A MAGAZINE OF GLEN URQUHART SCHOOL
SPRING/SUMMER 2019
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Contents Message from the Interim Head of School............................... 1 News + Notes............................................................................. 2 New Places to Move.................................................................. 3 Dance Feeds the Brain............................................................. 4 Eighth Graders Learn as They Go............................................. 8 And Justice for All: Dr. Draper in the Classroom................... 12 Alumni Profiles Gabriel Frasca...................................................................... 16 Kara Seigal ’03..................................................................... 18 Alex Rosenthal ’12 and Joey Bertagna ’12 ........................20
2019–2020 BOARD OF TRUSTEES George Balich P ’92, ’96, President David Patch P ’16, ’19, ’23, Vice President Steve Todd P ’20, ’24, Treasurer Lise Carrigg P ’19, ’26, Clerk Gretchen Forsyth P ’25 ’27, Interim Head of School, ex officio
We are thrilled to celebrate the first year of our preschool at GUS. Our youngest learners, ages 3 to 5, spent the year immersed in place-based, inquiry-driven experiences, inspired by the GUS K-8 themes. Regular trips to the nature trail sparked the imaginations and curious minds of our first Pre-K class, and we look forward to welcoming our second class in the fall!
The Tartan Editor: Judith Klein P ’95, ’00, ’04 Director of Marketing + Communications: Whitney Buckley P ’29 Director of Advancement: Martha Delay P ’19 ’21
Jake Bartlett ’87 P ’27 Andrew Brown P ’21 Brooke Carroll P ’17, ’20 Melanie D'Orio P ’20 Tamah French P ’17 ’20 ’26 Philip Furse P ’16, ’17, ’18, ’20 Kenneth Grant P ’13, ’20 Lisa Kent P ’23 ’26 Trish Landgren P ’14, ’17, ’24
Peter Mason Louis Somma ’88 P ’23 Zara-Marie Spooner Alen Yen P ’22 Kristin Brown P ’19 ’22 ’26 Parents Association Representative Lynne Warren P ’82 ’86, Life Trustee, Founder
Design: Graphic Details, Inc. Printing: Cummings Printing Every effort has been made to ensure that the information in The Tartan is accurate. Please direct errors to wbuckley@gus.org. The Tartan is published for alumni, parents, and friends of Glen Urquhart School. Please send address changes and other communications to: Alumni Relations, Office of Advancement Glen Urquhart School 74 Hart Street Beverly Farms, MA 01915 978-927-1064 ext. 117 mdelay@gus.org
COVER Eighth graders perform Maypole Dance in 2019, an annual spring GUS tradition.
Explore at gus.org Join the conversation, share your pics, follow GUS! Facebook and Instagram @glenurquhartschool Twitter @gustartan
Glen Urquhart School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, disability, mental illness, military status, genetics or sex or any other classification protected under applicable law.
Message from Interim Head of School
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e are adventurers! A Glen Urquhart education has always involved exploration, challenge, and discovery and has encouraged students to be brave, to put themselves out there, and to value the journey. In this way, and so many others, not much has changed in GUS’s 40-plus years. On the eve of a new frontier for GUS, we recognize the stewardship of school leaders who have brought us to this time, the work that has been done to keep our school moving forward, and the legacy of a pioneering vision that is not only GUS’s foundation, but also our inspiration. In order to get where you want to go, you need a captain and it takes a lot to captain a ship. You must keep an eye on the rigging, supervise the crew, mind the elements, and set the course. Our ship has been well-manned these past three years, and it has been a privilege to be the first-mate to David Liebmann. We thank David for all he has brought to our school and wish him well as he sets off on his own new adventures. Though the wind is shifting, I have no doubt that we will continue the course charted by David and the Long Range Planning team that will have us reaching towards future goals with speed and confidence. There is perhaps no document as essential to institutional growth as the Long Range Plan. It serves as a map, a chart for success, outlining the channel makers that will safely guide us to our destination. We have already begun some of the work highlighted by the report, and we are excited to keep the momentum going. Much of this work was related to curriculum analysis and evaluation, as we outlined a process for curricular change, evaluated our schedule, and analyzed and reviewed our commitment to service learning. The key to being great is to never stop working. We are dedicated to the job that lies before us and are excited about exploring all the ways we can move our small school forward. Our school began with a vision of what school should be by the founders, especially Lynne Warren, and by continuing to strive to meet that goal and constantly looking for ways to further push our practice, we honor the work they began. Our school has held fast to the child-centric approach that encompassed the world around every child. While this idea continues to anchor all that we do, as the world around us evolves, so will we. The work will take us far, but we will always remember what grounds us, what inspires us, and what motivates us as we grow and change. As a result, GUS will always be the school we know and love. As we trust and go forward, may we remind you how important it is to us that GUS always offer the comfort and familiarity of home. We hope you will visit us soon and find out for yourself that the old saying is true, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” These are exciting times, and it is a great honor to see Glen Urquhart through this next leg of its long journey. I know great things are in store, and I encourage you all to come home soon. With joy and gratitude,
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News + Notes 19th Annual
Wild Boar Classic Golf Tournament
Alumni, past and current parents, and friends are invited to join us for the 19th Annual Wild Boar Classic Golf Tournament on Monday, October 7, 2019, at Essex County Club in Manchester, MA — recently ranked #73 in the United States by Golf Digest magazine! Proceeds from the Wild Boar tournament support Glen Urquhart School’s hands-on, theme-based curriculum, our talented faculty, as well as diversity and inclusion initiatives. Of course, the real beneficiaries are our students. The day begins at 11:00 a.m. with lunch and a noon shotgun start. Non-golfers are welcome to join for the awards ceremony and reception.
