B Conference championship. Congratulations to every Grizzly athlete, team and coach on a great year, particularly to those players who earned individual honors.

2014 Baltimore Sun All-Metro Field Hockey Team: Natalie Adamez ’17 (Second Team) and Allie DiPietro ’15 (First Team) 2014 Maryland State High School All-State Field Hockey Team: Allie DiPietro ‘15 (Honorable Mention) and Ariyel Yavalar ’15 (Second Team) 2014 Maryland State Field Hockey Coaches Association Senior Game: Allie Kelly ‘15

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Newsmakers

IT’S LOVELY TO WATCH YOUNG WOMEN By Rachel Eisler It’s lovely to watch young women elbowing each other as they strive (in each other’s shining faces) to make the shot. As they pound down the boards to the hoop, pivoting and swinging.

Basketball Team with coaches Sue McQuiston and Nick Burns.

U.S. Polo Association Middle School Polo Tournament All-Star: Lila Bennett ’19 Sportsmanship Award: Olivia Reynolds ‘21 U.S. Polo Association Southeast Regional Tournament All Star and National Polo Training Foundation “England Exchange” Team Member: Hannah Reynolds ’18 IEA Zone 3, Regional 1 Reserve Champion-JV Novice Over Fences: Parrisa Anvari ’17

Indoor Soccer Team with coaches Doug Oppenheimer (far left) and Bill Tarlton (far right).

IEA Zone 3, Regional 1 Champion-Varsity Intermediate Flat: Heloise Germain ’18 IEA Zone 3, Regional 1 Reserve Champion-Varsity Intermediate Over Fences; Washington International Horse Show Regional Show Grand Champion-Children’s Pony Hunter Rider: Jordi Gray ’18 IEA Zone 3, Regional 1 Reserve Champion-Varsity Open Flat: Sarah Spire ’16 IEA Zone 3, Regional 1 Reserve Champion-Varsity Intermediate Flat; Winner, Zone 3 High Point Senior Rider Scholarship: Laura Straus ’15 IEA Zone 3, Regional 1 Champion-Varsity Intermediate Over Fences; Baltimore County Horse Show Association Reserve Champion – Junior Horse Medal: Danielle Ziegfeld ’17

It’s lovely to watch young women passionate and cool, so set upon the goal; the teamwork, the synchrony of fake-outs, posts and passes that keep it all in play. It’s lovely to watch their pure ferocity—the urge to wrest something from someone because you want it more at that moment and you can. Maybe it will get old, maybe it will feel tame. But the frenzy, the fouls, the steals, cool water to someone parched by politeness, thirsting for this fight.

Inspired after watching a GFS Varsity Basketball game this year, English teacher and poet Rachel Eisler wrote this poem, which was published in the Little Patuxent Review. She recently had two other poems published in Upstreet 2015 and Gargoyle.

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Newsmakers

Alumnae Shine at Film Festivals

TIFFANI BARBOUR ’91, ACTOR

After spending three days in “jail,” Tiffani Barbour thoroughly enjoyed the glamour of the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015 and her debut in Rabbit, a short, independent film about a female prisoner. Filming took place over three days in December 2013 in a cell block on Rikers Island. “Being at [Rikers] was like stepping into a time warp,” Tiffani says of the vacant ward where they filmed. “Although most of the rooms were closed off, we could see through the windows, and it seemed as if inmates just dropped everything and were told to leave, weights and dumb bells frozen in time were they landed. It was eerie and beautiful—you could definitely feel the spirits there. All of this really helped me to get into character. Being in jail for pretend over three days was enough for a lifetime.” Tiffani has spent her lifetime preparing for this moment. At Garrison Forest, she

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

performed in productions of Annie, Oliver, Alice in Wonderland and The Music Man, and then studied musical theater at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She moved to New York, landed a role in the European tour of Fame—the Musical, then moved to Los Angeles in 1999 to try TV and film. The mercurial nature of show business—after settling in California, she returned shortly to New York for a role in the CBS show The Education of Max Bickford—has been grounded by having the same agent throughout her career. All the while, Tiffani was singing in a band and was a partner in a small entertainment company. Before her breakout role in Rabbit, Tiffani more than paid her dues with the national tour of Mamma Mia!, small roles in Law and Order, writing and distributing her own album and performing Off-Broadway. In 2014, she turned what was to be a one-day-of-filming role in HBO’s acclaimed The Leftovers into a three-episode character arc. “My character Evelyn is part of a mute cult that views smoking as a kind of right to live,” she explains. “That was rough, but working with Liv Tyler and Amy Brenneman made it worth it.” When her agent set up the Rabbit audition, Tiffani knew right away that the material was something special. The film, directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, centers on Tiffani’s character (incarcerated for grand theft auto), her assigned therapist and a rabbit entrusted to the prisoner as part of therapy. While the experiences of the character are far from her own, Tiffani was able to use her training, talent and Garrison Forest education to make the role resonate on screen: “As an actor, I am constantly challenged to live in the moment and be true to what I’m trying to achieve. I’ve been a Garrison Girl since I was 4 years old, so it is part of my being.” “Sundance was a dream come true!” she says. “My mom attended all three of my screenings. It was really special to have her there seeing all of the hoopla

and movie madness.” Last spring, Tiffani appeared in an episode of HBO’s Veep and made the rounds with Rabbit to other festivals this past summer. She’s also co-writing a new musical children series, Ziggy’s Amazing Adventures, with longtime collaborator Stephanie Smith-Werba. Her most rewarding role? Encouraging daughter to her mother’s new catering business, just as her mother has always nurtured Tiffani’s dreams.

VAIL ROMEYN ‘87, PRODUCER

One of Vail Romeyn’s favorite places to be on set is at a crossroads, fitting because Warren, the feature film which she co-produced, is about a comedian in a personal and professional crisis. “The making of any film, or any creative entity, is a crap shoot, and there are so many phases where it could all go wrong,” says the veteran of over 20 film and TV productions. “It’s always a gamble. You can raise a ton of money, hire the wrong crew and end up with a dud. You can cast it wrong and shoot a beautiful film that doesn’t work. You can have a great cast and have it ruined in the editing room. You can have a brilliant film that gets no press and no marketing and

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Newsmakers

no one ever sees it. The fact that Warren’s universal message of being at a crossroads in life has been so well-received is very gratifying.” Vail has worn many hats over her 25-year career in film/TV: producer; assistant producer; line producer; production accountant. “[Filmmaking] is the equivalent of making a cake,” she explains. “Each time you use the same ingredients and prepare them in the same way, but the results are never exactly the same. It takes a lot of skills to be a good producer, some learned and some innate. You have to manage people and personalities and take in a lot of information, analyze it very quickly and make smart decisions.” Since Warren’s debut at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2014, the film and Vail have made the festival rounds from Bel Air and Omaha to Nantucket and St. Louis, winning several awards. [Warren is available on Amazon, iTunes, Google and Vimeo through WarrenTheMovie.com.] Vail’s credit as co-producer was not her title when she began work on the film. Hired as a line producer—the person who works directly with the director and producer(s) to keep the budget in check—her skills and experience as the “nuts and bolts” producer became obvious in the pre-production/development phase. Vail was negotiating union contracts, hiring crew, signing checks, managing the budget, etc. Director Alex Beh and producer Mark Hannah were so impressed with her work that they surprised Vail with the co-producer credit, an honor she saw when approving the credit list. After Garrison Forest, Vail thought she would be in front of the camera and chose film school over a drama major so she could give a better performance. After making Super 8mm films during her freshman year at Loyola Marymount she never looked back. “I still get goose bumps on set and get lost in the job of putting together the puzzle pieces,” explains Vail, who worked full time through college as an associate producer for promos on the

now-defunct Financial News Network. One job led to the next, as she built her skill set and reputation as a problem-solver. She’s worked on blockbusters such as Batman Begins, and X-Men: Days of Future Past and critically acclaimed TV shows including Boss with Kelsey Grammer. The credit she holds most dear, though, is that of girls’ school graduate. More often than not, Vail is the only woman in the room. “GFS fostered the confidence and self-knowledge to gain the respect of a room full of men. And believe me, [this industry] is a man’s world. I say to as many people as who will listen that Garrison Forest is the number one reason that I am successful today. It prepared me with a great education that allows me to carry on intelligent conversations with people from all walks of life and to be comfortable enough to do so. It planted in me my curiosity and love of learning, which allows me to ask questions— lots and lots of questions—which, in turn, allows me to take those answers and to make the best decisions I can.”

HEATHER CASSANO ’09, PRODUCER

No need to tell Heather Cassano just how hands-on the film industry is. For the HBO documentary, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, which premiered at the 2014

Sundance Film Festival, Heather had a hand in nearly every aspect of production. For the film that tells the story of the first fully televised trial in U.S. history, she worked as a production assistant, occasional assistant editor, media archivist, location researcher and prop master for many of the props used in the re-creations—skills honed on her first documentary, The Unheard, about the deaf community in Greensboro, N.C. Heather, The Unheard’s creative producer, and director Sean Dolan made the film while undergraduates in Elon University’s media arts and entertainment program. The Unheard was an official selection of 2013 filmSPARK film festival, received an honorable mention at the 2013 Lumbee River Independent Film Festival and won best documentary at Elon University’s CinElon Film Festival. Heather, a freelance producer for Callejero Films, is hard at work exploring the integration between documentary filmmaking and installation art in her M.F.A. work at Emerson College. She recently debuted Noise Control, an installation project of video portraits with sound experiments. In June, she began production on an independent personal documentary about her brother, who has autism. She hopes to submit the resulting film to festivals and use it as inspiration for her M.F.A. thesis, an interactive documentary about siblings with autism. “Being curious and unafraid to challenge ideas is an integral part of making documentaries and creating art in general,” says Heather. “Without these character traits, I would probably be in another line of work. Garrison Forest teachers always encouraged me to challenge the norm and question things. I think that environment allowed me to embrace that part of my personality.”

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Newsmakers

SIMONE BAZOS ’06, PRODUCER

2016 Maryland Film Festival and returning to the DRC in the fall for another film project.

KATEY ZOUCK ’05, ACTOR/PRODUCER

While studying American studies and African studies at Columbia University, Simone Bazos arranged an internship at a Kenyan radio station, which led to her falling in love with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) while covering DRC elections for the station. “After Columbia I put together a treatment of projects that I had been thinking about since my week in the DRC,” explains the freelance director and producer. She pitched her ideas to Vice, an online news source, and returned to Africa to produce and host a short documentary on a small community of Russian pilots living and working out of Goma. Next, she worked as a freelance videographer/photographer for Associated Press covering the final days of the three-year war in the DRC, an experience that inspired the film, Coffin Maker. Simone produced the film, which is directed by Theo Anthony and debuted in June 2014 at the Brooklyn Film Festival. “I had noticed small coffin shops in different parts of the city with elaborate coffins on display, and I went originally to see if I could take photos of them,” Simone explains. “I ended up meeting Richard [the subject of the documentary] and thought he was an amazing character. The footage of Richard in his shop was set next to footage from a mass military funeral. The film was an exploration of death, in a place where death is so common and is in such contrast to the incredible strong sense of the will to live.” Currently working on several film projects in Baltimore, Simone plans on submitting to the

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Katey Zouck graduated from the University of Southern California with B.A. in theater and history, her two loves, and is hard at work making a name for herself in Hollywood. She produces and stars in an improvised comedic Web series Pushy Riot, and performs around Los Angeles with an all-female improv team, The Pippa Middletons. Getting behind the camera held little interest until a friend from the USC film school told her about an idea for a documentary about Donté Clark, a young poet raised in the violence and neighborhood turf wars of Richmond, Calif. For six months in 2012, Katey and three friends drove from USC to Richmond nearly every weekend to film Romeo is Bleeding, moving there for three months in 2013 to finish the project. In the documentary, which was screened this past April at the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Newport Beach Film Festival, Donté and his fellow high school artists mount an urban adaptation of Romeo and Juliet through a local arts nonprofit, hoping that the parallels between

the Capulets and Montagues and rival gangs in Richmond might open a citywide discussion of violence. “It was my love of history that really put me in the associate producing chair,” says Katey. “And that love of history all came from Garrison Forest, from Mrs. Baughman’s Flowering of Civilization, Ms. Showalter’s European History and Mr. Burns and Ms. Ruekberg’s American History classes. These teachers opened my eyes to how intensely fascinating history and the human condition are. Making the choice to stay behind the camera for a documentary was an easy one. I got to intimately learn about a group of people: why and how their city became the way it did; and how this specific group of young adult poets rose in the face of adversity in that city. And on top of that, I got to become friends with them, which I am truly honored to be able to say.” Even though she’s actively pursuing acting with classes and by auditioning, Katey knows that it’s valuable to have history on both sides of the camera. Her producing resume began when she produced and hosted USC’s Trojan Vision’s debate show and co-produced a short documentary following war re-enactors. Post-graduation, she also worked in production for Much Ado About Nothing and BBC America’s Richard Hammond’s Crash Course, and for the independentshort film How to be the Life of a Cocktail Party, which won an award at the Canadian International Film Festival.

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Newsmakers

ROSIE FORREST ’96

Wins 2015 Rose Metal Press Literary Prize Rosie Forrest likes to keep it brief. One thousand words or less,

to be precise. In February, her artistic brevity won the 2015 Rose Metal Press Ninth Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest for her collection of 13 stories under 1,000 words, Ghost Box Evolution in Cadillac, Michigan. Published this summer by Rose Metal Press, the chapbook is written in one of her favorite genres: flash fiction, which is a story typically written in 200 to 1,000 words. Rosie, who holds an M.F.A. from the University of New Hampshire, has been published in Dogwood, e Ampersand Review and other literary journals. A writer, teacher and assistant director of academic residential programs with the Vanderbilt Programs for Talented Youth, Rosie also teaches in Vanderbilt’s theater department. She pursued her first love, drama, as a boarding student at Garrison Forest. Leads in several GFS plays and musicals led her to major in theater at the University of Virginia. Post-college, she worked at Goodman eatre, Steppenwolf and Northlight eatre in Chicago. Rosie’s job as artistic associate, literary manager and dramaturg at Northlight sparked the writer within. “is work allowed me to read scripts and work closely with playwrights,” Rosie recalls. “I loved it. All of it. e creative process. Telling a story. e leap from there to creating my own work felt natural and right.” Rosie has taught writing at the University of New Hampshire, DePaul, Northwestern and the Interlochen Center for the Arts, where she was writer-in-residence in 2013. “I used to view my trajectory as a giant redirection, but more and more I view it all

as one piece. When I teach fiction, I bring in essays by directors, because what is creating a world and populating it with characters and moving them around a space if not directing? And when I teach theater, we talk about narrative structure, making the familiar seem fresh and finding what’s universal in something wholly other.” Her advice to young writers? Do it all. “Remain a writer always, but do anything and everything that gets you out from behind the desk. At Garrison Forest I was encouraged to engage with everything. I could play varsity badminton and sing with the Ragged Robins. I could take AP Latin and be Charlie Brown in the musical. Maybe some of these experiences find their way into stories, writing what you know, or maybe they keep you alive and curious and always wanting more.” Excerpt from “Moonbone,” a story in Ghost Box Evolution in Cadillac, Michigan My older brother Lucca swears he found a moon shard, but I’m pretty sure it’s bone. The white of it is jarring, a brilliant white that reflects the moonlight above, The mothership, Lucca says, but that seems about as likely as the other thing he tells me, that sometimes, when a person turns twelve, microscopic light bulbs are imbedded in their teeth, nine hundred or a thousand mouth stars, he calls them. Orthodontics, he declares, is a ruse. We’ve hiked the sloping woods behind our house, and spring rains have coaxed the lowest leaves, the ivy, to climb the tree bark, and though we barely see it—nighttime and all—we can smell the green and lick it off our lips.

