HB Magazine Fall 2012

Page 1

SPECIAL ISSUE

REPORT ON PHILANTHROPY

HB IN DC

pg. 23

Inspired by aspire

pg. 25


answering to more than me As a full-time professional and mother of three, I wonder constantly about resource conservation and maximization. In the car, I’ll ask myself: How can I get from work to the post office, to the bank, and to the softball field without having to stop at the gas station? In front of my 12-year-old daughter’s laundry pile: How soon can I hand these jeans down to the 10year-old? At the farmers’ market: How many recipes can I make with this zucchini? … and, more importantly: how can I convince my son to actually eat it? People everywhere find themselves short on time, yet laden with demands. Therefore, most of us have devised all sorts of ways to multitask and make things stretch. I will admit, however, that when it comes to the more mundane decisions about how I go about my daily life, I could benefit from a little more reflection. Case in point: When we were discussing this issue’s cover story, my colleague Torrey McMillan, director of Hathaway Brown’s Center for Sustainability, asked me whether I leave the faucet on while I’m brushing my teeth. Immediately, I had to quiz myself: Should I tell the truth? McMillan is a phenomenally intelligent woman. A 1990 graduate of HB and an expert in sustainability education who’s consulted on the topic in the United States and abroad, she holds degrees from Princeton and the University of Michigan. She’s taught students in elementary school through college for the last decade. And she practices what she preaches. I’ve never seen her walk out of a room without switching off the lights, but I have seen her riding her bike to campus even when it’s snowing. But what I admire most about her is the fact that she doesn’t judge people like me who leave the water running in the bathroom sink, even when they know better. Instead, she tries to teach them why that might not be such a good idea. In “Rooted in the Earth; Reaching for the Sun” (page 9) McMillan explains what sustainability really means and what HB is doing to foster healthy people, healthy communities, and healthy ecosystems for years to come. She breaks down complex ideas to demonstrate how the little decisions we all make can have a big impact on the world we all share. The accompanying sidebars offer interesting tidbits and suggestions to help people become more conscious and conscientious about a variety of environmental concerns. And numerous additional resources may be found online at www.hb.edu/magazine. There’s a lot of great information on these pages, but the biggest takeaway for me is a brand new question I can ask myself each day: Can I do better?

Kathleen Osborne Editor Vanessa Butler Creative Director Amanda Lietman Digital Media Manager Jeff Schrader Graphic Designer

administrative team: William Christ Head of School Sue Sadler Associate Head of School Director of Upper School Clarke Wilson Leslie ’80 Associate Head for Advancement Nancy Gladstone Director of Middle School Katherine Zopatti Director of Primary School Jane Brown Director of Early Childhood Sarah Johnston Director of Admission

alumnae relations team: Dana Lovelace Capers ’86 Director of Alumnae Relations Erin Reid Advancement Coordinator

www.hb.edu/magazine A digital edition of HB may be found online at www.hb.edu/magazine. The contents of this publication – with the exception of Class News for privacy reasons – are posted there. To maximize your experience, we’ve made a wide array of additional content related to the featured stories available as well, including videos, photo galleries, and Internet resources. If you’d like to cancel delivery of HB, please email publications@hb.edu.


We'd love to hear from you!

Share your thoughts with HB magazine. Letters to the editor may be sent to publications@hb.edu or to the school’s mailing address. We welcome feedback through our social media channels as well. Find us on Facebook under Hathaway Brown School or send us a tweet at @HathawayBrown.

On the Cover

19600 North Park Boulevard Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122 216.320.8785

Torrey McMillan ’90, director of HB’s Center for Sustainability, tends to the school’s new community garden growing behind the tennis courts along South Park Boulevard. She’s often helped in her efforts by Upper School students, including juniors Caroline Doll (left), Megan Callanan (right), and Claire Swanson (standing). McMillan always has championed sustainability issues. During her senior year at HB, McMillan co-founded The Lorax, the Upper School environmental club that still operates today.


If you’d like to become a contributor to HB magazine, please email kosborne@hb.edu or call 216.320.8785.

Alyssa Furth ’13: Inspired by Aspire

Alyssa Furth has grown up at HB, beginning her journey in EC4. Looking forward to the next chapter in her life, she says she feels that HB has given her amazing opportunities and an education that’s shaped her into the person she has become, and it will continue to guide her even after she leaves our campus. Passionate about giving back to the community, she has dedicated much of her time to volunteering at Monarch School for Autism as well as pioneering The Rainbow Project here at HB that sends high school students into the preschool classrooms each week. Furth is hoping to study business in college and had an internship this summer in the Communications Office to help her gain experience.