GAIN@GUS Celebrates 10th Summer GAIN@GUS, the North Shore’s only free summer outreach program for students in grades 5–7, will celebrate its tenth season when the doors open in July. This summer, 34 talented and motivated students from Beverly and Lynn will enjoy five weeks of academic, recreational and cultural enrichment led by GUS teachers and high school interns who are GUS alumni. Academic study in math, language arts, life skills, environmental studies, public speaking, and goal setting is paired with a variety of afternoon activities that include mindfulness exercises to support social/emotional health, swim lessons, archery, art, theater, basketball, soccer, and yoga. Students also visit off-site educational and cultural institutions such as the Peabody Essex Museum, Maritime Gloucester, and Salem State University. 2019 alumni counselors include Maeve Corbett ’14, Gillian Garvey ’15, and Carson Pottle ’15. Learn more at gus.org/community/ gaingus or stop by during July and see for yourself.
To sponsor the event or to register, visit gus.org/alumni/wild-boar-classic-golf.
Marchesseault Scholarship for Access & Inclusion Gifts to the Leslie Marchesseault Scholarship for Access & Inclusion, created in honor of longtime teacher, director of admission, and founder of GAIN@GUS, are earmarked for applicants with financial needs who are superb candidates for Glen Urquhart’s middle school. Preference is given to qualified GAIN@GUS students. To make a gift in honor of Leslie’s commitment to socioeconomic diversity among our student body, please contact Martha Delay, director of advancement, at 978-927-1064 or mdelay@gus.org.
GAIN@GUS students and GUS faculty member Katie Blynn 2 The Tartan Spring/Summer 2019
New Places to Move
New Playground Our new playground structure was designed with input from GUS students and erected in April by a hardy group of volunteer parents, faculty, staff, and friends led by volunteer project managers George Balich, TR, P ’92,’96, GP’22’25; Andrew Brown, TR, P’21; and Nick Kent ’91, P’23’26. The playground was made possible by gifts from current parents, trustees, and alumni parents.
Coming Soon! Helen’s Naturescape Thanks to a very generous gift from a GUS family, a unique “naturescape,” designed by renowned industrial artist and RISD professor Amy Liedtke, will be created this summer outside the lower school classrooms. Designed as inviting outdoor play areas, naturescapes feature natural elements and diverse opportunities to connect with nature. The GUS naturescape will include conservation of existing trees, as well as the addition of native trees, plants, flowers, grasses, and stones. Sculptural elements, made from these materials, will prompt imaginative and dramatic play, gross motor movement, social interaction, and scientific inquiry, as well as offer a variety of sensory experiences.
Dance Feeds the Brain 4 The Tartan Spring/Summer 2019
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f all that distinguishes Glen Urquhart School, the dance program may be the least understood by outsiders. To Glen Urquhart’s founder, to the teacher who directed the program for more than three decades, and to the current GUS dance instructor, however, dance is anything but a whimsical diversion or meaningless pursuit. To them, and to the hundreds of students who have jumped and turned and leapt throughout their years at GUS, dance is an important component of learning that offers a valuable boost to creative thought and problem solving. Lynne Warren, the school’s founder, built dance and movement into the curriculum for all grades and for all students from the very beginning. “Introducing students to the art, history, and beauty of dance, and the physical requirements of creative movement are a priority for implementing the school’s philosophy of educating the whole child,” she explains. “Education consultants recognize the importance of movement such as marching and skipping, as well as other bilateral operations on ‘brain patterning’ and, in turn, their effect on learning and cognition. Thus, both a group of eighth graders creating a jazz dance and a class of kindergartners portraying animals moving in a woodland setting enable students to develop important skills.” As Mrs. Warren
notes, her ideas were corroborated by extensive academic research, including the groundbreaking work of Harvard neuropsychologist Howard Gardner on multiple intelligences. Donna Krohn came to GUS in its infancy and stayed for 33 years as the school’s dance instructor. Trained in the Laban method in England, she always taught some technique to students but focused on drawing out their creativity, coaching them to put ideas into movement, and encouraging them to feel comfortable in their own bodies. “I put on different music every week and had them improvise to different styles of music and different moods of music,” she explains. “We used lots of drama. We would make up stories to act out. They would pretend to be walking through peanut butter or through a very narrow space. They would have to move in different ways, alone or with partners.” Some students might be particularly talented, but all could work at their own pace, at their own level of comfort. This, she says, allowed them to become more adventurous as time went on. “We were not trying to make dancers,” Krohn emphasizes. “The reason it was and is important to have dance in the curriculum is that, in any kind of situation, you need to learn how to develop ideas and think outside the box. You do that in
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counting developed in the dance studio, according to Krohn.