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Newsmakers

EMILY OLEISKY ’16

National NCWIT ‘Aspirations in Computing’ Awardee Emily Oleisky is proud to be part of an impressive statistic—she’s one of only 35 female high school students (out of 2,700 competing nationwide) in 2015 to win the prestigious award, “Aspirations in Computing,” from the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT). Her national honor earned her regional distinction—she’s the only NCWIT national winner from Maryland this year—and is a great follow-up to her nod last year as a national AIC runner-up. At the awards ceremony in Charlotte, N.C., which she attended with her mom, Debbie Oleisky, who teaches chemistry at GFS, Emily received a trophy, $500, a laptop, networking opportunities with prominent female computer scientists and NCWIT board members and internship options. Emily is well aware just how important the last two are to her future as a leader if she is going to tackle another statistic: the dearth of women in STEM-related fields. e U.S. Census cites 26 percent of women pursuing STEM careers, precisely why NCWIT recognizes young female leaders in the computer science field. Emily’s encouragement started young. Given her mother’s profession, computers and STEM-inspired toys—microscopes, LEGOs—were frequent playthings in the Oleisky household for Emily and sister Sarah ’12, who is studying psychology at Kenyon College. In Fourth Grade, Emily joined the Lower School Robotics team and has competed as a member of a GFS Robotics team ever since. Last year, she was co-captain of the Upper School team and co-founder of the school’s first-ever Computer Science Club. One of the club’s activities this year was to teach computer science to elementary-school children at the nearby Woodholme School. As sophomores, she and classmate Jackie Magaha, a 2015 Maryland/Delaware AIC runner-up award winner and national runner-up winner last year, were among the first GFS students to take AP Computer Science. Together, in December 2013, they co-chaired the school’s “Hour of Code” program, working with faculty and administrators to plan a week of coding activities for the campus. Emily also serves on the leadership committee for ProjectCSGIRLS, (a computer science competition for middle school girls founded by high school girls), and volunteers at Baltimore’s Sinai Hospital, where she participates in the hospital’s Emerging Leadership program and was one of the first high school volunteers to be placed in Sinai’s engineering department. Last fall, Emily placed first in the team contests offered as part of Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems’ Young Engineers and Scientists Seminar (YESS) program for high school students. Her interests extend well beyond science and technology. She builds houses for Habitat for Humanity through the Garrison Forest “Build-a-Block” student club, dances in the Advanced Dance program, sings in the Chamber Choir and has performed in every school musical since Middle School. “From day one, Garrison Forest has encouraged me to explore my passions,” Emily says.

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Emily Oleisky is pictured with the prototype she built during her WISE internship, photographed in front on the “idea board” in the Elinor Purves McLennan ’56 Library.

“e afterschool opportunities helped me hone in on what I truly love to do. At GFS, you can test what interests you early. You’re seen for you and not what society thinks you should be.” Since her early days at Garrison Forest, Emily has known that she wanted to apply to the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program, GFS’s partnership with Johns Hopkins to place students in Hopkins’ labs for in-depth mentorships. roughout her junior year, for two afternoons a week at Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering’s Biomedical Engineering Department’s Neuroengineering and Bioinstrumentation Lab, Emily assisted research/design engineer Marisa Babb as she worked to create a machine that stimulates the human olfactory system. e ultimate purpose of the machine is to interrupt the neurodegeneration present in diseases such as Alzheimer’s, in which loss of sense of smell is an early symptom. Emily built a prototype using a micro-controller, a project incorporating neurology with biology, chemistry, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. It’s been a valuable insight into her goal of pursuing a STEM career. “WISE has shown me that you need to understand everything but that you can flow between fields,” Emily says. As evidence, Emily worked in cybersecurity for Bank of America in Washington, D.C., this past summer. In addition to Emily’s national AIC award and Jackie Magaha’s 2015 Maryland/Delaware AIC runner-up award, Vasi Argeroplos ’17 and Amanda Rein ’17 won 2015 Maryland/Delaware AIC Affiliate runner-up awards.

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Newsmakers

JOAN SHIN, PH.D. ’89

2015 HRH Duke of Edinburgh English Language Book Award Winner In January, Joan Shin, Ph.D., a leading expert in teaching English to young students, was one of three overall winners of the 2015 HRH Duke of Edinburgh English Language Book Award. Joan’s Our World: Level 4, part of a six-level series with National Geographic Learning, received the Best Entry for Learners award. The series of books, video and professional development resources for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers features relatable National Geographic content for young learners of English. In 2013, Joan, an education professor of practice and director of Teachers of English as a Second Language Professional Training program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), won the prestigious Ben Warren-International House Trust Prize for Teaching Young Learners English with coauthor JoAnn Crandall, Ph.D. She began teaching the online course, Teaching English to Young Learners, in 2004. Today, hundreds of EFL professionals in over 100 countries have taken the course. “In the 21st century, we are more interconnected globally as individuals and as nations, and English has become a lingua franca for communication across borders and cultures,” Joan explains. “In most English textbooks, students study not only the language but often aspects of either American or British culture connected with the language. However, if English is being used and spoken by people all over the world, then the context of using English changes dramatically. For example,

a businessman from Brazil might use English on a regular basis to speak with colleagues from China or Germany.” A GFS Cum Laude member with an economics degree from Cornell, Joan fell in love with teaching after volunteering as an ESL instructor. (Prior jobs included fashion importing and working at a law firm.) She promptly enrolled in UMBC’s master’s program in education then taught EFL and trained English teachers in South Korea for five years before returning to UMBC to earn her Ph.D. Beth Ruekberg’s History of Asia class at Garrison Forest also planted important seeds. It was the first time Joan had a class focused on history beyond Western civilization and Eurocentric points of view. “[It] truly impacted my worldview. Ms. Ruekberg had a passion for exposing students to the wider world through history. I am always seeking ways to create materials and build curricula that present global perspectives as well as taking risks for creativity and innovation in teaching.” Currently, Joan, who did extensive studies in piano and music composition, is researching international children’s songs with National Geographic Learning.

ALLYNN LODGE ’00

National Association of Independent School’s ‘Teacher of the Future’ Allynn Lodge is rightfully proud of her selection as one of only 35 independent school teachers chosen nationwide to be a National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) “Teacher of the Future,” but she’s quick to point out that the honor and her role as a middle school teacher might bring a chuckle from her Garrison Forest classmates. “ey say it’s karma that I became a middle school teacher,” she says. “I was not the most mature teen and wasn’t always the best behaved. I never thought that I would become a teacher, but I love it.” Her innate curiosity and passion for ideas have served her well in the year-long NAIS program, which ran from July 2014 until June 2015. e program connects teachers across the country through

face-to-face workshops and weekly online meetings, allowing the group to go where their conversations and ideas take them. After her nomination by ayer Academy, where Allynn has taught Spanish since 2007, she attended a July 2014 conference in Alexandria, Va., on online and blended learning in independent schools. [Blended learning is a mix of traditional classroom instruction with an online component outside of class time.] “e idea of educational access through technology is exciting to me,” explains Allynn, who uses various digital teaching tools in her classroom. “I love to think about what the next 20 years will look like in the classroom.” At the February 2015 NAIS conference, she reconnected with a favorite Garrison Forest teacher, Dr. Dante Beretta, who taught Latin to Allynn in Middle School. “My GFS teachers did a great job talking about the real world and giving us the ability to tackle diﬃcult issues. Reconnecting with my former teachers, as well as getting to know new colleagues through the ‘Teacher of the Future’ program, has been so valuable to my teaching.”

Allynn Lodge ’00 with Dante Beretta, GFS Middle School Latin teacher and archivist, at the February 2015 NAIS conference.

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Farewell to the Forest

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

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“

You have something that is uniquely you. Be brave enough to share your authentic self, lest you deprive the world of the gift that only you can give.” —Nicole Tucker-Smith, founder and CEO of Lessoncast.com and 2015 Baccalaureate Speaker

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of Discovery 10 Years with WISE and Jenkins Fellows This year marks 10 years since Garrison Forest School’s signature Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program and the Elsie “Muffie” Foster Jenkins ’53 Fellowships began. And what a decade it’s been. Since 2005, these innovative programs have offered GFS students hands-on opportunities to explore their interests and embrace their passions at a level typically reserved for college and graduate school. Through WISE, students work side-by-side with researchers from The Johns Hopkins University on world-class research. Jenkins Fellows have circumnavigated the globe for in-depth, summer community outreach projects. Happy 10th anniversary, WISE and Jenkins! The impact on each participant—and on Garrison Forest—has been profound.

From left: Katherine Paseman ’14 in Hopkins’ Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design lab in 2013; Jenkins Fellow Claire Whedbee ‘09 in Ghana in 2008; Bridget Bozel ‘09 and her WISE mentor at Hopkins; Lesha Ouyang ‘11 teaching in Beijing for her 2010 Jenkins Fellowship.

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Jamie Glueck ’16 and Xiaoou “Mia” Jin ’16 WISE PROJECT: In 2014-15, Jamie and Mia studied neurogenesis by using optogenetics to create a recording of newborn neurons in animals, a ground-breaking area of research to help understand and treat neurodiseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Jamie’s research began in October 2014 with Dr. Kimberly Christian at the Institute for Cell Engineering: Neurogeneration Program, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and Mia joined the lab in February. Jamie and Mia used optogenetics to insert an isolated ion channel into a group of cells, which responded when light was emitted in the ﬁber optics to create an extracellular recording of newborn neurons. Jamie: “I have been interested in doing WISE for a long time. My experience was even better than I could have imagined. My favorite part was the conversations I shared with my mentor. e great thing about science is it brings people together because everyone has the common goal of discovery. I learned that passion and curiosity can transcend all barriers, whether it be nationality, race, gender or language.” Mia: “I always wanted to work in a real lab, and WISE is one of the reasons why I came to GFS. e depth of the research is exactly what I expected. Everyone is very busy and focused on their own work, but what I found most amazing is the friendly and positive atmosphere of Hopkins’ labs.”

Mia Jin ’16 (left) and Jamie Glueck ’16 at work in the Institute for Cell Engineering at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.

have to ﬁnd all the ways something doesn’t work in order to understand how it does.” TRANSFORMATIONAL SKILL? Mia: “Our job was to make a drive used for the recording of the cells with little procedural instruction, so mistakes were inevitable. I learned that the most important qualities for a scientist are perseverance and positivity, because even a tiny step in science requires an enormous amount of patience and dedication.” COLLEGE PLANS: Mia has her mind set on becoming a psychiatrist, while Jamie plans to study neuroscience and computer science/ engineering and be a researcher or engineer.

“

When I was growing up, I did not have an opportunity to do research in a lab. My WISE students tell me how much this experience makes them think about their future. The more they want to know, the more excited they become.” —Sharon Gerecht, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, The Whiting School of Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University

WISEST LESSON? Jamie: “I learned that failure can be just as valuable as success, as in science you often

2004 WISE program funded in part by the E.E. Ford Foundation

2005 Lisa Rein, former IBM engineer, joins GFS as WISE Coordinator

First Jenkins Fellows travel to Grenada, Guatemala, Israel and Peru

First WISE “class” joins research labs in JHU’s Whiting School of Engineering

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A SAMPLING OF 2014-15 WISE PROJECTS

Why WISE?

Alex Tunkel ’16 WHERE: Neuroengineering and Biomedical Instrumentation Lab of Dr. Nitish Thakor PROJECT: Explored the impact of administering the neuropeptide orexin during induced cardiac arrests in rats. The research is aimed at improving survival rates and minimizing neurological damage.

Jessica Meister ’16 WHERE: Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences as part of an interdisciplinary research team led by Dr. Ben Zaitchik PROJECT: Conducted research on urban heat islands. Extreme heat is a leading public health hazard. Jessica placed heat sensors on the GFS campus and worked with citywide sensor data to contribute to the team’s understanding of heat patterns in the region.

Mason Jarrett ’16 WHERE: Chemical and Biomoleclular Engineering Lab of Dr. Sharon Gerecht PROJECT: Analyzed properties of endothelial cells, using rheology, flow cytometry and immunofluorescence. Mason’s research was aimed at improving the efficiency of creating populations of pure endothelial cells, which can be used to aid the growth and repair of blood vessels.

It’s not news that the United States faces a critical shortage of workers, most especially women, in most STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. In 2009, the percentage of scientists and engineers who are women stood at a paltry 24 percent (U.S. Census data), a figure that has remained stagnant. Yet STEM-ready professionals are essential to U.S. competitiveness, and STEM jobs consistently top the list of fields with strong projected needs. e 2011 Department of Commerce’s Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation study revealed that women earn on average 33 percent more when they work in these high-growth fields. Providing encouragement, support and role models for girls interested in STEM isn’t “wise.” It’s essential to preparing young women for important and rewarding careers. Since its inception in 2004-05, the goal of WISE is to encourage young women to pursue their STEM interest by linking them with faculty mentors in the Johns Hopkins University Schools of Engineering, Arts and Sciences and Public Health. In these labs and research centers, WISE students get hands-on experience solving real-world challenges, all the while being encouraged and championed in a scientific community. In recent years, students whose interests lean more toward the humanities are enjoying WISE-inspired research opportunities at Hopkins. Whatever the project, WISE students learn about the intersection of disciplines within and beyond STEM, in a university research setting in which cross-disciplinary collaboration is the norm.

Jessica Rein ’15 WHERE: Materials Science and Engineering Lab of Dr. Tim Mueller PROJECT: Conducted computational research, using materials informatics to predict the surface structure and properties of nanoparticles that could be used as catalysts in the capture and conversion of carbon dioxide emissions from a pollutant to a fuel source.

How WISE works Garrison Forest customizes a junior- or senior-year curriculum for the WISE students, who spend two afternoons a week on a Johns Hopkins campus in research, science immersion experiences and mentoring activities. Students are paired with accomplished scientists and their lab teams at Johns Hopkins; these mentors provide the specific background

Sidney Butler ’16 WHERE: Department of Anthropology with graduate mentor Serra Hakyemez PROJECT: Conducted original human-rights-focused research on how the media portrayed the United States’ abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In 2014-15, GFS had a record 30 WISE scholars.

2006 First WISE student at JHU’s Krieger School of Arts & Sciences joins research team in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

First WISE alumnae enroll at Montana State University, Olin College of Engineering, Stanford and Yale, all in STEM majors

information, instruction and guidance that allow WISE students to participate directly in their mentors’ research efforts or tackle their own research projects. Designed to dramatically increase the scientific literacy of its participants, WISE students share their work with each other. At the end of their WISE semester, they present their research to Hopkins professors, graduate students, GFS students and faculty.