Brian Jasinski: Rooted in the Earth; Reaching for the Sun, illustrations

Brian Andrew Jasinski is the artist behind Grey Cardigan, a line of prints and social stationery. He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art and has worked as a graphic designer in Cleveland for the past 13 years. His work has been featured in galleries and design publications. Grey Cardigan can be found in local retail shops including Banyan Tree, CLE Clothing, Inc., Native: Cleveland, and Room Service. www.greycardigan.com

Molly Krist: HB in DC

Upper School History teacher Molly Krist came to HB in 2010. She and her husband, Al, live in Hinckley with their two daughters, HB students Madeline ‘18 and Regan ’21. She loves to travel, having spent time in Italy, Greece, China, France, England, and South Korea in recent years. And she had the opportunity this spring to travel to Washington, D.C. with her American Government and Constitutional Law class. During that stay, the group got to meet several U.S. senators and they were special guests on the set of the MSNBC show Hardball with Chris Matthews, where HB alumna Colleen King ’00 is a segment producer. Krist is pictured here with her students in Washington. She is standing to the left of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

Special thanks to Julia Morse Fernandez ’99, who helped us identify the girls pictured in Carole Rounds’ class that we included in the last issue of HB. It turns out that Julia’s dad, HB Visual Arts Department Chair Jamie Morse, is the one who took the photo sometime in 1989 or 1990. Here’s what she had to say about the shot: “It’s hard to believe this was more than 20 years ago! How’d we get so old? At first glance, I assumed this was school picture day. But then I decided some of us (me) look a little too sloppy for that. Frankly, I have no idea what we were doing on this day, but I do know life was good. Because what’s there not to be happy about when you’re in third grade? What’s the most amazing thing to me about this photo (aside from the number of people wearing vests!) is that out of the 13 classmates pictured with me, I’m still in touch with 10 of them. We all really, truly grew up together. And now, thanks to the wonders of Facebook, we get to stay connected always.”

Maureen O’Connor: Dear Hathaway Brown

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor is the 10th Chief Justice in Ohio history and is the first woman to lead the Ohio judicial branch. She first joined the Supreme Court of Ohio as an associate Justice in January 2003. She was re-elected in November 2008 and then as Chief Justice in 2010. Chief Justice O’Connor, whose career in public service and the law spans three decades, shares some wisdom she’s learned along the way in a very special letter she penned to the Hathaway Brown student body.

Top row l-r: Kristen Carter, Meredith Pleasant, Chrissy Somers, Brinah Milstein, Amie Rosenthal, Julia Smith, Hilary Newcomer Middle row l-r: Meredith Bowen, Becky Smith, Lilah Rich, Melissa Koch Bottom row l-r: Deenah Byramjee, Brooke Jacob, Julia Morse


contents

pg. 9

pg. 4

Cover Story

9 Rooted in the Earth; Reaching for the Sun

HB’s Center for Sustainability works toward healthy people, healthy communities, and healthy ecosystems

12 A Look Behind the Scenes Administrators focus their attention toward conserving

pg. 26

resources on campus

13 Notes from the Field Katherine Ann Freygang ’70, Cassandra Johnson ’84,

Carolyn Coquillette ’96, and Linda Shi ’00 weigh in

20 Good Grounds for Going Green

Gina Rubin Cody ’80 and Elizabeth Chandler ’83 talk

about limiting chemical exposure

Features

5 Dear Hathaway Brown An open letter to the student body from Maureen O’Connor,

chief justice of The Supreme Court of Ohio

23 HB in DC The American Government and Constitutional Law class

heads to our nation’s capital

25 Inspired by Aspire As the signature HB program marks its 10th anniversary,

teachers and students reflect

News from North Park

6 HB Highlights 62 Milestones Alumnae Profiles

30 31 32 87

Elizabeth Dunlop Richter ’62 Jane Leslie Dalton ’62 Elizabeth DeMarco Novak ’77 Lisa Battaglia Fedorovich ’83

2011–12 Report on Philanthropy Class Notes

26 Alumnae Weekend 2012 33 Alumnae News 62 East Coast Connections 86 Brides, Babies, Memorials

FSC HERE


Remaining Resilient The response was overwhelming to “Rising Boldly,” HB’s

Winter 2011 cover story. We received numerous cards and letters of praise for the five remarkable women profiled – their

stories of resilience struck a chord with so many who have overcome hurdles in their own lives. Many readers also took the

opportunity to reach out to the women featured in the magazine to offer support, encouragement, and thanks.