Donna Krohn Dance teacher at GUS for more than 30 years
Ann Marie Ciaraldi Current GUS dance teacher dance — improvise, be creative, develop an idea — and you can transfer that to other disciplines. Any kind of business you go into, one can have the confidence to solve a problem if you have had the experience and practice of taking an idea and developing it and solving it.” Merelyn Smith, director of the math program at GUS for many years, also saw dance as a way to have students with different learning styles gain a better understanding of concepts of rhythm and
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“GUS is one of the few schools that realizes how important movement and dance are,” Krohn concludes. “Other schools might have dance at the end of the day as an elective. GUS recognizes how important moving is for kids, how tied it is to developing creativity, and that dance, as Gardner expressed, incorporates all learning styles.” Ann Marie Ciaraldi is the current dance teacher at GUS, arriving just last fall. A working dancer, she recently became a certified Qoya teacher, “a movement system based on the idea that through movement we remember as women that our essence is wise, wild and free,” according to Ciaraldi. She enjoys teaching the HumphreyLimon technique which is organic in nature and based on the concept of fall and recovery. Her early training was in classical ballet, in her home state of Connecticut and at Butler University in Indiana, as well as with other teachers in the Boston area. She then became a modern dancer, performing original works by Doris Humphrey, an icon in the world of modern dance, for several years with Ina Hahn, artistic director of Windhover in Rockport. She also performed with the Ipswich Moving Company and the Boston Liturgical Ensemble.
“I feel that dance is for everyone. It is an emotional and physical outlet that expands the heart, mind, and body.” Because the students are at different levels and with different interests, Ciaraldi does not consider her courses to be classes in technique, though she does teach about balance, weight change, musicality, and tempo. “I would call my program educational modern dance,” she explains. Expanding on her belief that dance is for all, Ciaraldi says, “I believe that everyone is a dancer. Our ancestors danced around a fire. In a society that is so cerebral, we need to get into our body to experience our wholeness” Ahhh. There is that ‘whole body’ notion again. For Ciaraldi, performance is an important piece of the dance program, but perhaps not for the reasons that come to mind when we envision ballet recitals and tutus. “Performance is an unselfish act,” she believes. “It is giving to your audiences. You have to think about what you are offering through your dance. Performance is sometimes thought about in terms of ego, but you can tell when a dancer is selfishly or authentically performing. The energy of giving comes out. You are communicating something that is very powerful.” Ciaraldi’s focus changes with the grades she is teaching. In kindergarten and first
Dance has been an integral part of the Glen Urquhart curriculum since the school’s inception.
grade, “I want them to learn they are movers; to feel free with their movement; to keep their vulnerability which is so special before the self-consciousness comes in. I want dance to give them a sense of themselves.” In grades 2, 3, and 4, the concepts are more intricate. There are choreography projects. For instance, her students this year took postcards from the Museum of Fine Arts and created movement and stories from them. They did the same with poems. With both, the movement came first, the music second. “I keep building the same concepts, with more intricacy in the higher grades,” Ciaraldi explains. In fifth and sixth grades, Ciaraldi adds more technique in their classes and “we expand the choreographic process and projects even further,” she explains. While seventh graders take a hiatus from dance to focus on drama, they return in eighth grade with increased maturity and focus.
The eighth graders’ work culminates with Arts Night for which students choreograph their own dance in groups. In addition, this year, they performed a full class piece choreographed by Ciaraldi and based on the question, What does it mean to be human? The other eighth grade dance activity is the musical, which involves some reluctant participants each year. Ciaraldi aims to have them “get something out of it even if they don’t want to do it,” she says with a smile. Ciaraldi is full of ideas for the future. “I would love to see the dance program expand,” she says. She offered an afterschool ballet class this spring and plans to offer more after-school opportunities. She would like students to have more performance opportunities; to bring more performances and workshops on campus; and to attend more training workshops herself, like the one she will go to this summer in New York City.
In the meantime, Ciaraldi is happy to be at GUS. She loves the community and being around the kids. “The faculty and staff have been absolutely amazing,” she says. “GUS is a unique and special community where the faculty and staff work together to have an exchange of gifts. The faculty and staff really care immensely about the kids, and they are always looking to find a better way. The world is changing. Here they are making an environment where kids can grow with it. The biggest skill a child can learn is how to adapt to their environment.” Ciaraldi is the mother of two daughters, Mary 14, who will be a freshman at Beverly High School in the fall, and Maggie, 11, who will enter sixth grade at GUS.