2008 James Center founded with E.E. Ford Foundation Educational Leadership Grant. GFS is one of only five independent schools nationwide to receive an inaugural grant. Named for Amie Boyce James ’70, The James Center oversees WISE, Jenkins, community service, financial literacy, leadership and other experiential learning programs/opportunities

GFS15_Front_r7_GFS NEW 8/4/15 12:14 PM Page 23

70% of WISE alumnae

study STEM in college, with

15,000

158 WISE students over 10 years

1/3 majoring in

WISE

research hours

engineering

faculty

over past

have guided/

10 years

“

Sometimes it’s hard to know what you have learned until after the fact. As a WISE student, I learned that confidence and enthusiasm can get you far in life. This was especially crucial for getting through my first year of engineering school. As a Ph.D. student, I am still solving the same sort of open-ended problems that I faced as a WISE student. The problems have just gotten a lot harder.” —Casey Canfield ’06, member of the first WISE “class”

Ph.D. candidate in Engineering and Public Policy Carnegie Mellon University; B.S., Engineering Systems, Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering

inspired GFS students

Girls and Hands-on Learning: Why it Matters Now More than Ever By Kim Roberts, Ph.D., Head of School For the last decade educators have researched, analyzed and then attempted to reform how we “do school” in an effort to better prepare our students for the world that awaits them. In The Global Achievement Gap, Harvard professor Tony Wagner persuasively argues why education must shift to teach what he calls the “essential survival skills:” “[I]n the 21st century, mastery of the basic skills of reading, writing, and math is no longer enough. Increasingly, almost any job that pays more than minimum wage today—both blue and white collar—requires employees who know how to solve a range of intellectual and technical problems … Thus, work, learning, and citizenship in the 21st century demand that we all know how to think—to reason, analyze, weigh evidence, problem solve.” It is no longer enough to equate “rigor” with mastery of content. Students must understand how to synthesize what they learn: to extrapolate from the facts to grasp historical patterns or to apply mathematical and scientific concepts by seeing their realization in the natural world. As an educator particularly committed to girls’ education, I believe all of this is true, especially when it comes to educating girls.

Jenkins Speaker: Dr. Ben Carson, internationally known surgeon, best-selling author and philanthropist

For girls, relationships and social context matter deeply in their formative and adolescent years. This isn’t to say that boys don’t value connection, but relationships are often at the core of the way girls order their daily lives. Girls want to understand how to do something, but also why it matters. It is not enough for most girls to learn something for the pure intellectual joy of mastery; they need to know why their learning has meaning in the larger social landscape. At Garrison Forest, real-world and hands-on experiences are integral to our overall educational program. Experiential learning gives girls both the social context they need to feel motivated to learn, but also the “survival” skills Wagner describes: the ability to “reason, analyze, weigh evidence, problem solve.” As our students grow and develop as learners, they tackle increasingly difficult interdisciplinary challenges. The Iditarod unit in Second Grade (which combines history, animal science, math and current events—plus really cute dogs!) to culminating programs like WISE and Jenkins where girls challenge themselves not just as learners, but as leaders, are more than just evidence of an “enriched curriculum.” Rather, they are crucial to prepare our girls to competently, confidently tackle what awaits them.

Whitty Ransome, national leader for girls’ education and co-founder of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, named founding director of The James Center

First WISE student placed at JHU’s Bloomberg School of Public Health

Whitty Ransome

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Elsie “Muffie” Foster Jenkins ’53 Community Service Program

Muffie Foster Jenkins ‘53

WHAT IS IT? Muffie Foster Jenkins, a natural leader, served as President of the School in 1952-53 and continued her commitment to community service during her lifetime. A GFS Trustee and devoted conservationist, she led and supported numerous conservation organizations in Maryland. Following her death in 1999, her classmates and family honored her legacy of service by establishing the Elsie “Muffie” Foster Jenkins ’53 Endowment for Community Service at Garrison Forest. This endowed fund supports the Jenkins Fellows program and Service League, which is the longest, continual student-created organization at GFS, and brings a national community service advocate to campus as the annual Jenkins Community Service Speaker.

WHAT DO JENKINS FELLOWS DO? Each summer, since 2005, a handful of Garrison Forest rising sophomores, juniors and seniors are selected from a competitive pool to immerse themselves in an in-depth community outreach project of their own choosing. Jenkins Fellows design their own project or work with existing nonprofits with established service components. More than 50 Jenkins Fellows have served in over two dozen international and U.S. communities with projects ranging from volunteering in orphanages and constructing buildings to chopping invasive bamboo in the Amazon rainforest. When they return, they present their experiences to students across the divisions and serve as members of the student Service League Board for the remainder of their time at GFS.

Kristen Miller ’10 some of these questions, but I am still learning, and I love that!”

Kristen Miller ‘10 (center) at Harpswell Foundation in Cambodia, 2013.

JENKINS PROJECT: In 2009, worked at Ryvanz-Mia Orphanage in Ghana, tutoring, cooking, cleaning and providing recreational opportunities for the children. JENKINS IMPACT: “My view of global service changed after Jenkins. My thinking evolved to ‘how can I do more, more deeply?’ Working in the orphanage gave me the real-world experience I needed, and at such a young age, to be committed to fighting for justice. After Jenkins, I had so many questions about development, inequality and justice. Majoring in international affairs has helped me answer

WHAT’S NEXT? With her degree, extensive internship experience, honor as Northeastern’s 2015 Thomas E. McMahon Award for exceptional service and recent trip to South Africa, Kristen is considering positions in an international or U.S.-based organization working on social and/or racial justice issues. Her dream is to gain more experience working abroad. EXPERIENCE: • B.A., International Affairs, Northeastern University; 2012 summer language immersion program, Université Catholique de Lyon, Lyon, France • Founder, Children of Ghana, nonprofit for Ryvanz-Mia Orphanage • Internships: International Organization for Migration; World Health Organization; Cambodian Center for Independent Media; Harpswell Foundation (Cambodia); Clinton Foundation/Clinton Global Initiative; Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts; Oxfam America

2009 Jenkins Speaker: Adele Smith Simmons ’59, vice chairman of Chicago Metropolis 2020, president of Global Philanthropy Partnership and former MacArthur Foundation director

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

“

Muffie had a broader view of service when we were at Garrison Forest. People had been generous of their time with her and she wanted to give back. Muffie felt that Service League was really something special, so when we were determining what to do in her memory, creating a unique opportunity seemed like the right fit. We wanted to encourage students to think deeply about ways that they could make a difference in the world and the school. It is wonderful to see what the Jenkins Fellows continue to do each year. Muffie would be thrilled.” —Relie Garland Bolton ’53

Past President of the GFS Board of Trustees

2010 First WISE student placed at JHU’s Institute for Policy Studies

Centennial Jenkins Speaker: Dr. Madeleine K. Albright, chair of Albright Stonebridge Group and 64th U.S. Secretary of State, pictured with Amie Boyce James ’70 and Peter O’Neill, former Head of School

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Oh, the Places They’ve Been!

What is The James Center?

Since 2005, 50 Jenkins Fellows collectively have circled the globe 17 times, from Uganda to Ohio and Lima to Baltimore, making a difference in the communities and in their own lives and future. Below are just a handful of the places and projects:

Established in 2008, the nationally recognized Garrison Forest James Center brings together GFS experiential learning programs in and out of the classroom. Each James Center program mirrors Garrison Forest’s traditional strengths, educational mission, innovation and commitment to reinvent how girls learn and lead. Overseen by Andrea Perry, director, and Whitty Ransome, founding director, The James Center coordinates

Clockwise: In 2006, Mo Smalley ’08 traveled through Northern Thailand to work in rice fields, teach in refugee camps and raise money to benefit villages; Cassie Greenbaum ‘10 cut back invasive bamboo and planted indigenous trees for a re-forestation project in Peru; Naya Frazier ‘12 taught guitar and worked in an orphanage in Senegal; and Sarah Mazer ’15 (fifth from right) built houses in Wisconsin with Habitat for Humanity.

WISE, Service League and Jenkins Fellows, as well as curricular and co-curricular

In 2005, Kelly Dale ’08, Jhpiego senior program coordinator and former Peace Corps volunteer in Benin, did her Jenkins Fellowship in Guatemala, refurbishing a local primary school: “My time in Guatemala caused a huge shift in my perspective and priorities. After Jenkins, I co-chaired Service League for two years, was philanthropy chair of my sorority, on the executive board of Vanderbilt’s Big Brothers Big Sisters club and a Peace Corps volunteer in Benin. [Jenkins] instilled in me a desire to travel, experience new cultures, speak new languages, meet new people and continue working in the developing world.”

Lily Stellmann ’09, Central Park Conservatory major gifts officer, created her own Jenkins Fellowship in 2008: a dance program for children affected by domestic violence living at House of Ruth Maryland: “My experience deeply impacted my mindset about domestic violence. At the University of Virginia, my sorority sister, Yeardley Love, was murdered in a domestic violence dispute. I became dedicated to supporting the One Love Foundation [created by Yeardley’s family]. The experience of creating my own Jenkins program strongly resonated with me. If you believe in what you do and work hard, you can accomplish a lot.”

financial literacy programs,

In 2008, Holly Rocha Sathoff ’09, licensed social worker and care coordinator for seniors on Medical Assistance, worked at Pathfinder Village in Cooperstown, N.Y., a neighborhood community for people with Down syndrome: “No matter what population you work with, you are working with people who want to connect with other people.”

2015 Jenkins Fellows: Brooke Fruman '16 and Qiuhan Zhang '16 traveled to China to conduct pollution-reduction research at Huazong Tech University and to co-teach English at a school for migrant workers. Jackie Magaha '16 was part of a Hands Across the Americas medical team staffing free clinics in Cusco, Peru. Amanda Rein '17 worked on a Sicilian farm that helps refugees and victims of domestic violence.

girls from underserved

First WISE student placed in humanities and technology research at JHU’s Sheridan Libraries’ rare book collection

2011

2012

Jenkins Speaker: Jody Olsen, Ph.D., former Peace Corps deputy director

First WISE Classics students placed at JHU’s Archaeological Museum

leadership development opportunities and the school’s partnership with the Baltimore Community Foundation’s Middle Grades Partnership (MGP). During the year and for several weeks through each summer, GFS hosts MGP students— talented middle-school-aged Baltimore neighborhoods— for an on-campus academic and cultural enrichment program. For more, visit gfs.org/jamescenter.

First WISE student placed at Jhpiego, JHU-affiliated global health agency, and first WISE student placed at JHU’s School of Medicine

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

GFS15_Front_r7_GFS NEW 8/4/15 12:14 PM Page 26

Service League Snapshot In 1942, a group of Garrison Forest students wanted to help on the home front during World War II. They founded Service League, and ever since, GFS students have been advocating, leading and making a difference in a variety of ways. Today, Service League is as strong as ever. Here’s a glimpse of just a few of the many activities in 2014-15.

20 children’s birthdays celebrated at Sarah’s Hope, a homeless shelter in Reisterstown

2,750 sandwiches and lunches

1,500 cans of food

for Our Daily Bread, prepared by Upper School Advisories and the Lower School

donated to the Donald Bentley Food Pantry

80 hours

spent by faculty/ staff building Habitat for Humanity homes in Baltimore

Special Olympians coached during winter basketball practices at Garrison Forest

400 books read by Ninth Graders to their Woodholme Elementary School reading buddies

8 ponytails

donated to Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths for free wigs for women undergoing cancer treatment

Double-dippers Once bitten by the hands-on learning bug, many students can’t get enough. In fact, one-third of all Jenkins Fellows also do WISE.

Sofia Maranto ’16 WISE PROJECT: In 2015, worked in the JHU Biomedical Engineering department in Dr. Leslie Tung’s lab, researching the patch clamp method to test alternate waveforms on cells to eventually provide painless deﬁbrillation for heart patients. JENKINS PROJECT: In 2014, worked at the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana, volunteering with children and elders and doing maintenance work. IMPACT: “I learned that change and new experiences are some of my favorite things. WISE and Jenkins both exist to help people but, more than anything, I left both experiences conﬁdent in what other

Jenkins Speaker: Holly Freishtat ’91, food policy director, Baltimore City’s Office of Sustainability

people have to share with the world. Whether it was a Cheyenne elder sharing his story or a grad student dedicating his thesis to bettering medicine, people have great things to give.” TRANSFORMATIONAL MOMENT: “I have never had more of an appreciation of nature than while I was on the mountain [near the reservation], and it became obvious to me why the Cheyenne feel such a deep connection to the land. e site was completely untouched by man. We could not start a ﬁre because the wind was too strong so we hunkered down in our sleeping bags and listened to the water and the wind. I lay

2013

2014

Jenkins Speaker: Jackie Carrera, president, Baltimore’s Parks & People Foundation

Jenkins Speaker: Will Baker, president and CEO, Chesapeake Bay Foundation

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

Sofia Maranto and a Cheyenne tribal elder.

there thinking that maybe the Cheyenne had good ideas about life.” DREAM CAREER: A researcher in an academic setting. GFS LEADERSHIP ROLES: • Cross Country team member; IAAM All-Star in 2014 • Indoor Track Captain • Service League Co-head

WISE student Katherine Paseman ’14 named INTEL semifinalist; travels to India in December 2013 with her JHU lab team to conduct field research on biomedical devices

GFS15_Front_r7_GFS NEW 8/4/15 12:14 PM Page 27

TRANSFORMATIONAL SKILL? “WISE and Jenkins teach students to step outside of their world and experience something diﬀerent. In some ways, I am more motivated by my hands-on experiences than I am by schoolwork. ese experiences make me more driven with my schoolwork because I have a more clear understanding of what I want to do after college.” POST-COLLEGE PLANS: Travel, then apply to a combined MD/MPH program and pursue a career in public health. EXPERIENCE:

Sarah Hill ’13 WISE PROJECT: In 2012, researched ancient Roman funerary inscriptions with Kaley Gonzalez ’13 as first WISE Classics Scholars at the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum. JENKINS PROJECT: In 2012, conducted medical research/outreach in the Dominican Republic. IMPACT: “Unlike many of my fellow students at Hopkins, I knew exactly what I wanted to study and why. My WISE and Jenkins experiences had everything to do with my choices. After resisting a career in medicine for quite some time, my Jenkins Fellowship gave me a firsthand understanding of HIV/AIDS, nutrition and health disparities. I knew when I came home that I wanted to make a difference in health outcomes on a population level. WISE impacted my choice of a classics major. After working hands-on with inscriptions and other ancient objects, I fell even more in love with Latin.”