We checked in recently with longtime faculty member Silvia Kenneweg, Emily Weinberg ’12, Joy Johnson Nevin ’55, Shawneice Floyd ’12, and Ellen Rogers ’70, to ask them what they’ve been up to since the feature about them was published last December. Here’s what they had to say. Silvia Kenneweg: “In April, I was so honored that 2008 HB graduate Laney Kuenzel invited me to Palo Alto, where she received the J.E. Wallace Sterling Award for Academic Achievement at Stanford University. Each of the award winners was allowed to invite the high school teacher who most influenced their scholastic careers. I was so moved that Laney chose me. This was a special weekend in perfect weather on a beautiful campus. For me personally, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I loved every minute of it.” To read more about the ceremony from Kuenzel’s perspective, visit www.hb.edu/magazine. Emily Weinberg: “After the magazine came out, I couldn’t go through the halls at school without people stopping me to say how much they liked it. And at the end of the field hockey season, The Plain Dealer named me the 2012 Field Hockey Player of the Year.” Weinberg is considering a major in pre-med at Georgetown, where she is beginning her freshman year. She will play field hockey for the Hoyas. Joy Johnson Nevin ’55: “I am grateful that I have lived long enough to celebrate the unfolding of our four children’s dreams, and to have another ‘little’ book securely in my head and ‘hovering’ in my computer while I am still able to hop in the pool with our youngest of nine grandchildren.” Nevin calls herself “deeply blessed.” She is thankful that at 74 years old, she is healthy and can walk fast enough to exercise her new puppy. She and her husband, John, recently celebrated their 55th anniversary with a cruise to St. Petersburg, Russia. Shawneice Floyd ’12: “Looking back on my senior year, it’s amazing to think about everything that I was able to accomplish, including overcoming the illness. It has made me an even more optimistic person.” Floyd will be attending Grinnell College this fall. She was accepted to the well-respected liberal arts college in Iowa through the school’s Early Decision program. Ellen Rogers ’70: “Ned and Kasey have had a wonderful year. She brings joy and laughter every single day to his life – and mine as well. Ned has been out and about sharing with local schools his amazing experiences of being in a wheelchair with a monkey helper by his side. Of all the wonderful things that have come our way – all due to Ned’s courage and Kasey’s amazing help and her total devotion – the best surely is the abundance of so many new friends that have come into our lives.” Rogers continues to have great success with her book, “Kasey to the Rescue.” It was published in Dutch last fall and it came out in Italian in May. In the coming months, Kasey the monkey will be featured in a new National Geographic children’s book called “Animal Heroes” Silvia Kenneweg with Laney Kuenzel ’08 Photo Credit: Norbert Von Der Groeben

Honors for HB HB recently has been recognized by four different agencies for its editorial coverage, artwork, and graphic design. The Winter 2011 issue earned a national APEX Grand Award for magazines and journals produced by nonprofit organizations, and a Bronze Addy for magazine design from the American Advertising Federation – Cleveland. “Rising Boldly,” the cover feature by Communications Director Kathleen Osborne, won a Bronze Circle of Excellence award in the Best Articles of the Year category for Independent Schools by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. And the original painting created by Visual Arts Department Chair Jamie Morse to accompany the story earned Second Place in Ohio at the Excellence in Journalism Awards presented by the Press Club of Cleveland.


Dear Hathaway Brown,

an open letter to the student body from Maureen O’Connor, chief justice of The Supreme Court of Ohio

...

Whether you realize it now or not, women and leadership go hand in hand and have for a long time. The women of The Supreme Court of Ohio confirm that fact. The women justices have created many “firsts” for themselves as members of the judiciary and leaders in the legal profession. From Florence Allen, who in 1923 became the first woman Ohio Supreme Court justice, to me, who in 2011 became the first woman chief justice in the 200-plus year history of the court, to my current colleague Yvette McGee Brown, the first African American woman justice to serve on the Ohio Supreme Court, examples of women in powerful positions and demanding professions are everywhere. Their impact is profound, and we should all know their stories.

At Hathaway Brown, you have a special opportunity to explore what it means to be a woman leader. I too am the product of single-sex education, both in high school and in college. Without a doubt, that educational arrangement afforded me opportunities for leadership that I would not have experienced otherwise. I was able to learn, play sports, be a student government leader and pursue anything I wanted to both in high school and college. You can do the same. I had strong, intelligent, educated women teachers who challenged all of the girls to do their very best. Please know how fortunate you are to have the same. In order to maximize your potential as a leader in whatever field you pursue, you need only do two things: Prepare, and Work hard. Always aim to excel at what you do. If you take this approach, opportunities will present themselves, and you will be able to take full advantage of them. No one can predict what your future will hold. Plans you have now may very well give way to new and exciting directions that you never anticipated. The point is to do your best at whatever juncture, and by so doing you will be open to opportunities and able to take advantage of whatever life presents. The only thing that can limit you is you. By not doing your best, by doing something seriously foolish, by damaging your reputation, you limit yourself and shut doors on your future. I would also urge you to learn from those around you. The women you are closest to may be the best role models and the finest leaders of all. I had two wonderful role models in my mother and grandmother. I would not be where I am today had it not been for the love, support, encouragement and leadership of my mother and grandmother. For that, I will always be grateful.