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Eighth Graders Learn as They Go Florida Service Trip 8 The Tartan Spring/Summer 2019
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n true GUS fashion, an impromptu stop to pick blueberries at a farm by the side of the road became a teachable moment during the first Florida service trip for eighth graders this spring. For just a half hour in the blistering heat of the day, the boys and girls filled their buckets. Annie Barton, eighth grade trip coordinator, then reminded the students that migrant workers pick from sunrise to sunset, seven days a week, for just a dollar a pound, earning an income far below the poverty level. That’s true experiential learning. About half the eighth graders chose the week-long Florida trip this year while the other half went to the Dominican Republic. “My goal in designing and setting up the service week trip to Florida was to create an experience that would be as attractive and enriching as the trip to the DR,” explains Barton. “We were able to encompass some of the same experiences as the DR trip, such as working with children, and having the opportunity to see kids from a radically different socioeconomic background. The other attraction was that the trip provided hands-on environmental experiences. The trip gave the students views of both immigration and environmental issues — two hot button topics.” After extensive research, Barton chose Appleseed Expeditions to organize the school trip with her. With their help, the students were able to engage in a variety of educational and service activities
focused on immigrant families, ecology, and conservation. During their day at a low-income housing development, students landscaped, hauled gravel, and cleaned the community center. Staff from Volunteers of America, who led the activity, spoke to students about the importance of housing as the foundation that socioeconomically disadvantaged families need in order to thrive and help strengthen their communities. One of the residents expressed to the students how nice it was to live in a place that looked beautiful, what a difference it made to her, and how grateful she was for their hard work. Another day, the students went swimming with manatees and kayaking to learn about the challenges and threats to the sea mammals and to the ecology. There, they picked up Lyngbya, an invasive blue-green algae similar to the purple loosestrife in New England, and learned about One Rake at a Time, an organization that encourages individuals to make a difference by committing to remove the damaging invader. Barton hopes to partner with One Rake at a Time for next year’s trip. At Crystal River Archeological State Park, students learned about the history of the park, but, additionally the importance of discovering the kind of work they each want to do as volunteers. “My goal for the GUS community service program,” Barton explains, “is that there are all sorts of ways to volunteer — you can work in museums, parks, with children, inside, outside. If they take one little kernel away
— I want it to be that there are all different ways to give back. My overarching goal for service week is that students will come away with an appreciation of the value of volunteerism and an understanding that volunteers are the lifeblood of all non-profit organizations, and that there are many kinds of volunteer jobs and ways to volunteer. I want them to see that there are organizations that need help that run the gamut from the arts to the environment and from homelessness to education.” The eighth graders described their days working at a daycare center for children of migrant workers as “heart warming, bittersweet, fun filled, eye opening, energizing, humbling, and rewarding,” according to their chaperones. GUS students spent a morning cleaning the center and helping out in classrooms, and entertained the children with a few songs from their upcoming musical, Annie, Jr. In the afternoon, the GUS eighth graders helped the older daycare students with homework.
Each night, tired from hours of work and activity, students and adults came together to reflect on their day. “We would ask, what was your high and what was your surprise of the day?” Barton explains. “Then, we would expand on what someone said.” One of the guides from Appleseed also asked them to
consider, “What was a life lesson of the day? Where is an area you’ve been challenged by this trip? How did you or how can you overcome this? What are you grateful for today?” Although they were weary, these questions ignited the students and they all participated, according to Barton. They wanted to put
15 Years of Service GUS challenges students to make a difference in the world around them. The weeklong eighth grade service trip provides an eye-opening experience that changes the way our young people view service, the world around them, and themselves.
First full 8th grade trip. NPH Honduras; New Orleans, LA for post-Katrina service with Southern Mutual Help Association (SMHA)
2005
2006
2007
NPH Honduras; New Orleans, LA (SMHA); GUS starts to support student from NPH Honduras
2008
2009
Whole class to Appalachia
2010
2011 NPH Honduras; Appalachia
Upper school Spanish students to Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos (NPH) home for children in Honduras 10 The Tartan Spring/Summer 2019
NPH Honduras; New Orleans, LA (SMHA)
NPH Honduras; New Orleans, LA (SMHA)
into words what these experiences meant to them. Of course. That’s GUS. Barton hopes to expand the Florida service trip next year. She was pleased and surprised with how engaged the students were with the education aspect of the trip, including learning about the history of the First Americans in the region. Next year may include more history of the area as well as ever more service opportunities. Barton is already talking with Appleseed Expeditions about fine tuning the plans for 2020.