First WISE student placed at Shafer Center to assist with educational research supporting needs of children with autism

• Double major in public health and classics, Johns Hopkins • Recipient, JHU Hodson Trust Scholarship and Woodrow Wilson Undergraduate Research Fellowship • Authored paper on obesity across geographic areas in the United States; “Differences in Obesity Among Men of Diverse Racial and Ethnic Backgrounds” in the American Journal of Men’s Health • Funded by her Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, traveled to Puerto Rico in summer 2015 to conduct a study to further understand the cultural and behavioral factors that impact obesity in Hispanic men • Founded Kids Uveitis Research and Education (K.U.R.E.) Foundation at age 10 with her doctor at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s Wilmer Eye Institute to provide research for Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis, Uveitis (JIA Uveitis) • Works at Health Leads at the Harriet Lane Clinic in Baltimore • Studying in Rome for fall 2015 with the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, focusing solely on classics

Caitlin Crowl ’08, MOT Occupational therapist

WISE PROJECT: Worked with Dr. Nina Markovic, JHU Department of Physics and Astronomy, on research using atomic force microscopy to examine metal samples for use in developing nanowires. JENKINS PROJECT: Volunteered as a counselor at Camp Juliette Low, a camp for girls with physical and mental disabilities in Kansas City, Mo., 2006 (above photo). IMPACT: “Jenkins and WISE, while tremendously diﬀerent, combined to help me develop a lifelong passion that I have translated into my career. As a Jenkins Fellow, I remember imagining how I would feel knowing that some things that were basic to everyone around me were a challenge or out of my reach. I left the camp with a sense of connectedness to the girls, a desire to help and motivation to adapt every life experience to be universal. After WISE, I felt more conﬁdent, independent and able to assert myself intellectually in any academic situation. At Smith College, I studied astronomy and physics, which I loved, but I was missing the joy and connectedness I had experienced through Jenkins. My mother suggested I explore occupational therapy, which looks at the world of science and medicine and bridges the gap to everyday living. EXPERIENCE: • B.A., Astronomy, Smith College • Master of Occupational Therapy, Temple University

2015 Networking between WISE students and WISE alumnae created on social media and through STEM network of 10 leading STEM girls’ independent schools

Rachel Peichert ’10, Jenkins Fellow alumna, named inaugural E. E. Ford Public Health Fellow to create Public Health Civic Service Fellows [see page 42]

Jenkins Speaker: Jennifer Lawless, Ph.D., American University government professor, author, advocate and expert on the gender gap in politics

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

GFS15_Front_r7_GFS NEW 8/4/15 12:14 PM Page 28

The

CAREER CHANGERS Think about your career path. Has it been a paved avenue toward one ultimate career goal? Or a dirt road full of bumps, twists and turns?

For some,

that path has

veered off to the left and presented

many forks in the road. For others, it has even circled around backward.

For a student graduating from Garrison Forest School this year, the idea of

like IT, a job hop is expected every 18 to

could not vary more by industry and

staying with a company for more than

different generations, are decades apart

24 months. However, where in the past, 10 years was an asset on the job

market, now it can be a disadvantage. “For all professions, staying in the

a “career path,” a road that has already

same position at the same company for

be some relic of a past generation—

averse and not growing your skills,”

been traveled and set in stone, may a concept that no longer exists.

For most, one thing is certain, the

idea of getting your foot in the door at a good company after college

graduation and staying for 40 years

is all but gone. The average length of stay in a position with the same

company varies by industry. In more

conservative industries, that timeline may be longer, but in industries

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

too long can be a signal of being change says Alice Waagen, Ph.D., president

and founder of the HR/management training firm Workforce Learning.

“If you’ve stayed with a company for 10 years in the same position, you

have some explaining to do to me as a hiring manager.”

No one could accuse the GFS

alumnae featured here of being change averse. They have career paths that

career goal. They hail from

in age and have taken a variety of paths in working toward their

destinations. Yet the one thing they

share is that they embraced these forks in the road with open arms. Their

moves have been out-of-the-ordinary and occasionally misunderstood, but

they have pursued their passions with purpose, guided by the principal that Waagen stresses in her advice to

anyone about making career decisions:

“Whatever you do, you need to have a good story to tell.”

GFS15_Front_r7_GFS NEW 8/4/15 12:14 PM Page 29

Mary Seyffert Hamblin ’72 Financial consultant. Executive director of Planned Parenthood Nova Scotia. High school teacher. Political candidate. MBA program director. Soup-making entrepreneur. Most would be lucky to fit one of these career titles into a lifetime. Mary Seyffert Hamblin ’72 has earned them all. While a Career Advisory Board study shows that workers ages 21-31 in 2015 will hold about 15 different jobs during their careers, Mary was ahead of the curve. She began her career as a high school teacher after graduating with a degree in education from Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After several years of teaching, she ventured into nonprofit management when the opportunity presented itself, eventually becoming the executive director of Planned Parenthood Nova Scotia and later, executive director of Metro Volunteer Resource Center. In the early 1990s, change called again and she left the nonprofit world to run a financial services business with Primerica, providing client services for financial planning and investments. “I loved it,” Mary said, but her next move, returning to school to earn a dual law degree and M.B.A. from Dalhousie University in Halifax, would take her away from the financial services industry, for a time. In fact, after graduating from the program in 1999, Mary went on to become manager of the M.B.A. program at Dalhousie.

Her early career moves were in part motivated by her sense of adventure but were also strategic. As a single mother of one daughter, many of her career decisions were made to both provide for her daughter and to be active and involved in her daughter’s life. “I always wanted to be doing things where I could also have a good family life with my daughter,” Mary says. “Being divorced, I was her primary caregiver and wanted to be home in the evenings. My 40s took me away from the financial investment industry, which made sad, but my focus on law and management and becoming director of the M.B.A. program was better for raising my daughter.” As her 50s approached, Mary decided that it was time to follow her heart in her career. She wrote down the things that she loved to do, and the two that stuck out to her the most were cooking and planning. So, of course, Mary started two businesses: Hamblin & Associates, a management

consulting company; and Life’s Good Soups, an artisan organic soup company. Her soup has found success in farmer’s markets and gourmet markets in Nova Scotia, and Life’s Good was named one of the “Top 10 Innovative Food Production Companies” by Food in Canada magazine. In addition to providing customers with a delicious meal, she hopes her soup has the effect of the pleasures for which they are all named: Joy, Comfort, Serenity and Success, things that Mary has experienced in abundance. “People think I’ve been lucky,” Mary says. “I would agree, but another part is that I’ve accepted opportunities that other people would be afraid to accept because they would have to stretch quite a bit. I like that. I’m always terrified of starting something new, but I know that if I put one foot in front of the other, I will learn how to do it. I will become competent and enjoy it. The learning is exciting.”

“I’m always terrified of starting something new, but I

know that if I put one foot in front of the other, I will

learn how to do it. I will become competent and enjoy it. The learning is exciting.”

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

GFS15_Front_r7_GFS NEW 8/4/15 12:14 PM Page 30

Mary stretched once again when in 2013, she threw her hat into the ring as a candidate for the Nova Scotia Provincial Election for the Member Legislative Assembly. Prior to running for office, Mary had spent more than a decade volunteering and serving on boards in Halifax, including being appointed chair of the Employment Insurance Board of Referees, council member and committee chair of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia and board member of the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women. “On the Physicians Board, for the first two years I said very little in council meetings,” Mary says. “I was reticent to speak up. I was learning but I was cautious and scared. By the fourth or fifth year, I was sitting on various committees, and by the seventh or eighth year, I was chairing and quite vocal. If I had anything to do over again, I wouldn’t have been so cautious.” Having found her voice, she was driven by a desire to serve the community and create a positive change in Halifax through her attempt at a legislature seat. While she did not win, she found it to be a fascinating experience, and it resulted in her finding her next and current position: financial consultant. One of the women working on Mary’s campaign, also one of her former

M.B.A. students, offered Mary the opportunity to join an investors group. It reignited the passion that she had once found in financial planning and she became a consultant with Investors Group Financial Services Inc. Her career path had circled back. Today, Mary plans to continue in her career as a consultant and produce Life’s Good Soup into her 70s, 80s and beyond. “I don’t want to retire. I want to work until I’m 105 because I’ve always chosen to do things I love.” And with that 105th birthday far off, Mary has taken on a new title: budding screenwriter. Inspired by her daughter, a director who has found her own success in the film world, Mary has started writing her own screenplay loosely inspired by her own experience—a comedy about a woman in her 50s who decides to run for political office. Not having experience as a film writer hasn’t steered her away from her project one bit. “As women, we’re raised to be caretaking and kind. We think it’s boastful to think we could write a movie or do whatever else we want to do,” she says. “But if you shine, it doesn’t take away from the other people around you. That’s what we were born to do. Shine where we’re unique. If everybody did that the world would be wonderful place.”

Megan Draheim ’95 Many career changers will navigate a solo path to success, but for Megan Draheim ’95, the path to a new career is a joint venture. Megan, who is a professor at Virginia Tech and holds a Ph.D. from George Mason University in environmental science and policy, and her husband, David Harris, are in the process of opening Song Dog Spirits, a distillery in Washington, D.C. Song Dog, scheduled to open in 2017, will be a

Career Explorations

It’s

no secret that some employers have a negative view of millennials in the workplace. They are often branded as disloyal and job hoppers, but Alice Waagen, Ph.D. president and founder of the HR /management training firm Workforce Learning, feels the generalizations are unwarranted. “The millennial group people came of age during the recession and entered the job market when it was in horrible shape,” said Alice. “Oftentimes, from 2008 through today, they were taking a job because it was a job and it was the only one they had when desperately seeking employment. The recession has had more of an impact on this age group than anything else.” Yet even though ideas about the younger generation of employees may be untrue, they still face the challenge of overcoming those stereotypes in the workplace. One big challenge is the branding of millennials. They are branded with GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

negative qualities that are grotesquely unfair and not true, but they have to demonstrate that they’re not those kind of people.” One way that Alice suggests that millennials can help prove themselves and make the best career choices is through career education and internships. “Until you roll up your sleeves and stand for eight hours a day in a profession, you don’t know that it’s your vocation,” says Alice. “Some jobs are a calling more than anything else. I’m a huge proponent of internships to gain work experience and to get a foot in the door.” Since 1969, Garrison Forest has required Seniors to complete an Independent Senior Project (ISP), a two-week unpaid internship in a professional environment at the end of their senior year. Now, even younger Upper School girls have the opportunity to be better educated on careers of interest

GFS15_Front_r7_GFS NEW 8/4/15 12:14 PM Page 31

from-scratch distillery, bringing in raw materials to make a variety of whiskeys, rums, gins and liqueurs on site. After David needed a break from the nonprofit political world and didn’t find political consulting to be a fit, Megan started gently nudging him toward making alcohol, something that had always been an interest for the couple. ey had toured distilleries in different places over the years, but in summer 2014, Megan and David took a tour of a small craft distillery while visiting Megan’s family in Michigan. It was love at first sight. ey were hooked on the idea of starting their own distillery and began looking up how to accomplish it as soon as they returned to D.C. Still, the decision to start something completely new wasn’t an easy endeavor. Opening a distillery is a large undertaking. In addition to the financial investment it takes to get started, the time investment in the business through tasks like securing licenses and waiting 13 months for stills requires a great deal of patience. “We were sort of dipping our toes in and trying to decide what felt right and whether we thought realistically it was something we could pull off,” said Megan. “Trying to grapple with the uncertainty— should we, shouldn’t we, how will this affect our future security—all of that stuff was the most challenging piece until we both

“Starting anything new after you’ve been in something

else for a while is hard. Having passion and making the commitment are the most important pieces.”

through a six-week Career Exploration session introduced to sophomores in January 2015. Director of Alumnae and Parent Relations Peggy Bittner, Ann Marie Strauss, Director of College Counceling, Senior College Counselor Marty O’Connell and Director of The James Center Andrea Perry deliver the session to split sections of the sophomore class from January through May (one half is SAT Prep while the other half is Career Explorations). The girls take the Career Interest Profiler online assessment, based on the work of career theorist, John Holland. Holland’s codes refer to a theory of career and vocational choices based on personality type. The girls explore career choices that match their personality types and research career options using the U.S. Government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook. The

sessions provide the students with resources and research skills so that they become familiar with various careers that might be satisfying to them. The goal is to assist in pointing them toward a career, a major in college or an internship that they may want to explore. Once girls have some career options in mind, they move on to resume writing and interviewing skills. Girls create an activities resume that they will continue to build upon for college and beyond. They learn basic interviewing skills, practice with each other, film themselves during a mock interview and provide each other with feedback. They also receive feedback from session leaders. Holding the sessions during sophomore year provides the girls with early preparation for summer job, scholarship and college interviews. It also provides the College Counseling department an opportunity to meet and work with the students before the formal college counseling program begins in junior year. 2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Make the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile Looking to make a career change? Sprucing up your presence on LinkedIn is a good place to start. Here are some tips for making your LinkedIn profile worthy of attention. USE A PROFESSIONAL PHOTO The right photo is important, however, it doesn’t have to be a professional headshot. Look at some of the photos of others in the field you seek to enter and choose one that matches closely with what you find. WRITE A GOOD HEADLINE After your photo, your headline is the first thing people see on your profile. You only have 120 characters to make a good first impression, so be sure to make the most of the space you have to highlight your specialty, goal and personality. BE PERSONABLE Be professional, but welcoming in your personal summary. Write your summary using first person and try to use conversational language. HIGHLIGHT YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS Instead of simply listing your job titles and descriptions, use your profile to emphasize the achievements in each position you have held. USE KEYWORDS Employers seeking to fill positions may use keywords to find candidates. Use words that relate to your industry and type of job you are seeking in your headline and throughout your profile to make yourself more visible in the search. ADD EXAMPLES Adding samples of your work to your LinkedIn profile will help make you stand out. You can add files, photo or video to display your past and current work. BE EASY TO FIND Did you know that you can send potential employers and connections directly to your LinkedIn profile by creating a custom URL? You can edit your profile to change it to linkedin.com/yourname. Also, don’t forget to include your contact information. Employers should know how to contact you outside of LinkedIn.

JOIN THE GFS LINKEDIN PAGE Network with other alumnae by logging on to LinkedIn and joining the Garrison Forest School Alumnae group.

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

decided this was what we were going to do and we needed to just jump in and state it out loud to ourselves. Once we made the commitment, things started to fall into place, and the fear started to subside.” Megan’s previous fears have given way to excitement for what Song Dog’s future holds. Song Dog, another name for the coyote (Megan studied urban coyotes in Colorado), will build on Megan’s sustainability knowledge through her education and career in environmental science. Her current research projects focus mostly on urban wildlife and biodiversity conservation, experience that will be vital in achieving their goal of creating a product that is as green and organic as possible. While her science background will help her navigate some aspects of the business, opening it is still a wholly new endeavor. Megan draws on her past transition into graduate school to help her feel more comfortable in taking on the challenge. In some ways, it is not the ﬁrst time she has undergone a major career change: she entered graduate school for environmental science after majoring in ﬁne arts with a concentration in photography as an undergraduate at George Washington University. “I’m starting over from scratch in an entirely new career,” says Megan. “I understand pieces of it, like knowing what’s important to me, but most of it is unfamiliar to me. We’ve gone to a couple of conferences this year. e sessions were wonderful, but we both walked out with our heads hurting because there was so much new information to take in.” To make it through the headaches and rough patches, she relies on two things that she suggests everyone make sure they have before taking the plunge into a new career: passion and commitment. “Make sure it’s something that you really have the passion for. Starting anything new after you’ve been in something else for a while is hard. If it’s not something you’re passionate about, it’s going to be much tougher to make the transition. Having that passion and making the commitment are the most important pieces.” To learn more about Song Dog Spirits, visit their website at songdogdistilling.com.

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“The whole world has kind of opened up and shown me new ways to love, know and see.”

Betsy Rockwood (center) at the Baccalaureate service at Oblate School of Theology.