For the most part, attitudes toward women in leadership roles are changing. I experienced that phenomenon firsthand during my campaign for chief justice in 2010. The gender issue was important to some audiences because it was the first time that a woman would become chief justice in the 207 years of the Supreme Court. However, when I spoke with students about the Ohio Supreme Court and the fact that I would be the first woman chief justice, the novelty of being the first woman to hold that office did not resonant as strongly with them. I came to realize that for the students, “gender barrier” was a foreign concept – especially when it comes to the law. I was very pleased to discover this. Students, for the most part, never knew a time when gender was a consideration and dictated who could serve as a leader. While it’s important to remember that sex discrimination is a very real thing, it is encouraging to see the “So what?” attitude about gender that students have today. We are all better served when a person’s qualifications, talents and successes are what matter, and gender – like race – does not. I hope to be judged – and I’m sure all of you do, too – not on my gender, but on how well I get the job done. That shows progress and how far as a society we’ve come. I started this letter by wishing that you all face challenges along the way. I really mean that. Your education at Hathaway Brown equips each of you with the skills you need to cope with whatever life holds for you. Education, strength of character, and kindness go a long way when overcoming life’s challenges. Good luck at Hathaway Brown and beyond.

The Class of 2012 Photo Credit: ?????

HB

As the generation coming forward to take on those leadership roles, you should expect and hope (if you’re fortunate) that your journey along the way will be filled with challenges. It’s those challenges and the fact you overcame them that makes for worthwhile experiences. And worthwhile experiences make you grow in a better direction and dimension than you would have without them. A better you will make the world a better place.

I’m also blessed to work with three outstanding, strong, independent women on the Ohio Supreme Court. Each is a leader in her own right, with many “first” accomplishments in all of their distinguished careers. I urge you to log onto to sc.ohio.gov to learn more about the women of the Supreme Court of Ohio. We represent four very different paths to the Court.

5


Big Breakthrough Through HB’s Science Research & Engineering Program, Adriana Zinn '11 spent four years working with doctors at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine on a study demonstrating that a skin cancer drug reverses Alzheimer's disease in mice. Zinn was co-author of a paper about these findings that was published this February in the journal Science. The implications of the research have steadily been gaining international attention among members of the medical community and the media. Zinn is now entering her sophomore year at Georgetown.

Photo credit: Keith Berr

“My plan is just to go in and spin my arms as fast as I can.”

Quotable: Claire Pavlak ’08 in an April interview with Cleveland’s WJW - Fox8 News about her 50-meter freestyle swimming strategy at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials. Pavlak is a recent graduate of Emory University who earned 20 All-American honors and nine NCAA National Championships during her college career.


Photo credit: Impact Action Photography

HB App Is Launched

Blazer Nation HB athletes continued to thrill us this winter and spring, and we added two more state champion trophies to our collection. Some highlights:

Basketball

Swimming

Lacrosse

Regional Champion for the third year in a row • State Champion for the second time in three years • The team really came together during the season and saved their best for last.

Softball

Finished the season with a 14-12 record • Continuous growth was seen all along • The program gets better every year, and the players are gaining more and more valuable experience.

Track & Field

Another up-and-coming program • The 4x100 and 4x800 relay teams qualified for Regionals • Set two school records, in the 4x1600 relay and the long jump relay.

All the World’s a Stage Jessie Pinnick ’12 took top honors at the 2012 Northeast Ohio Shakespeare Competition, held in February at Idea Center in downtown Cleveland, and she went on in April, to represent the region at the National Shakespeare Competition in New York City, where she placed 10th overall. Pinnick is the second HB student in a row to be victorious in the contest sponsored by the Cleveland branch of the English Speaking Union of the United States. Stephanie Wong ’11 brought home the trophy last year.

All we can say is, “Wow!” Isabella Nilsson ’16 missed the final days of the 2011-2012 school year, but with very good reason. On May 25, she was at the College of Wooster for the Power of the Pen State Championship. Then she traveled to Washington, D.C. for one week beginning May 27 to represent Cuyahoga County in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. And on June 2, she made her way to Carnegie Hall in New York City to pick up the four Creative Writing Awards she won in this year’s Scholastic competition. After that whirlwind of activity, Nilsson returned to HB on June 4 for her eighth grade graduation, which happened also to fall on her 14th birthday.