I learned a lot from just a week of service — about the value of a work ethic, about patience, and about learning how to stay in the moment. Each day of volunteering, I learned something new, whether it was picking up trash on the side of the road or talking to new people. This trip made me open my eyes to the world around me, and made me look at things from a whole new point of view. Even if what we did was small, we still made an impact on others. The feeling of helping others was incredible. This trip was an amazing opportunity, and I will never forget the feeling of giving back to others. ANNA GIBSON, Class of 2019
Live the Osa, Costa Rica; Appalachia
2012
2013
NPH Dominican Republic; Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota; GUS begins to support two more NPH students, one from Mexico and one from Dominican Republic
NPH Dominican Republic; Navajo Nation in Tuba City, AZ
2014
2015 NPH Dominican Republic; Navajo Nation in Tuba City, AZ
Some years also offered local trip options for students. We have worked very hard to ensure the accuracy of this information. If we have made any errors, please reach out to Whitney Buckley.
NPH Dominican Republic; Navajo Nation in Tuba City, AZ
2016
Dominican Republic, OutReach360; Washington, DC, YSOP
2017
2018
Dominican Republic, OutReach360, organization devoted to bettering the lives of children through education; Washington, DC, Youth Service Opportunities Project (YSOP) devoted to helping the impoverished, hungry and homeless
2019
Dominican Republic, OutReach360; western coastal Florida service and conservation trip; GUS continues to sponsor three children through NPH, raising funds through an annual student open mic night.
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And Justice for All
Dr. Draper in the Classroom 12 The Tartan Spring/Summer 2019
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magine you are six years old and someone asks, “Who are you?” What do you answer? Do you give your first name? Your last? Your age? Now imagine your are 12 years old and someone asks, “Who are you?” What do you answer now? In first grade, the yearlong theme at GUS is Who Am I? Students learn about themselves and the living world around them by studying the five senses, the human body, and the life cycles of animals, plants, and humans. In seventh grade, students return to the same theme, but in much greater depth. They are ready to tackle the question figuratively, not just literally, and answer with far more than just their first and last names.
Opposite page: Human Rights Champions Sculptures by the class of 2019 and 2020.
Grade 6 and 7 Social Studies Teacher Christine Draper leads the seventh graders through this path of discovery four days a week, for from 45 minutes to 75 minutes. The curriculum has changed since she first came to GUS in 1999, but the goal of understanding self and one’s place in the world has not. “We have added units on learning and personality preferences and study skills,” she explains. They see themselves as students and individual learners first. And,
then, there is a strong focus on social justice and human rights which is woven throughout the seventh grade curriculum. The students study culture and learn that humans survive through culture, Draper explains. “Every human society has a culture and every culture is different. Your culture is not the one and only. All cultures are valid ways to be human.” To understand this fully, the students engage in a group project to prepare a friend for a year in school in another country. They need to discover everything their friend should know about food, school, etiquette, values, norms, and customs in her host community. Units on gender, race, and class have also been added to the curriculum. Within gender, Draper says, “We look at sex, sexuality, gender identity, gender expression. The big takeaway is that sex is not strictly binary. Gender expression is all cultural. Likewise, race is not biological, just a construct, yet they affect your life as if they are real.” This knowledge is important as students further their understanding and connect to their own life experiences. Towards the end of the year, as a cumulative project that connects race, gender, and class, seventh graders engage in a family simulation project. Each student picks a slip of paper out of a
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hat with a unique marital, socioeconomic, racial, and housing scenario. They may pull out of an envelope disasters or benefits — perhaps a flood or a pair of free tickets to a baseball game — and they will need to consider the very different effects these and other life events can have on people depending on their status. The students must then create electronic scrapbooks that detail and consider each family’s relevant statistics, such as what their family can afford in terms of housing, food, vacations, cars, insurance, health care, pets, and clothing.
We look at sex, sexuality, gender identity, gender expression. The big takeaway is that sex is not strictly binary. Gender expression is all cultural. Likewise, race is not biological, just a construct, yet they affect your life as if they are real. DR. CHRISTINE DRAPER, Social Studies Teacher
They even go food shopping for their simulated families, using their math and science skills to analyze nutritional values, calculate what their families can afford, and compare what different budgets will allow. The food is later donated to Beverly Bootstraps. The class also discusses why humans live in families, including for affection, a sense of belonging, economics, and reproduction. They read articles about homelessness and food insecurity and what is or isn’t being done to solve these problems. They are even asked to write a law to solve a problem in their imaginary community. The project and readings result in new and broader perspectives on social and civic issues. Pretty heady and, perhaps, even potentially depressing stuff for seventh graders. How does their teacher prevent them from getting too down? “We balance those subjects with our project on human rights champions,” she explains. As a foundation for the class, at the beginning of the year, each student chooses a champion to write about, but the result is not a biography, but rather a thesis, says Draper. She wants them
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to answer the questions, “What made it possible for that person to become a champion of human rights? Was it persistence? Support of family? A chance meeting with Malcolm X? Do I have those qualities, advantages, experiences to become a champion of human rights?” Throughout the year, the seventh graders are asked to think about “What events in the world have helped to shape me as a unique individual? Which is more important, nature or nurture? What do all humans have in common?” Now they must answer a bigger challenge about themselves. Draper requires that students choose champions who have done hands-on work for human rights, not just individuals who have given money. The papers take a long time. Not only does the project require introspection, but also substantial research, the use of sources with correct citation, and one-on-one consultation with the teacher. In addition to the paper, students create a found object sculpture in the school’s maker space. The sculptures, in a literal or abstract way, must represent the three influences the students included in their theses. At the end of the year, they visit the Boulevard in Gloucester to view the sculptures there and consider the qualities they represent. Students then talk about the values they think should be memorialized and to whom or what they would build a memorial. Why is the study of culture, human rights, social justice, race, and gender so necessary? Now we’ve asked the question Christine Draper really wants to answer. “It is important for children to see other people with empathy, to see that there are other ways to live. Our culture tends to value money over almost anything. We need to raise awareness of other values in order to thrive. We all deserve rights. We have to always bring the kids back to that. When we talk about human rights, their hearts are there. We have to keep them there.”