Betsy Kirkland Rockwood ’55 For Betsy Rockwood ’55, career change was ﬁnding the road back to doing what she had wanted to do her whole life. After Garrison Forest, Betsy attended nursing school for a short time before meeting her husband. “I’d always wanted to make a full-time commitment to the church, but the way people lived was very diﬀerent when I was growing up,” Betsy said. “Women couldn’t go to Princeton or Yale or theology school. You got married and raised your children; that was the norm.” So for more than 40 years, Betsy focused on her family. She successfully raised her three children: Shelly, a medical doctor in cancer genetic research and treatment; Lindsay, a pediatrician; and Robert, a West Point and Harvard graduate in business in New York. “Raising children was a good job and it was very rewarding,” Betsy said. As a stay-at-home mother, Betsy found success as a published author. Always a lover of reading and writing, she wrote several books and articles, focused mainly on Christianity, over the years. Her books, A Wide Place for My Steps and When Prayers are Not Answered, were published successfully and translated into multiple languages, and she was a contributing author for Guideposts, a home bible study program. But in 2002, Betsy’s husband of 45 years died. With her children grown and out of the house, she was left to contemplate her next step. e decision was obvious: to deepen her

relationship with the church by entering theology, as she had always wanted to do. e thought was one thing; the application quite another. Betsy wanted to earn a master’s in theology, but she had not completed a bachelor’s degree. She applied to the Oblate School of eology in San Antonio, which accepts only two applicants per year through its college equivalency program. But the national exam to prove college equivalency was computerized— a potential hurdle for Betsy, who is not a technology native. “ere I was, this old widow,” she laughed. “I took the test for several hours, and when I got through, the computer said I had 15 minutes to go back and make corrections. I didn’t want to mess anything up, so I sat for 15 minutes and hoped I did very well.” Her hopes were realized when Betsy’s high exam score earned her acceptance into the program. Acceptance was just the first hurdle she faced. Returning to school for the first time after several decades and keeping pace with the technology requirements of the program and her younger classmates was no small feat. “I was terrified, every exam,” Betsy said. “I kept drawing on what I learned at GFS, reading, self-discipline and good study habits. e books that I had written were also a discipline.” Facing her fears paid off when at age 76, in front of her children and eight grandsons, Betsy graduated with her master’s degree in pastoral ministry in 2013. “I am the same age as Pope Francis, who was sworn in that same year,” she said. “I kept thinking, the Pope was starting a new career and so was I.” While many of her peers are enjoying retirement, Betsy is starting over. Many of her projects involve helping with those dealing with illnesses or emotional issues. She has formed a caregivers support group with chapters now in Catholic, Lutheran and Episcopal churches, providing support for

those caring for ill spouses. “My husband had a long illness,” She said. “I wish I’d had a group, and I couldn’t find one, so I designed one.” She organizes retreats for the bereaved and counsels people dealing with any number of life issues, including her friends. “My friends, who are retired, a lot of times will come to me when they’re in trouble. ey feel like they can talk to me. When you get to be my age, you start losing friends, spouses and having health problems. I have a lot of opportunity to be of service. I did my thesis on listening. People like knowing that somebody hears and understands.” e next step for Betsy: making her vows to the Catholic Church. While completing her graduate studies, Betsy was also converting to Catholicism. She made her vows to live, work and make a difference as part of the Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate, Secular Institute this past summer. “I have great fulfillment and joy in what I’m doing and have had wonderful opportunities” Betsy says. “e Catholic Church has sent me to France and Ireland to study and I have met people from 18 different countries. e whole world has kind of opened up and shown me new ways to love, know and see.”

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Garrison Forest

Gallery

Enjoy the “tour” of works by this year’s GFS artists.

“Floral Impressions” by Elizabeth Gallo ‘16.

Amanda Rein ’17’s “Light and Shadow” was selected for the 2015 Towson Collective, a show of outstanding student art from Baltimore County. Najuma Simon ‘15 designed a library for the Architectural Drawing class.

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

Kendall Shriver ’15 created a playful portrait of sister Chloe ’21.

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“as I stand,” by Hanwen Yang ’17 captures the artist’s experience in airports traveling between Garrison Forest and her home in Shanghai.

In the fall, the Drawing: Faces and Figures class toured and sketched classical and Renaissance sculpture in the Walters Art Museum. Back in the studio, students worked from photos to create a large-scale drawing on tinted paper with pastel, applying principles of chiaroscuro. Left: By Yeree Kang ‘16; right: By Pauline Vogt ‘17

Sandy Wells ’15 sculpted “Pencil Head,” using dozens of No. 2 pencils and power tools in the Sculpture studio.

Follow Upper School artists on Instagram @gfs_artscenter.

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Faculty

Faculty at the Forest FOR 105 YEARS, the Garrison Forest faculty has been the heart of the school, teaching,

guiding, listening, encouraging and sometimes nudging students to achieve the potential every GFS faculty member sees in each student. Garrison Forest School honors exceptional teaching and service to the community with several annual awards.

20-YEAR SERVICE PIN In 1992, Garrison Forest established the tradition of honoring faculty and staff who have attained 20 years of service to the school. The outstanding loyalty and commitment are true hallmarks of GFS.

Nick Burns History Teacher

Nick Burns’ contagious enthusiasm for his chosen discipline and profession begins before you cross his classroom threshold. e music of the era being studied wafts into the Marshall-Oﬀutt hallway. Once you enter his room, you Nick Burns at 2015 Commencement.

are greeted by posters, book covers, postcards and other images that scream history is everywhere. And mostly you are greeted by his distinctive voice and joyful exuberance. Mr. Burns, who was honored in 2011 with the GFS Distinguished Teacher Award, cares deeply about every student, not only that she learns history, but that she is valued and respected. He ignites student passion and gives them multiple ways to process what they are learning—debating events, developing videos to examine issues in depth and writing analytical essays to argue their perspectives. His goal is

that his students—he calls them his “young scholars”—believe more fully in themselves, as learners and as people. Over his 20 years at Garrison Forest, Mr. Burns has been a Tenth Grade class adviser, a faculty resident in Robinswood and a coach. is year he co-coached Varsity Basketball to a league championship. While impactful out of his classroom, it is the magic that happens in his interactive, sensory-rich teaching space that has deﬁned his legacy for two decades. His classes are overwhelming favorites of students and alumnae. Last spring, Pat Bassett, former President of the National Association of Independent Schools, visited his classroom as part of the school’s new strategic planning process. Following his experience in Mr. Burns’ U.S. history class, Mr. Bassett, who has visited thousands of schools, remarked, “Nick’s class was among the best I’ve seen anywhere, anytime, in any school or university.”

Leigh McDonald Hall ‘81 Physical Education Teacher and Coach

When Leigh McDonald Hall ’81 returned to her alma mater in 1996 to coach after a career in nursing, she brought with her a depth of knowledge and experience in ﬁeld sports, gleaned from her days as a standout lacrosse and ﬁeld hockey player for Garrison Forest and as an All-Ivy League Championship player at the University of Pennsylvania. Elected to the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the National

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Faculty

each and every day. She has imbued in generations of Garrison Girls an understanding of the importance of being active, the ability to laugh with one another and to embrace teamwork, sportsmanship and a love of sport. 2015 DISTINGUISHED TEACHER AWARD

Leigh McDonald Hall ‘81 with Kim Roberts.

Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2005 and an inaugural member of the Garrison Forest Hall of Excellence along with her 1978 lacrosse teammates, Ms. Hall uses her drive and determination, knowledge of the game, compassion for each student and sense of humor as a coach from the Lower School lacrosse program to the Middle School, and in her current position as a Varsity Field Hockey coach. For the latter, she’s helped to lead GFS to ﬁve IAAM A Conference championships and in 2010 was named “Co-Coach of the Year” by e Baltimore Sun. Her love of coaching and commitment to her native Baltimore has been exemplary. In 2001, she founded the Pacas’ Lacrosse Program for underserved elementary and middle school girls in Baltimore City. For seven years, she ran what was the only inner-city girls’ lacrosse program in Baltimore, receiving the U. S. Lacrosse Regions Council Commitment Award and the Nancy Grasmick Excellence for Minority Achievement Chair Award for her leadership. For Ms. Hall, Garrison Forest is a family aﬀair. Her mother, the late Joan

McDonald, taught Latin at Garrison Forest, and her daughter Poppy graduated in 2007. Ms. Hall began teaching Lower School Physical Education, and today, her teaching spans through the Upper School. Whether it’s a power walk with First Grade to Lochinvar or teaching the ﬁner points of shooting a free throw, she inspires her students to be their very best

In 1980, Elinor Purves McLennan ’56 and Courtney McLennan Myhrum ‘79 established the Distinguished Teacher Award to recognize excellence in teaching at Garrison Forest. The recipient is chosen by a committee of parents, students and faculty.

Deborah Fusting Lynn ‘75 Third Grade Teacher

Deb Fusting Lynn’s joy in life is teaching and instilling each girl with worth and value. As a teacher, she believes in growing hearts and spirits as much as the mind. Girls know that Mrs. Lynn

Deborah Fusting Lynn ‘75 at the 2015 Commencement and the surprise announcement of her honor.

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Faculty

2015 IRVIN D. MCGREGOR DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD Created in 2008 and named for beloved GFS staff member Irvin McGregor, who served in the dining hall for 43 years, this annual award honors full-time staff members who have distinguished themselves based on exemplary tenure, service and dedication to Garrison Forest.

Gary Harris Physical Plant

Gary Harris in a favorite spot at the GFS Pond.

loves them for their own unique and wonderful ways. She sees the good and the hope in everyone and every situation. In 2006, Mrs. Lynn joined Garrison Forest to teach ird Grade, having taught ird and Fourth Grade in Woodstock, Md. After graduating from Garrison Forest in 1975, she received a B.S. in psychology and a B.A. in sociology from St. Lawrence University and embarked on a 13-year communications career. Her skills as a communicator and deep understanding of human behavior have proven invaluable to her calling in the classroom. She always has a kind word or greeting for all who pass her way; and her love is the sincerest and humblest in every regard. She imbues life and joy into the Lower School and all who encounter her. A creative and collaborative teacher, Mrs. Lynn has developed or enhanced several signature ird Grade experiences for her students, from having the girls research and present American female leaders across an array of ﬁelds for the “American Heroine” project to the much-anticipated “State Fair and Feast,” an interactive research project on

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

the United States that spans several disciplines (and a very tasty potluck lunch.) Mrs. Lynn, who is an accomplished yoga practitioner, has found ways to share her avocation with the Lower School through assemblies and presentations. And there is arguably no better cheerleader at the annual Preschool and Lower School Field Day. Most important, it is the feeling of quiet calm, unﬂagging support and unconditional love that she brings to her classroom, the Lower School and the GFS community. “As a master teacher, a person, colleague and role model, Mrs. Lynn is all that we hope for in a teacher at Garrison Forest School,” Dr. Kim Roberts, Head of School, remarked at the 2015 Commencement when she awarded Mrs. Lynn with this honor. “She brings passion and joy to her work, and her students are her ﬁrst priority. She works tirelessly on their behalf as she recognizes the small window she has to prepare them for their life’s journey. Her true gift is the ability to see her students beyond their Lower School years and envision the women they will become.”

When Gary Harris, devoted member of the Physical Plant staff and caretaker of the campus for 14 years, first applied for the job, his resume seemed like an odd fit for the required responsibilities. An accomplished musician and trained classical pianist, Mr. Harris had spent 15 years in music sales, prior to which he had founded a successful cable installation company. As a young man, he spent seven years in seminary in preparation to be a Franciscan priest (meeting his future wife shifted those plans) and earned a B.A. in philosophy from St. Hyacinth College and Seminary in Massachusetts. He counts teaching among his former careers and is fluent in French. But cutting grass—the main task of the job when he started at GFS—was exactly what he was looking for. What he found was a campus and community to embrace. With a twinkle in his eye and a vast knowledge of the plant world, Gary has skillfully and thoughtfully tended to Garrison Forest’s 110 acres—acreage, he points out, that is just shy of the size of Vatican City. He is the school’s horticultural expert, having earned his A.A.S. degree in horticulture magna cum laude from the Community College of Baltimore County in 2008, funded in part by GFS’s professional development endowment. Mr. Harris, who retires on August 31, and his colleagues work outside in all kinds of weather on all kinds of tasks: shoveling snow after a blizzard; grooming the softball fields to

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Faculty

perfection; setting up and taking down equipment for countless events; and many other behind-the-scenes jobs, without which teaching and learning would not be possible. A true Renaissance man, he quotes Plato while driving a tractor, pruning trees or delivering chairs for Commencement. He brings his incredible eye for detail and exactness to his avocation, namely playing guitar or keyboard in several bands and taking photographs of the GFS campus. He has amassed a stunning portfolio of record snowstorms, beautiful sunrises and fawns sleeping by the Campus Center sidewalks. “My time at Garrison Forest has taught me to be more in touch with nature,” he reﬂects. “e campus is my church.” RETIREE

Karen Mallonee Physical Education Teacher and Coach

On June 30, Garrison Forest bid farewell to Karen Mallonee, who retired after a remarkable 37 years teaching and coaching at the school, a career spent entirely at Garrison Forest. Mrs. Mallonee—or “Coach Mal” as generations of her students called her— coached an amazing 105 teams in ﬁeld hockey, lacrosse, soccer and occasionally basketball. Regardless of the sport, she gave every player and each game equal devotion. Mrs. Mallonee’s love of teaching and passion for sports were grounded by a guiding, student-centered vision. For nearly four decades, she focused on her students’ strengths as athletes and as individuals. Not the scoreboard, not the win column—and she racked up many wins for GFS teams over the years—but always steadfast attention to what her students were learning about the game, teamwork and themselves. Her easy smile, patience and perseverance were as constant as her depth of

knowledge and devotion to her craft as a coach and teacher. Mrs. Mallonee also taught Middle School Physical Education and served as a Middle School adviser. Whether explaining the ﬁner points of a badminton serve in P.E. class or helping a new student navigate the ﬁrst few weeks of school, Mrs. Mallonee’s talent for connecting shone through. Whatever the task, she instilled teamwork, built character, modeled discipline and resilience and shared laughs. One of the reasons she always saw the potential in each student is because she is gifted with the eye of an artist. A talented amateur photographer, Mrs. Mallonee has earned accolades and awards for her photographs. For years, she has shared her avocation with students, advising Middle School photography clubs and leading the popular Garrison Geographic photo workshop during Minimester each January. [See the inside front cover for examples of her photos and those of her students.] Karen Mallonee with a few of her students.

A former standout athlete, Mrs. Mallonee left her mark on regional lacrosse. In 1980, Mrs. Mallonee co-founded the Women’s Metro Summer Lacrosse League with her husband, Lucky, who retired this year after 48 years as a coach and teacher at Park School. Mrs. Mallonee served as its director for 29 years. In 2000, she was elected to the Baltimore Chapter of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame for her level of play and leadership in the sport. “Karen brought her calm demeanor and wealth of knowledge to each class,” notes her colleague and friend Kim Marlor, who is chair of the Physical Education department and co-taught Middle School P.E. for a large portion of Karen’s years at GFS. “Learning a sport begins in the classroom, and Karen’s determination for every child to feel success was unquestionable.” While Karen has retired from the classroom, she continues to coach Middle School Field Hockey and Soccer.

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Spirit of Giving

Each year, hundreds of Garrison Forest alumnae, parents, faculty, grandparents and friends come together to celebrate the school through their gifts of time, talent and treasure. We celebrate the donors, volunteers and supporters who sustain GFS today and ensure the school’s tomorrow.