Class of 2020 ‘A Place at the Table’ for marginalized people, in the spirit of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party
Alumni Profile
Gabriel Frasca Top Chef
T
he career of award-winning chef and restaurateur Gabriel Frasca began with a scoop of ice cream. Well, maybe several scoops. His first foray into the food business was an after school job in middle school at The Junction ice cream stand in Essex near his boyhood home. Next came a stint at Creed Catering in Beverly Farms, first in service and then moving to food preparation. The die wasn’t cast yet, though, as Frasca finished high school in Hamilton and studied journalism for two years at Kenyon College in Ohio. Gabriel Frasca
Taking some time off from college to consider a transfer to another school, he first found a summer job at a restaurant in Gloucester where the employees had all come from the renowned Biba restaurant in Boston. “They took me on as a prep guy, then as a garde manger [salad chef],” he says. “It was intoxicating.” Now he was hooked. Next, he “talked myself into a job at Hamersley Bistro,” where he started to learn the fine art of French cooking from James Beard award winner Gordon Hamersley at the ripe old age of 20. The trajectory was straight up from there: Chez Henri in Cambridge where he met
chef Amanda Lyon, who became his partner and wife; L’abbaye de Saint Croix in Provence, France; Dolomites and St. Hubertus in Italy where he received his first Michelin star; Bouley Bakery in New York which earned a four-star rating from the New York Times; and Danube restaurant in New York which he helped open and earned three stars from NYT. Frasca returned to Boston to take his first chef position in 2000. In 2001, he worked at Aquitaine Bistro and then Radius restaurant and was recognized as Boston’s Rising Star by The Improper Bostonian. That year, Radius also won the Best Overall Restaurant Award from Boston Magazine and was named one of the top 25 restaurants by Gourmet magazine. In 2003, Frasca took over Spire restaurant, and in 2005 was named Best Chef, Up and Coming by Boston Magazine and awarded three stars by the Boston Globe. In 2006, he and Lyon took over the Straight Wharf Restaurant in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he is still Executive Chef and Managing Partner. The menu at Straight Wharf boasts “elevated seafood dishes paired with wine in rustic-chic environs or on the waterfront porch.” Housed in a Nantucket weathered
“GUS did such a good job fostering a sense of community, and restaurants are nothing if not community spaces.” GABRIEL FRASCA, former GUS student
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shingle building, the restaurant provides an atmosphere of comfort and style. Menus change nightly, depending on the season and the local ingredients available, but a sample dinner menu might include lobster chowder with crispy potatoes, sweet onions and carrots, smokey bacon, garden herbs, and lobster knuckles and pan-roasted Scottish salmon with beets and cauliflower, tahini green goddess, pomegranate, and arugula.
accounts in the fall and doing renovations, readying the facilities, hiring staff, and sourcing food in the spring. Sometimes they also host private events. The work in the off-months is time-consuming, but it is not full time, Frasca says. Luckily, it gives him more opportunity to be with his wife and two children, Marin (11) and Henry (9), at their home in Sudbury, MA. In the summer, they all move to Nantucket to be together for the busy restaurant season.
Frasca is committed to locally sourcing as much food as possible. “It’s one of the things I spend the most time on,” he explains. He tries first to source from Nantucket, then turns to Cape Cod, and then to southeastern Massachusetts. The restaurant is the largest customer of Bartlett’s Farm on the island where the farmers grow some crops just for Frasca. He depends on the fishermen on the island to get all the bluefish, scallops, and lobster the restaurant serves, as well as other fish; a local coffee roaster; a local spice blender; local blueberry growers; and countless others. “Anything we can get from the island, we do,” Frasca emphasizes. “It’s a lot of work but well worth it.”
Frasca attended GUS for grades 3 through 6 in the mid-1980s. He looks back on the years spent on campus with appreciation. “I think that there’s an artistic sensibility to the school that plays into what I do now. This business is less of an art than many people imagine, but I’m fortunate there are some strong artistic veins running through it that I can tap into. Also, GUS did such a good job fostering a sense of community, and restaurants are nothing if not community spaces.”
Does he see any new trends in restaurants and the food they offer? “It’s such a cyclical business,” Frasca says. “There is a pivot back to simplicity — simple, elemental, stark but wonderful cooking.” He sees more dishes with just three ingredients and “a pivot back to French cooking,” a move he embraces. Straight Wharf is open from May through October. The off-months are spent closing up the facilities and settling up
A RECIPE FROM GABRIEL
Oysters with Campari Italian Ice “When choosing oysters for this dish, the brinier the better — the salt will hold up well against the Campari. I also implore you to do the juicing of the citrus yourself. And simple syrup is just that — an easy 1-to-1 combination of water to sugar. Heat the mixture until the sugar is dissolved, and let cool before using.” Serves 4 1 cup fresh pink grapefruit juice
Pinch of Salt
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
1/2 cup Campari
2 dozen fresh East Coast oysters
3/4 cup simple syrup
Olive oil
1 shallot, finely diced
1 tablespoon thinly sliced chives
In a large bowl, mix the grapefruit and lemon juices, Campari, simple syrup, shallots, salt, and pepper together. Pour into a shallow, flat metal pan and freeze overnight. When ready to serve, use the front of a fork to scrape the ice into layers so that it resembles shaved ice, taking care to scrape all the way down to the bottom (the mixture will separate during the freezing process). Put the shaved ice into a pint container and return to the freezer while shucking the oysters. Once the oysters are shucked, spoon the Campari ice over each oyster and add a dash of olive oil and a pinch of chives. Reserve any excess ice in the freezer for a later use.
Spring/Summer 2019 The Tartan 17
Alumni Profile
Spotlight On
Kara Seigal ’03 Twenty-two young people in Lima, Peru are singing and dancing their hearts out in a fast-paced production of the Broadway musical, Wicked, thanks in part to the experiences their director had on the stage at GUS.
Kara Seigal ’03
Kara Seigal, GUS ’03, is the founder and director of Spotlight, a musical theater training program for 10-17-yearolds who want professional training for the stage. Her love of theater was first nurtured at GUS. Her love of Peru began with friendships in high school at Pingree with two classmates from Peru whose families she visited during breaks. Seigal, who graduated from the Gallatin School at New York University with a double major in ethnomusicology and Latin American Studies, continued to perform in musicals in college, as she had at GUS and later in high school. When she moved to Peru in 2011, Seigal managed an NGO called South American Explorers that catered to travelers. Later, she created a performing arts tour. As she showed people around a Lima neighborhood, her partner, a magician, did card tricks that integrated Peruvian culture and history. In the midst of that entrepreneurial venture, a contact at the University of Chicago asked if Seigal would be the musical director of a musical theater program for youth in the summer (which, by the way, is winter in Peru). She said, yes, and has been doing that ever since, still spending the rest of the year in Lima as music director at a British international school called Hiram Bingham. It was then and there that Seigal came up with the idea for Spotlight. “I have been experimenting with building small
18 The Tartan Spring/Summer 2019
businesses over the past eight years,” she explains. “I knew that pursuing this type of company would have a great chance of success based on the number of kids that I have worked with over the years who wanted to pursue musical theater on a more advanced level here in Lima.” Her research confirmed that there were few opportunities for these youth, especially in English. So she decided to fill the gap. Seigal quit her job at Hiram Bingham and launched Spotlight, offering what she believes is a great avenue for self-expression and improving one’s English skills. Spotlight, rehearsing in a rented dance studio and theater, offers two sessions a year during which they workshop two shows. Seigal, who directs all the shows, invites professionals from the United States to come down and help train the students. So far, a Broadway choreographer and two actors from the Tisch School at NYU have joined her. She also has established an internship program for high school graduates who would like a post-graduate experience as an assistant choreographer or director. An exchange program has some students from the University of Chicago program coming to Lima and some from Spotlight going to Chicago. “I like to keep my international exchanges small,” says Seigal, “so I generally limit it to five or six students per session (both in Peru and in Chicago). The kids stay with host families, participate in rehearsals and go on excursions around the city.” Over the past three years, Spotlight has produced Beauty and the Beast, Hairspray, and Aladdin. “I’m not sure I have a method to picking them,” says
Seigal, “but I certainly have to adapt the storylines based on where I am. For example, we contextualized Hairspray as a story that had more to do with class-based discrimination so that our Peruvian kids could relate.” What are Seigal’s hopes for the future? In five years, she hopes to be one of the top performing arts programs in Lima. She would also like to establish another coordinate program in the United States, perhaps something closer to the Northeast. “There are not that many collaborative cross-cultural exchange programs for performing arts,” she says. She’d like to add to what there is. And though she is very established in her life in Peru, she would like to split her time between there and somewhere closer to her roots in the Greater Boston area. When she looks back at her years at GUS, she recalls with appreciation the emphasis on performing arts, global connections, and diversity. “I definitely took that with me,” Seigal says. She remembers all the opportunities she had on the stage at GUS and strives to provide those now for her students. “Kids here in Lima don’t have the same opportunities I had for performing arts and programs that cultivate growth and creativity as a young adult. To be able to provide that is incredibly rewarding.”