The indelible Garrison Forest spirit is perhaps best reflected in the generosity of those who annually support The Fund for Garrison Forest. Over 1,500 gifts to The Fund represented 6% of the operating budget in 2014-15. Thank you to these “true blue” donors!

$1,258,887 RAISED IN 2014-15

} $2,001

58% of the operating budget supports faculty salaries and benefits

per student

21% Parents

Who gives to The Fund?

What does The Fund Support?

13%

Foundations and Corporations

16% Financial aid

26%

11%

46% OF 2014-15 FUND DOLLARS CAME FROM ALUMNAE

Parents of Alumnae

5% Grandparents 4%

Faculty and Friends

General operating costs

THE 2015-16 FISCAL YEAR BEGAN JULY 1. PLEASE SUPPORT GARRISON FOREST THIS YEAR. Give or pledge online at gfs.org/give.

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

On Sept. 1, go to gfs.org/donorreport to read the 2014-15 Report on Giving (password: thankyou).

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Spirit of Giving

THANK YOU TO THE VOLUNTEERS OF THE 2014-15 FUND FOR GARRISON FOREST

Elizabeth Piper ’88, Overall Chair

2015 LOVE GFS DAY On Feb. 13, 2015, over 70 alumnae took to social media to show their love for Garrison Forest to the tune of $17,500, including a $5,000 match provided by a generous alumna. Many thanks to the donors and volunteers who helped make the day such a success. Watch Facebook for Love GFS Day in February 2016!

Steve Sarigianis, Parent Fund Chair Peter Korzenewski, Parent Fund Vice-chair Helen Zinreich Shafer ’93, Leadership Giving Chair

1945 Ally Lou Hackney Altstatt

Chris Shriver, Faculty Fund Chair

1950 Elie Tydings Russell

Linda and Nick Penniman, Grandparents’ Fund Chairs

1955 Sally Foster 1960 Timmie Scott Cullen

Helen Zinreich Shafer ’93, Chair Emily Gardner Baratta ’88 Brooke Kirby Buppert ’99 Diana Warfield Daly ’74

ALUMNAE CLASS FUND AGENTS, LOVE GFS DAY AND PHONATHON VOLUNTEERS

Dorsey Smith 1970 Wendy LawsonJohnston McNeil

Sealy Hathaway Hopkinson ’78

Chris Newman

Kit Jackson ’83

Billy Yerman

Mary Howard ’84

PARENT FUND VOLUNTEERS

Rebecca Ferrell Smith ’87

Steve Sarigianis, Chair

Beth Fenwick Garner ’91

Peter Korzenewski, Vice-chair

Julie Martin McAllister ’92

Bob Blue

REUNION GIVING CUP The Reunion Giving Cup is awarded each year to the Reunion class with the largest increase in participation for The Fund for Garrison Forest. This year, the 50th Reunion Class of 1965 took the Cup with an increase of 23% in participation. Congratulations and thank you to Gift Co-chairs Dorsey Smith and Ellen Reeder.

Eleanor Shriver Magee ’89

Crystal Lee ’96 Devin Fitzpatrick Goetschius ’97

Peter Burstein

Anne Deady ’01

Dawn Dias-Bulls

Erica Chan Day ’02

Alyson Friedman

Colleen Hodgetts ’03

Stephen Goldstein

Morgan Scott ’04

John Harroun

Abigail Malis ’06

Geoff Hengerer

Charlotte Pinkard ’07

Julie Higgins

Holly Rocha Sathoff ’09

Debbie Lurie

Jenny Schwartz ’11

Kellie McGowan

Haley Austin ’12

Chuck McMahon

Meg Phippin ’13

Matthew Neuberger

Kaela Harvey ’14

Chris Newman Jen Cohen Quartner ’90

Gretchen Schmidt 1965 Ellen Reeder

Eleanor Wenner Kerr ’77

Ashton Newhall

Sheray Austin

Becky Morgan Hedgecock

Holly Harrison Crosby ’75

Robbin Kohler Furst ’86

Liza Hathaway Matthews ’83, pictured with daughters Melanie ’13 (left) and Grace ’15, chaired the Senior Class Gift Effort to honor the Class of 2015. Gifts support The Fund for Garrison Forest.

Debbie Gramkow Morton ’75, Chair

Debbie Gramkow Morton ’75, Overall Reunion Chair

LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

SENIOR CLASS GIFT

REUNION GIFT CHAIRS AND VOLUNTEERS

Muffie Bancroft Murray 1975 Sara Wright Gormley Margie Garland Whitman 1980 Frances Daniels Cobb 1985 Gay Buck Bennett 1990 Selden Jones Morgan Charlotte Riggs 1995 Sara Gompf-Orthwein Ashley Ingraham 2000 Paige Fountain Fritze Kristina Kassolis O’Keefe Anne Litz Swatzell Jen Wilson 2005 Ashley Nolan 2010 Bayley Mullan Megan Mullan Dani DiPietro Brooke Powell CLASS OF 2015 SENIOR CLASS GIFT COMMITTEE

Laura Schuebel

FACULTY FUND VOLUNTEERS

Liza Hathaway Matthews ’83, Chair

Dana Scrivner

Chris Shriver, Chair

José Dominguez

Brian Singer

Barb Ackerman

Charlie Hill

Nicole Smith

Ginny Berrier

Chris Shriver

Robert Smith

Gail Hutton

Marcelle Simon

Pam Ward

Karen Meyers

David Watts

Morry Zolet

CLASS OF 1965

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Spirit of Giving

CAPITAL GIFTS AND PROJECTS IN 2014-15, Garrison Forest received several major gifts in support of on-going initiatives and new projects. FUNDRAISING for a new outdoor classroom and enhanced playground area has begun, with the lead gift of $60,000 received for an innovative green space designed by Nature Explore. e classroom will have numerous hands-on learning opportunities for guided and self-directed discovery and play, including visual-spatial learning through construction and arts integration with art, music and theater. Located near the Preschool and Lower School, the outdoor classroom will be usable throughout several seasons, providing numerous collaborative and interdisciplinary activities. A faculty and staﬀ Shafer Innovation Grant cohort spent the summer developing a curricular guide for the classroom. THE E.E. FORD FOUNDATION gave an

additional grant of $50,000, matched by $50,000, to expand public health programming at GFS, including establishing the E.E. Ford Foundation Public Health Fellow through the GFS James Center. Funding supports an administrative position to create and coordinate a program for students to conduct in-depth summer internships at local and regional public health organizations, mirroring the successful Jenkins Fellowships at Garrison Forest. Jenkins Fellow alumna Rachel Peichert ’10, who graduated in 2014 with a sociology degree from Loyola University Maryland and extensive public health experience, has been named the ﬁrst Ford Foundation Public Health Fellow. In June, e James Center launched its pilot “class” of E.E. Ford Public Health Civic Service Fellows, funded through the grant. Focusing on the ways in which homelessness and public health intersect, six students spent four weeks this summer preparing and serving dinner twice a week at the Weinberg Housing and Resource Center. ey met with clinicians and nonproﬁt leaders at Health Care for the Homeless and Baltimore Faces of Homelessness to learn

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

more about the issue. At the Don Miller House, a residential program for men who have end-stage AIDS, students led a game night for the residents. e pilot group also met weekly at GFS to read articles on the issues, discuss their experiences and write reflections. Rachel developed the program and led the girls’ exploration of public health issues. e student Fellows will continue their service learning experience The 2015 E.E. Ford Public Health Civic Service Fellows, from left, throughout 2015-16 front row: Greer Metzger ‘16, Virginia Leach ‘16, Sakinah Rushdan ‘16 through participation in and the GFS E.E. Ford Public Health Fellow Rachel Peichert ‘10; back row: Emma Adams ‘16, Evie Gekas ‘16 and Margaret Anne Hyde ‘17. GFS’s new public health elective on global women’s Space movement and developing the space, health issues and through the WISE programs and professional development program. opportunities for faculty and staff. WITH A GIFT OF $250,000, Garrison AMERICAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY (APU) Forest is developing a Maker Space, serving gave $35,000 to support Garrison Forest students Kindergarten through Twelfth faculty in its efforts to further master Grade and the broader GFS community. teaching content in online and blended Initially the Maker Space will be located in formats. Teachers spent the summer several spaces across campus. Designed as a developing flipped courses through which space for individuals, groups and classes to students watch short, teacher-created video create something new or work on an existing project, the space, which opens in September, lessons outside of class, with class time used for active problem solving by students and offers organized instructional programming one-to-one or small group interactions from local experts as well as drop-in making with the teacher. rough the APU grant, and collaboration. Maker Spaces are a two math teachers attended “FlipCon,” growing global movement, as 21st-century the annual flipped learning conference at life is increasingly driven by individuals or Michigan State University. Funding is also small companies innovating, designing and supporting BJ McElderry, who served as producing. A hands-on learning environment art department chair for four decades, to centered on creation, experimentation, invention, tinkering, discovery and exploration, redesign her traditional, face-to-face AP Art History course into a blended, primarily the Maker Space teaches GFS students the Web-based model, offering students a more agility and skills needed to thrive and excel asynchronous, student-centered approach. in today’s environment. A Shafer Innovation Grant cohort of faculty spent the summer researching best practices in the Maker

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Leadership at the Forest 2014 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNA AWARD WINNER

Eleanor Shriver Magee ‘89 At the Sept. 19, 2014, Leadership Recognition Dinner, Eleanor Shriver Magee, consummate Garrison Forest volunteer, was named Distinguished Alumna. Since 1981, this award has been presented annually to the alumna whose leadership and service to Garrison Forest merit special recognition and appreciation. Eleanor’s volunteer leadership has encompassed numerous roles in fundraising, career programs and key events including reunions and the Centennial, for which Eleanor served as the Chair for the GFS National Day of Service. She rarely, if ever, has said “no” when asked to serve. Her smile and enthusiasm are infectious, qualities that only add to her eﬀectiveness and laser focus on moving Garrison Forest forward. Eleanor From left: Eleanor Shriver Magee ‘89, Kim Roberts and Kit Jackson ‘83.

also has served as the Chair of e Fund for Garrison Forest, Overall Reunion Chair, Career Day panelist, Class Fund Agent and stalwart “liker” of all things GFS on social media. With a B.A. from Washington College and M.Ed. from Goucher College, Eleanor has spent her career in higher education and nonproﬁt administration, ﬁrst as an NCAA head coach primarily in soccer and lacrosse, then a successful transition into school advancement work at Washington College, Habitat for Humanity Choptank and the Talbot Historical Society. In 2014, she founded ESM Good Works, a philanthropic consulting business. Her clients include sister Pam Shriver, the Players’ Philanthropy Fund, Kennedy Krieger Institute and Waverly Management. 2014 H. BRIAN DEADY VOLUNTEER LEADERSHIP AWARD WINNER

Dawn Dias-Bulls e H. Brian Deady Volunteer Award, established in 2001 in memory of exceptional volunteer Brian Deady by his wife Pat and daughter Anne ’01, is awarded annually to a highly deserving parent volunteer who embodies Brain’s extraordinary dedication to Garrison Forest. Dawn Dias-Bulls, mother to Lindsey ’17 and Logan ’17, began her volunteer leadership at GFS as a Parent Association Team GFS volunteer for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. She

From left, Dawn Dias-Bulls, Anne Deady ‘01, Pat Deady and Wendy Stull.

went on to co-chair the annual event for GFS, serve on the Centennial Gala planning committee and became a Parent Fund Agent in 2004. Dawn was Vice-chair of the Parent division of the Fund for Garrison Forrest in 2012-13 and Chair in 2013-14. An avid Grizzly sports fan for her daughters’ teams, Dawn and her camera are ﬁxtures on the sidelines. Her creativity, determination and enthusiasm shine through in all she does, making her a great role model for other volunteers and her daughters. When Dawn accepted her award at the 2014 Leadership Recognition Dinner in September, she told the story of when she ﬁrst began making Parent Fund calls. Her daughters insisted that she call her own house on phonathon night so they could answer and make a pledge.

A HEARTFELT THANK YOU to David M. DiPietro who completed his four-year term as President of the Board of Trustees on June 30, 2015. He will continue to serve as a board member. June 9 marked another milestone: His daughter Allie graduated from GFS, the youngest of three siblings who are all GFS graduates. He and wife Christy, who are stalwart volunteers and supporters of the school, began their relationship with GFS in 1995 when oldest daughter Dani enrolled in the Three-Day Threes. For two decades, David, a financial services executive and entrepreneur, has shared his enthusiastic service, collaborative leadership and vision with Garrison Forest, of which 17 years-and-counting have been as a board member. From left: Christy, Dani ‘10, Allie ‘15, Catherine ‘12 and David DiPietro.

2014 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Catherine “Kit” Jackson ’83, a member of

the GFS Board since 2004, began her term as President on July 1, 2015. A past Chair of both the Board’s Development and Investment Committees, Kit received the Distinguished Alumna Award in 2008. She has served as Chair of e Fund for Garrison Forest and is a member of the Marshall-Oﬀutt Circle, having named the school in her estate plans. A cum laude graduate of Tufts University (B.A. in history and political science), Kit played varsity ﬁeld hockey for four years at Tufts and captained the team her senior year. She later received her M.B.A. from Georgetown University. Kit is currently a managing director-portfolio manager for First Republic Investment

THANK YOU

Catherine “Kit” Jackson ‘83

Reynolds. Early in her career, she was a budget analyst with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston. Her love of Garrison Forest comes naturally— her mother is the late Catherine Brewster “Serving on the Board of Trustees has been one of my Jackson ’45, and she absolute joys and pleasures. The Board is thoughtful, counts sisters Elinor effective and collegial in its stewardship of Garrison Jackson Lloyd ’66 and Forest. I look forward to working closely with Dr. Kim Leila Jackson ’86, four Roberts, whose focus on academic and programmatic aunts and numerous excellence is already making its mark on our school.” cousins among her GFS family members. In addition to her service to her alma mater, Management in New York and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designa- Kit has been active in the Fresh Air Fund’s Career Awareness Tutoring Program and is tion. Kit’s impressive ﬁnancial services career includes positions with Lepercq, de Neuﬂize, an avid tennis player, playing competitively in New York City. Trainer Wortham & Co.; and Dean Witter

Garrison Forest extends its deepest thanks to Trustees Mark Mullin, Greg Pinkard, Todd Ruppert and Tim Weglicki, each of whom completed their Board tenures on June 30. Mark Mullin, father of Courtney ’13 and Erin ’15, served for three years on the Strategic Initiatives and Finance Committees. A GFS Trustee for 12 years, Greg Pinkard (father of Charlotte ’07) chaired the Buildings and Grounds Committee and led the school’s sustainability and plant maintenance needs. For 17 years, Todd Ruppert (father of Kierstin ’07 and Kali ’11) served on the Finance Committee, chaired two Senior Class Gift Committee eﬀorts and hosted numerous events at his home and abroad for GFS. Tim Weglicki’s two decades of service include founding and chairing the Strategic Initiatives Committee, chairing two Senior Class Gift Committees for daughters Liz ’00 and Annie ’04 and chairing the Athletic Task Force.