To see more of what Kara Seigal is up to with Spotlight: Kara Seigal’s Spotlight musical theater program in Lima, Peru. Seigal directs top right.
YouTube youtube.com/watch?v=C93_D0c0nHU youtube.com/watch?v=HA4rY_CrnEg
Facebook facebook.com/peruspotlight Website spotlightperu.com
Spring/Summer 2019 The Tartan 19
Alumni Profile
Alex Rosenthal and Joey Bertagna Friends for Life: A GUS Story
The annual sixth grade trip to William Lawrence Camp was designed to build community and relationships. For Alex Rosenthal and Joey Bertagna, GUS ’12, the goal was accomplished but not exactly as planned. As brand new Glen Urquhart students, the two boys found the idea of “going off to a camp for an overnight on the second day of school kind of terrifying,” says Bertagna. To deal with the anxiety, he and Rosenthal bonded with each other and three other new students, Liam Prior, Sam Corbett, and Evan DaCosta. Alex Rosenthal and Joey Bertagna, GUS ’12
Their nervousness turned out to be unfounded, and the trip to William Lawrence is now among their treasured memories of GUS. The bonus is that the friendships born of the occasion have grown and endured throughout their middle school years, their high school years, and now during college. Although Rosenthal and Bertagna are both at Harvard College, they are in different graduation classes since Rosenthal spent a gap year in Southeast Asia and Israel.
Catching up with them in Harvard Square in May, it was easy to see the depth and ease of their friendship. They are sure that they and the three others will be friends for life. “We can come back together and we may have not seen each other for four months but it’s as if we hung out yesterday,” says Rosenthal. “I don’t see that with other friendships.” “I feel like GUS fosters those long term friendships,” adds Bertagna. “There were 15 or 16 boys in our grade. We were all friends but we sorted into smaller groups. We five were always hanging out. We shared years of intense time together.” “With GUS being so small, you knew every single person so well,” Rosenthal continues. “It was an experience unlike what you have in high school or college. If I ran into anyone from my GUS class, I’d feel totally comfortable and know where they were coming from.” Both young men realize the rarity of their long term friendship with each other and the other three GUS alums. They may casually say to other friends,
“Before I came to GUS, I thought I knew what I liked. GUS opened me up to so many different things that I wouldn’t have considered. It made me more worldly.” ALEX ROSENTHAL ’12
20 The Tartan Spring/Summer 2019
“That’s my friend Alex from middle school” or “That’s my friend Joey from middle school” and others look at them with some incredulity. “You mean high school” is often the response. “No, middle school!” they repeat. There was, however, one occasion that challenged the Rosenthal/Bertagna friendship, the pals share. Rosenthal table-topped Bertagna, and Bertagna tattled on him to Head of School Mr. Nance. For the uninitiated, table-topping involves one person crouching behind the victim while a third person pushes the victim over the human “table.” Admittedly, that was not the only time either boy got in trouble. Bretagna was once chastised for throwing an orange at his older brother (he still doesn’t understand why his brother got in trouble, too), and Rosenthal “got yelled at” for not wearing a belt on Bread Day.
courses” in high school, he says, recalling the White Shirt project as another valued example of the GUS approach. Perhaps the happiest memory, though, is of the Boar Cup competition when Rosenthal, Bertagna and the rest of their team — their usual posse of friends — lip synched to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” while decked out in boas, oversized glasses, and popped collars. “I think it helped us win,” says Bertagna. “We won by five points.” Rosenthal adds, “I think we won by more.” “Maybe we didn’t win at all,” Bertagna concludes with a hearty laugh.
Rosenthal and Bertagna fondly recall many GUS traditions. “Bread Day, the Boar Cup, May Day, the Cereal Bowl were all great,” said Bertagna. “Oh, and Grand Friends Day.” Rosenthal added, “All the trips we did were so great. I was never into the outdoor stuff, but they were great experiences.” Recalling academics, Rosenthal is grateful for how GUS expanded his perspective. “Before I came to GUS, I thought I knew what I liked,” he said. “GUS opened me up to so many different things that I wouldn’t have considered. It made me more worldly.” Bertagna appreciates the interdisciplinary approach, particularly with the humanities in eighth grade. He missed this kind of “crossover in different
Alex and Joey reenact their table topping skills in the Smith Campus Center at Harvard.
Glen Urquhart School 74 Hart Street Beverly Farms, MA 01915 978-927-1064 | gus.org
For the Future The recently completed GUS Strategic Plan for 2019–2024 will guide us for the next few years as we remain committed to preserving what is special about Glen Urquhart School while evolving to serve the needs of children in our everchanging world. We thank the committee of parents, alumni, faculty, administrators, trustees, and past families who helped in the plan’s creation. Their hard work will ensure our school’s bright future!
LEARN MORE
View the strategic plan online at: gus.org/strategic -plan