NEW TRUSTEES

Michael J. Fay QC (Natalie ‘19, boarder) has practiced law in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) since 1996 which was when he relocated from his native Great Britain. Mr. Fay is a partner at Advocates BVI, specializing in dispute resolution, insolvency, corporate law and trusts. In July 2011, he was appointed to and sits as a Deputy High Court Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. In 2013, he was appointed to the Inner Bar and now holds the rank of Queen’s Counsel, a prestigious appointment that recognizes exceptional merit and contribution to the legal profession. In addition, he was a founding partner at WSmiths, a niche provider of BVI legal and fiduciary services, and has served as head of litigation of Harneys. He received an Advanced Management Program degree from Harvard Business School and studied law at the Inns of Court School of Law and the Nottingham Law School.

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

Kimberly “Kim” W. Gordon (Cammie ’16 and Mia ’18) joined the GFS community in 2001. Mrs. Gordon is General Counsel for CISglobal in Rockville, Md., an information technology and services management firm. Prior, Kim practiced international corporate law with a focus on Korean companies for Brown and Wood, L.L.P. She was elected to the GFS Board in 2006, serving on the Buildings and Grounds, Trusteeship and Enrollment and Marketing Committees before rotating off in 2014. Mrs. Gordon was on the Head of School Search Committee for Kim Roberts and co-chaired the Head Transition Committee. She also served on the board of the House of Ruth Maryland from 2012 to 2015 and was board development chair. She remains involved with House of Ruth as a board member-at-large.

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Elisabeth Owen Hayes ’81 served as an Ex-officio Trustee from 2007 to 2010 as Chair of The Fund for Garrison Forest. She has been a member of the Development Committee, served as Reunion Gift Chair and Class Fund Agent and was the 2006 Cum Laude speaker. With degrees from University of Virginia (B.A., Art History) and The Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School (M.S., Marketing), her career has included positions at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Sarah Cooper Associates, National Association of Securities Dealers, Nasdaq Stock Market in Washington, D.C., TECHcapital Magazine and EO Consulting. Currently, Elisabeth is associate vice president of corporate communications for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. In August 2012, she co-founded Studio E Partners, an artists’ representative firm (see page 100). Former President of the Board of Trustees from 2005 until 2011, Lila Boyce Lohr ’63 rejoined the board in July. Her service to her school and to schools across the country has been exceptional. She first joined the GFS Board in 1996 and remained a member for the year following her presidency, returning again in 2013-14. Lila received the 2012 Distinguished Alumna Award and co-chaired the Head of School Search Committee. A Vassar graduate who earned her M.Ed. at Goucher College and has studied business administration at Johns Hopkins, Lila is respected nationwide as a leader in independent education. Her headships include St. Paul’s School for Girls and Princeton Day School and interim head positions at Friends School of Baltimore, Indian Creek School, Princeton Day School, St. Paul’s School for Girls and San Francisco’s Katherine Delmar Burke School. Lila, a published author, served as president of the Board of the Association of Independent Maryland Schools and as vice president of the National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls. Jeffrey “Jeff” F. Musgrove (Sydney ’20), who has served on the GFS Board’s School Life Committee since 2014, is a graduate of the Sellinger School of Business of Loyola University Maryland. He currently serves as senior vice president of the Product Execution and Strategy Group for DST Customer Communications. Prior to that, he was a co-founding partner of Finix Business Strategies, a consulting

firm that was purchased by DST Systems in 2011. Mr. Musgrove also spent 20 years in the brokerage and asset management businesses with Legg Mason, with his last role serving as Legg Mason’s head of client relationship management. He is board president of the House of Ruth Maryland and a “wish-granting volunteer” with Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic. William “Bill” M. Parrish (Sara ’10) returned to the Board this past July. Dr. Parrish served from 2009 until 2013, was a member of the Head of School Search Committee and currently serves on the Strategic Planning Committee. A boardcertified orthopaedic surgeon associated with Orthopaedic Specialists of Central Pennsylvania, he is chief of Orthopedic Surgery at Lancaster Regional Medical Center. He earned his M.D. at West Virginia University School of Medicine and completed a residency in orthopaedic surgery at Akron General Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Akron and a fellowship in musculoskeletal oncology and limb reconstruction at Case Western Reserve University Hospital. Dr. Parrish established the first Orthopaedic Limb Salvage Service in Central Pennsylvania and held academic and administrative appointments at Penn State University, Hershey Medical Center and the Lebanon VA Hospital. Professional memberships include the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Musculoskeletal Tumor Society, Pennsylvania Medical Society and Pennsylvania Orthopaedic Society; his nonprofit service includes a 10-year membership on his local public school board and mentoring high school seniors. Amy Purcell Vorenberg, head since 2013 of Beauvoir, the National Cathedral Elementary School, in Washington, D.C., is a highly respected elementary education leader in independent schools. A former kindergarten through third-grade teacher at the Atrium School in Watertown, Mass., and at the Fessenden School in West Newton, Mass., Ms. Vorneberg was third-grade “gradehead” at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Mass. before becoming head of the Shady Hill Lower School in 2000. From 2006 until 2013, she served as head of the Philadelphia School. She received her B.A. in English from the University of New Hampshire and her M.S. in early childhood education from Wheelock College.

2015-2016 BOARD OF TRUSTEES OFFICERS OF THE BOARD

Catherine Y. Jackson ’83, President Carroll Dawbarn ’64, Vice President Helen Zinreich Shafer ’93, Vice President Amabel Boyce James ’70, Treasurer Robert S. Brennen, Secretary BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Emily Gardner Baratta ’88 Cassandra Naylor Brooks ’85 Kimberly Hubbard Cashman ’85 Diana Warfield Daly ’74 Timothy F. Daniels

David M. DiPietro Michael J. Fay QC Kimberly W. Gordon Molly Mundy Hathaway ’61 Timothy W. Hathaway Elisabeth Owen Hayes ’81 Sarah LeBrun Ingram ’84 Lila Boyce Lohr ’63 Peter D. Maller Jeffrey F. Musgrove C. Ashton Newhall William M. Parrish Karan H. Powell

Frances Russell Rockwell ’68 Elizabeth B. Searle ’74 William B. Spire Amy Purcell Vorenberg William L. Yerman EX-OFFICIO

Emily Appelbaum Brennan ’96 William S. Hodgetts Elizabeth R. Kokinis Elizabeth P. Piper ’88 Johanna C. Maranto Kimberley J. Roberts

TRUSTEES EMERITI

Frank A. Bonsal, Jr. Mathias J. DeVito H. Grant Hathaway Henry H. Hopkins Douglas A. McGregor Elinor Purves McLennan ’56 Francis G. Riggs Clare H. Springs ’62 Frederick W. Whitridge Katherine R. Williams

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2015 Hall of Excellence Inductees THE GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL Hall of Excellence was created to recognize extraordinary members of the GFS community who have made signiﬁcant contributions to the school and to the broader global community. e ﬁrst class was inducted in 2007, and another class is added every two years. e Hall of Excellence was established through a gift from the parents and grandparents of the Class of 2000.

proceedings. She is a member of the bar in Louisiana and Maryland. A day student at Garrison Forest and a member of Cum Laude, Trish was the 1994 Cum Laude speaker and has served on the Garrison Forest Board of Trustees. She is a cum laude graduate of Duke University with a B.S. in electrical engineering. In 1992, she graduated from Tulane Law School with honors.

CAROL GRAHAM ’80

PATRICIA “TRISH” CAMPBELL-SMITH ’83 On Sept. 19, 2013, Patricia Campbell-Smith made history when she was appointed to the position of Judge of U.S. Court of Federal Claims. e next month, President Barack Obama appointed her to a 15-year term as Chief Judge, making Trish the ﬁrst African-American to be appointed as Chief Judge. Prior, she served for six years on the Court, the last two as Chief Special Master, presiding over litigation regarding the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. In the 1990s, Trish was a member of the law ﬁrm of Liskow & Lewis in New Orleans, Louisiana, specializing in environmental regulatory law, patent infringement litigation and toxic tort litigation, with pro bono work in adoption

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

Carol Graham, Ph.D. has eight books and dozens of journal articles under her belt—a happy accomplishment, no doubt, for the internationally acclaimed economist who serves as the Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, University of Maryland School of Public Policy professor and research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor. But it is the subject of her research—well-being and quality of life—that is helping governments, organizations and individuals better understand the role happiness plays in commerce and everyday life. In September 2014, the International Society for Qualityof-Life Studies honored her with a Research Scholar of the Year award for “substantial contribution to quality-of-life research.” For her most recent book, e Pursuit of Happiness: An Economy of Well-Being (Brookings, 2011), Carol explored measurements of well-being across the globe and socioeconomic levels. Carol, who also is the College Park Professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, has been a consultant for the World Bank, United Nations Development

Program and numerous other organizations, testiﬁed before Congress several times and has appeared in major news outlets from CNN to e Wall Street Journal. A GFS Cum Laude member and Faculty Award recipient, Carol received her A.B. from Princeton University, her M.A. from e Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and her Ph.D. from Oxford University. Carol also has served as vice president and director of governance studies at Brookings, special adviser to the deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund and consultant at the InterAmerican Development Bank, the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program and the Harvard Institute for International Development. In 2012-13, she served on a National Academy of Sciences panel on well-being metrics and policy.

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as senior fellow at the Jonathan Rose Companies and a McCluskey Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She publishes widely in national media outlets and industry trade journals.

CRICKET HOOPER JIRANEK ’77

ROSE HARVEY GWATHMEY ’73 In 2011, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo appointed Rose Harvey Gwathmey Commissioner of the New York State Oﬃce of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, in recognition of Rose’s three decades of impressive and extensive public service and environmental passion. Rose, who held multiple leadership positions with the Trust for Public Land (TPL), deeply understands and cares about the connection between land and people. Rose began her career as a community organizer with TPL before earning positions as senior vice president, regional director and national director of urban programs. She helped lead the development of more than 300 city parks, gardens and playgrounds and more than 500 state, regional, rural and metropolitan parks— accomplishments that require teamwork, a skill she cultivated at Garrison Forest. She has won numerous state and national awards for her environmental stewardship and advocacy for open space and parks and serves on the board of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Hudson River Park Trust and the Yale Leadership Advisory Council. Rose, who holds a B.A. from Colorado College and an M.E.S. from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, has served

Multiple Tony Award winner and producer Cricket Hooper Jiranek has proven herself in a business known for meteoric hits and misses. For nearly 20 years, she’s enjoyed a behind-the-scenes career on Broadway, co-producing numerous shows including A Gentleman’s Guide to Murder (2014 Tony for Best Musical), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (2013 Tony for Best Play), e Best Man (Tony nominated), Ain’t Nothin’ But e Blues (Tony nominated), Bill Maher: Victory Begins At Home (Tony nominated) and Fool Moon (1998 Tony for Special eatrical Event). And that’s just her moon-lighting job. Cricket’s day job is executive vice president of sales and marketing for CTM Media Group Inc., a company that promotes Broadway to the tourist market. In addition to her Tonys, she won the Excellence Award in Marketing from the Off-Broadway Alliance. She and husband David Jiranek, who died in 2003, co-founded the company. Today CTM Media Group has 15 offices in the U.S. and Canada and 185 employees, offering advertising and marketing services to the travel and tourism industry. In 1998, Cricket and David formed CTM Productions LLC as partners, the same year they produced their first Broadway production, Fool Moon, and won their first Tony. Cricket received her B.A. in psychology Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia.

HALL OF EXCELLENCE INDUCTEES Clinton L. Arrowood* Beth Botsford ’99 Elizabeth Brown* Charles “Butch” Darrell Donald S. Elliott* Gretta Gordy Gardner ‘86 Molly Mundy Hathaway ’61 Sarah LeBrun Ingram ’84 Sheila Eaton Isham ’46 Sandra Shettle King ’56 Kitty Coolidge Lastavica ’49 Jean G. Marshall* Cassandra Stewart Naylor ’54 Nancy J. Offutt* The Rev. Martha Overall '65 Louise Larocque Serpa ’43* Adele Smith Simmons ’59 The Rev. Caroline Rinehart Stewart ’66 Flo Smith Stone ‘56 Michelle Trudeau '69 Peg Gould Tyson ’39* Anne Van Ingen ‘73 Wendy Watriss ‘60 Helen Whitney ‘61 1978 Lacrosse Team *deceased

Nominations are being accepted for the 2017 Hall of Excellence. Visit gfs.org/alumnae to nominate an alumna, a member of the faculty or staff (current or past) or a coach (current or past). Nominee must reflect Garrison Forest’s motto, mission and spirit.

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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M O

Marshal l-O ﬀut t C i rc le

The Marshall-Offutt Circle PLANNED GIFTS to Garrison Forest School—charitable bequests, trusts, real estate and other legacy gifts—benefit both the donor and the institution. To date, 220 alumnae, parents, faculty, staff and friends have joined the Marshall-Offutt Circle. The reasons for making a planned gift to GFS are as unique and varied as the types of gifts, but each legacy gift supports the future of Garrison Forest in a meaningful, sustainable way while celebrating the past and present.

IS GARRISON FOREST IN YOUR WILL?

Please let us know so we can include you in the Marshall-Offutt Circle. To see a full list of all members, visit gfs.org/ plannedigiving/members. Planning on including GFS in your will? While we strongly recommend that you seek professional advice in drawing up your will, the following is an option to share with your estate planner: I give and devise to Garrison Forest School, located in Owings Mills, Md., the sum of $_______________(or __________percent of the rest, residue, and remainder of my estate, both real and personal) to be used for its general support (or for the support of a specific fund or program). If you are considering any planned gift (bequest, real estate, trust, etc.), please consult with your attorney, estate planner or other professional adviser. For more information on planned giving, contact Deanna Gamber Urner ’85, Director of Development, at deannaurner@gfs.org or 410-559-3135 or visit gfs.org/plannedgiving.

CAROL HACKNEY ‘47 Devotion to Garrison Forest School is often a family affair. e late Carol Hackney’s lifelong commitment to her alma mater began with big sister Alice “Ally Lou” Hackney Altstatt 45’s enrollment in the GFS Infantry, the school’s coed preschool- and primary-aged program in the early- to mid-20th century. Brothers Hap and Gerry also attended the Infantry. roughout her life, Carol expressed her commitment as a loyal donor to e Fund for Garrison Forest and as a reunion volunteer. She and her sister often attended GFS events, and her class ring rarely left her finger. When Carol died in August 2014, she left a significant bequest to Garrison Forest for unrestricted endowment. Carol embodied the education she received at GFS: hers was a life of embracing opportunities and leadership in a field that, at the time, was dominated by men. She earned a degree in animal husbandry from Iowa State University and enjoyed a long career as a cattle breeder, selling cattle throughout the Eastern United States and as far south as Jamaica. Carol ran her family’s cattle farm until her mother’s death in 1974, then managed

Carol Hackney at her last GFS reunion in 2012 (in Light Blue and Dark Blue, of course).

her own farm. For many years, she was secretary of the Eastern Aberdeen-Angus Association. She also raised Morgan horses, including her world champion mare, Bambury Cross. Carol was a tireless advocate of agricultural land preservation and served on the board of the Carroll County Land Trust for many years. Passionate about animal welfare, she also served on the board of the Carroll County Humane Society and was involved in many small animal and horse rescues. Her generous GFS bequest ensures that future students will have ample opportunity to discover and develop their interests at Garrison Forest, knowledge that will lead them to the kind of life Carol had—one of passion and purpose.

Carol’s siblings with Dr. Kim Roberts: Ally Lou Hackney Altstatt ’45, Marshall-Offutt Circle member, and Hap Hackney, GFS Infantry alumnus.

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A VISION FOR 21ST-CENTURY LEARNING:

Garrison Forest’s Strategic Planning Process GARRISON FOREST has embarked on an exciting process to design a vision for teaching and learning over the next five years. The Board-led Strategic Planning process, co-chaired by trustees Sara Bleich ’96 and current parent Helen Zinreich Shafer ’93, began with surveys in February 2015 to college-aged alumnae, current parents, Ninth to Twelfth Grade students, faculty, staff and trustees. Using the survey data, some of which was analyzed by the Upper School Statistics class, the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) and the GFS administrative leadership team conducted a series of spring planning sessions to begin to frame strategic initiatives. Pat Bassett, founder of Heads Up Educational Consulting, former president of the National Association of Independent Schools and past GFS grandparent, is serving as a consultant. This fall, the SPC will review and evaluate emerging initiatives for the final document, which will be shared with the broader school community.

And the survey says …

89%

of college-aged alumnae responding felt GFS prepared them “very well” or “well” for college

98%

of current Upper School students responding feel challenged to their “full academic potential”

91%

of all employees responding give the “work itself” and relationships with co-workers top marks

90%

of families currently enrolled cite GFS as their only or first choice

Strategic Planning Committee Co-chairs, Helen Zinreich Shafer ’93 (left) and Sara Bleich ’96.

STRATEGIC PLANNING COMMITTEE Sara Bleich ’96, Co-chair Helen Zinreich Shafer ’93, Co-chair Kimberly Hubbard Cashman ’85, Trustee David DiPietro, Trustee Molly Mundy Hathaway ’61, Trustee Tim Hathaway, Trustee Kit Jackson ’83, Trustee Peter Maller, Trustee Bill Parrish, Trustee Robyne McCullough ’07 Renee Hawkins, faculty Stacie Muñoz, faculty Andrea Perry, staff LEADERSHIP TEAM Sarah Achenbach Zibby Andrews Alison Greer Jan Havlik Renee Hawkins Bill Hodgetts Jenny Rao Jessy Molina Kim Roberts Gail Hutton Tung Trinh Deanna Gamber Urner ’85 Felicia Wilks

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THE EVOLUTION OF SERVICE at Garrison Forest

BY DANTE BERETTA, PH.D., ARCHIVIST AND MIDDLE SCHOOL LATIN TEACHER

SERVICE to others has been a hallmark component of the Garrison Forest School experience since the earliest days of the school. During World War I, students worked in the fields of a neighboring farm as a way to support the war effort. These “Farmerettes” eased the shortage of able-bodied farmers who had answered the call to arms. The GFS “Farmerettes” during World War I.

SERVICE LEAGUE, the school’s official student organization in charge of community outreach projects, was established by students in 1942 “to make the most effective use of our resources and of our will to do all that we [can] to aid the war-torn countries of the world” (Ragged Robin yearbook 1942). They also did not forget their obligations to “friends at home.” Since many area farmers were overseas fighting in World War II, students did their part again by helping to harvest corn on a local farm. Co-Headmistresses Miss Marshall (far left) and Miss Offutt (far right) in the fields with students.

GFS and McDonogh students with HeadStart children on Manor House porch.

ALTHOUGH formed as a way for students to take constructive action during wartime, Service League continued to gain momentum after 1945. Striving to strike a balance between global and local initiatives, Service League in the late ’40s focused on projects to bring relief to war-torn areas overseas and to support local people in need. To that end, Service League, with Miss Marshall as one of its faculty advisers, sent food and handmade afghans to

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

countries ravaged by the war and supported hospitalized veterans, the Red Cross, the March of Dimes and other domestic charities with money and supplies. In the 1950s, Service League reached out in a more personal way, with visits to the Children’s Home in Baltimore, and it made connections with other student service groups by participating in the World Student Service Fund and Religion for Modern Youth Conferences. By the late 1960s, opportunities multiplied for students to engage directly with the people they wanted to help, thus providing them with a deeper understanding of societal problems. Students volunteered at Rosewood State Hospital, Foxleigh Nursing Home and Philadelphia Workcamp Weekends. Under the sponsorship of Service League, both Upper and Lower School students (then grades 6-8) became involved with the HeadStart program at St. Thomas’ Church, ultimately bringing it to the GFS campus and renaming the program “Getting Together.” GFS and McDonogh students spent Saturdays with a group of children throughout the school year (pictured at left on Manor House porch).

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DURING the ‘60s and ‘70s, social policy at home and the military

STUDENT LEADERSHIP was emphasized throughout GFS in the 1990s, and nowhere was it so clearly demonstrated as in Service League. Students were responsible for overseeing and implementing a host of initiatives. The birth of the Internet connected students more closely to the rest of the world. Lower School began its involvement in service during this decade, opening the door for schoolwide service traditions, such as the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and Stuff-a-Bus for the Donald Bentley Food Pantry, both in full swing at the beginning of the millennium. As the 2000s witnessed the shrinkage of the world into a global village, the Elsie Foster Jenkins ’53 Fellowship program [see page 24] enabled students to immerse themselves in self-directed or existing summer projects that reflect their concern for global issues. By 2008, Service League had branched out into numerous on- and off-campus volunteer opportunities comprising issues as diverse as poverty and homelessness, political prisoners, the environment,

Service League

Service League volunteers with Special Olympics, circa 1980s.

policy in Vietnam dominated the national dialogue, and students joined the debate. Their heightened awareness of the world at large fueled their desire to understand it firsthand and take action. The importance of making personal connections and removing the perception of “otherness” soon became the main objectives of Service League’s outreach. In the ’80s, typical activities included volunteering at area soup kitchens, helping with the Special Olympics and visiting local nursing homes. Middle School’s Service League was formed, and in 1988, Service League gained national recognition when the National Council for Religion in Independent Schools presented its Community Service Award to GFS, citing the variety of service projects, leadership by students and the high level of participation on a completely voluntary basis.

A tradition of Service League is the on-campus Red Cross Blood Drive, pictured here in 2014.

animals, child soldiers, developmental disabilities, breast cancer and other medical research. That same year, Service League came under the auspices of the GFS James Center, the center for experiential learning at Garrison Forest.

TODAY, service at Garrison Forest includes all divisions

This spring, students placed 4,500 United Way Helpline cards on Kind and Healthy Snack Bars for Baltimoreans in need.

and reflects the diverse interests of a multicultural community of spirited and caring individuals. In addition to providing students with meaningful experiences, these projects enable students to build relationships that broaden their perspectives on issues and their definition of service as more reciprocal. Participating in projects establishes a solid foundation for a lifetime of effective action that continues to develop in students long after graduation. Sofia Maranto ’16, Jenkins Fellow in 2014 and past Service League Co-head, describes the value of community engagement when she says, “To me, service is seeing the world through others’ points of view to not only improve their quality of life, but also my own way of thinking.”

2015 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Words We Live By: Esse Quam Videri

Defining the Motto Through Service IT’S hard to pinpoint a single moment when I decided not to go to art school but study public health instead. However, there was a day when a lot of my questions found answers. I was a Jenkins Fellow in summer 2009 and spent two weeks in Lilongwe, Malawi, with the nonprofit God’s Economy. I had raised $2,000 from the GFS community to purchase mosquito nets for malaria prevention education. I also took a lot of photos, which was my passion, and met Flo and Inno Magambi, who worked in a refugee camp. We kept in touch when I returned to the States. at fall, my classmates were excited about their college choices, but I wasn’t as pumped about mine, Savannah College of Art and Design. In August 2010, Flo and Inno’s first child, Mwiza, was born with a cleft palate and holoprosencephaly, a rare condition in which the brain does not separate into two hemispheres. ey asked if I would return to help care for her and I jumped at the chance. Deferring college was easy, and I assured my parents and myself that I would be back by second semester. I quickly fell in love with Mwiza but not immediately with daily life in Lilongwe. Grocery shopping meant I had to haggle in an open-air market in Chichewa, which I didn’t speak. I was shy but I often found myself dancing alone in the middle of a large group of women since dancing and singing in public are a common part of Malawian culture. But GFS’s motto Esse Quam Videri taught me to be brave, that “being and not seeming” means leaning into discomfort. Soon, I was telling vendors that I was not going to pay $3 for a banana, and I looked forward to dancing. I even found the courage to survive malaria, which I contracted on that trip. One week, Flo and I were in the hospital every day with Mwiza. I knew government-run hospitals in Malawi are very different from U.S. hospitals, but that week was eye-opening. Seeing strangers share hospital beds or sit under beds really got to me. I remember holding Mwiza and waiting for the doctor when a mother of a child with a cleft palate came over, pointing and saying, “Same! Same!” in Chichewa. at day, I walked by the hospital “morgue”—an empty room where bodies are stacked. Family members would come and point at their loved one while someone disentangled the body from the others. After that day, I knew that I needed to use my life to be a health advocate. I emailed my parents and explained that art school wasn’t for me, and Joan Mudge [then GFS College Counselor, now retired] worked with me to enroll at Loyola University Maryland for the spring 2011 semester. My plan was to be a pediatric special needs nurse through Loyola’s B.S./R.S.N. joint program with Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. More seemingly random steps coupled with listening to my gut feeling led me toward something that I can’t yet define but I know is the right path. My professors suggested public health so I switched

GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL 2015

Rachel Peichert ’10 on her 2014 Jenkins Fellowship in Malawi.

to a sociology major. Just before junior year, I returned to Malawi to mourn Mwiza’a death from complications of her condition and to celebrate the birth of Teodoro, the Magambis’ son. I also visited friends I had met as a Jenkins Fellow. My junior-year internship with the Baltimore City Health Department’s Harm Reduction program changed my perspective on the ways I understand people. Every ursday night, I went to Baltimore’s “Block”—a strip of exotic nightclubs where we met our clients, who were IV drug users, to exchange dirty needles for clean ones out of a large R.V. Before this, I didn’t understand the series of life steps that often lead to addiction and how many addicts are unable to stop its cycle. We made sure we were available to anyone who needed our services. A doctor offered a wound clinic out of the R.V., and I became her “assistant,” helping during debridement and holding instruments and collection cups. I got to know my clients as people, not just as drug users. My first few times in the van, I felt sorry for their situation. en I got involved in their stories and lives, and I learned that the language we use is so important. My words changed from “I’m so sorry,” to “I’m there for you.” Instead of just handing someone clean needles, I asked how they were and was really invested in their answer. I grew into my own in that van. It was nice to see myself be brave when someone would say something to me that might have frightened me before. is is far from the path I thought I would take at Garrison Forest Commencement, but I know that it’s the right one for me. Esse Quam Videri taught me that it’s OK to change my course and do what I was meant to do. rough my “course correction,” I’ve discovered how much I love hands-on work and how much I need to be with other people, making connections, forging relationships and helping. And, yes, leaning into discomfort only to find that it’s the place where I am most comfortable.

Rachel Peichert ’10 (B.A., Sociology, Loyola College Maryland) interned with World Relief and was Garrison Forest’s inaugural E. E. Ford Fellow in Public Health [see page 42]. She is pursuing a public health career in Boston.

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Class News

Alumnae Class News The following was compiled by May 2015. Keep in touch with other alumnae through the secure GFS Alumnae Center at gfs.org/alumnae. For additional Class News photos, visit gfs.org/alumnaegallery. NOTE: Alumnae names are listed according to Garrison Forest’s records. Due to space limitations and photo-resolution issues we cannot print all images received.

These photos were compiled from pictures shared on Instagram @garrison_forest. Follow us to view more great photos from the Forest throughout the school year.

THE CLASS NEWS SECTION OF THE MAGAZINE IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE ONLINE VERSION.

STAY CONNECTED AT GFS.ORG

If you did not receive your 2015 Garrison Forest Magazine, please send your updated address to: Alumnae Office Garrison Forest School 300 Garrison Forest Road Owings Mills, MD 21117 gfs_alum@gfs.org You may also email magazine@gfs.org to receive the Class News section as a PDF.

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CLASS OF 2015 COMMENCEMENT AWARD WINNERS

FACULTY AWARD

ALUMNAE AWARD

GEORGE M. SHRIVER AWARD

PHILIP J. JENSEN AWARD

Chanler Harris ’15

Allie DiPietro ’15

Sarah Mendelsohn ’15

Sarah Mazer ’15

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Alumna Legacy Scholar: KATE WILLIAMS ’18, MISSOULA, MONTANA

“We never really made a big deal out of the Garrison Forest legacy, maybe in part because its values pervade our family. The GFS motto of Esse Quam Videri has been a constant in my childhood. From an early age, I was taught to be myself and to never be ashamed of the things that make me different.” — Kate

KATE, one of five Alumnae Legacy Scholars in 2015-16, is the most recent member of her family to embrace all that Garrison Forest has to offer. A soccer and polo player, rider and artist, she is a member of Service League, book clubs and the gaming club. Kate counts among her GFS legacies mom Martha Colhoun Williams ’85, grandmother Julie Fisher Colhoun ‘51, aunt Julie Colhoun Deford ’79, cousin Lilly Deford ’06 and more than 12 aunts and cousins who have benefited from the Garrison Forest experience. “I was only willing to send Kate to a school that creates a community where she could focus on academics and that would push her to be intellectually agile, to creatively solve problems and to engage in the world around her. Based on my experience and that of my friends and family and Dr. Roberts’ leadership, Garrison Forest is poised to do just that.” — Martha Colhoun Williams ’85 At the Alumnae/Student Polo match on Reunion Weekend, May 2015, from left: Dan Colhoun, Martha Colhoun Williams ’85, Kate Williams ’18 and Julie Fisher Colhoun ’51. The Colhouns founded the GFS Polo program.

THE MERIT-BASED Alumnae Legacy Scholarship is awarded to a new student or current day student entering Grades 8-12 to board at Garrison Forest. Alumnae daughters, granddaughters or nieces are eligible for the renewable scholarships that cover the difference in cost between a day and a boarding tuition. For more information, contact Alison Greer, Director of Admission and Financial Aid, 410-559-3111 or alisongreer@gfs.org

2015-16 Alumnae Legacy Scholars Ali Baratta ’17, daughter of Emily Gardner Baratta ‘88 Madison Wilson ’18, daughter of Jeanine Froehlich Wilson ‘81 Claire ’17 and Margaret ’19 McMahon, daughters of Alex von Kessler McMahon ‘82 Kate Williams ’18, daughter of Martha Colhoun Williams ‘85

2014 GARRISON FOREST SCHOOL

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Garrison Forest School 300 Garrison Forest Road Owings Mills, MD 21117

gfs.org

FOR THE SUSAN G. KOMEN RACE FOR THE CURE

From left: Alumnae Association President Emily Appelbaum Brennan ’96 and daughter Molly, Dr. Kim Roberts and daughter Charley Roberts-Laine ’22, GFS history teacher Beth Ruekberg and daughter Bella Dowling ’27; students with the Grizzly; alumnae, parents, students, faculty and friends on the 2014 Team GFS.

For the past three years, Team GFS has won the Team Challenge for the Hunt Valley, Md., event for the largest team! Help Garrison Forest make a difference in the lives of women and families with breast cancer as we walk, run and “sleep in” for a cure. Register at gfs.org/raceforthecure.

Please remember to recycle.

Garrison Forest School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sexual orientation or national origin in the administration of its educational programs, admissions and financial aid policies, employment practices and other school-administered programs.