Isabella Nilsson ’16

7

Photo credit: Paul Rampe

The program’s on the upswing • Everyone swam faster than expected this season • Three individuals qualified for States, along with one relay team.

The app is available in the iTunes App Store for free and can be found by searching for “hathaway brown.”

HB

District Champion for the sixth year in a row • Regional Champion for the sixth year in a row • State Champion for the fourth year in a row • Final record of 22-5.

It is now easier than ever for HB parents, students, faculty and alumnae to stay connected and find the information they want about the school and its community. HB’s new iPhone and iPad application gives you access to personal announcements, directories, athletics, calendars, news, media galleries, and more. Community members are able to stay logged in to view directories and private, personalized announcements (“bulletins”), and also to view web information offline. The app’s tabbed display of athletics information and school calendars makes it easy to navigate between the different sections. For more information, see our website: www.hb.edu/hbapp.


Across the Miles By way of a unique collaboration with the members of the United States Peace Corps, boys and girls in HB’s Early Childhood class taught by Julie Harris and Mary-Scott Pietrafese struck up a friendship with students at a rural school in Lesotho in southern Africa. The children exchanged letters, pictures, and small gifts throughout the year.

“… the person I am is the person that all of you have created. Not one of us has done this alone. Every graduating senior here has been molded and shaped by dozens and dozens of others, many of whom, if not most, are sitting not ten feet away from you right now.” Claire Ashmead, class of 2012 136th Commencement Exercises, June 8, 2012

Ready for their close-up Maddie Stambler ’13 hosted HB’s inaugural iMagine Film Festival for area high school students this spring. The event was a smashing success, with nearly 100 people turning out to watch 13 spectacular short films created by 25 local high school students from HB, Laurel, Hawken, St. Joseph Academy, and Beachwood High School. Special guests in the audience included Marcie Goodman, executive director of the Cleveland International Film Festival, and Dan O’Shannon, writer and producer for the ABC sitcom “Modern Family.” Stambler created the festival as part of an Edna Dawley Strnad ’42 Fellowship in Creativity Project. Mark your calendars! Next year’s event will take place in April.


HB 9

Story by Torrey McMillan ’90 • Illustrations by Brian Andrew Jasinski • Photos by Vanessa Butler

When I tell people that I run the Center for Sustainability at Hathaway Brown School, I typically get one of two responses ... “HB has a whole Center for Sustainability?! That’s amazing.” or “Center for what? What does that mean?”

The answer to that second question can take me 30 seconds or 30 minutes to deliver, depending on the level of interest and the time the interrogator has. The 30-second version is simple. I start by posing a few questions of my own: “What do we want to have around in our world now and in the future? That is, what is it that we want to sustain, build or rebuild?” At a pretty fundamental level, most of us can agree that we want healthy people, healthy communities, and healthy ecosystems. My work in sustainability revolves around building a world where having these three things is not only possible, but it’s also highly probable.


Giving a more detailed description of sustainability and my work at HB can be a little bit messier. But I’m a person who helps 10-year-olds sort through food scraps to create the most effective compost piles. Messy is my forte. Let’s start with the (really) big picture. Some people have equated trying to define sustainability with trying to define other ideas that are hard to nail down, words like justice, freedom, and equality. When it comes to concepts such as these, definitions rarely satisfy us. In some ways, it’s easier to point to those situations when these things are absent or broken than it is to say, “that is justice,” or “here we see freedom.” When present, these states of being are likely to be expressed in different ways, dependent on place and context. Sustainability is like that. It is, I think, far easier to point at something and say, “that is not sustainable ... that system or process or thing will not help us to have healthy people, communities and ecosystems now and in the future,” than it is to look at something and say with conviction, “this is sustainable.” This difficulty arises partly because we live in a world of complex, interconnected systems. Humans are limited in our ability to understand the upstream causes and downstream consequences of so much of what we do. To further complicate matters, the physical and cultural environment of Northeast Ohio will necessitate very different solutions to the challenges of building sustainable systems than we would find were we living in the desert of Arizona or in the bustle of Beijing. So, striving for sustainability is hard work that forces us to test out solutions, discover what works and what does not, remain humble in the face of our trials and errors, and always to continue to learn. But isn’t that our motto here at HB? We learn not for school but for life. In very real ways, the quest for sustainability is, in fact, the quest for ongoing, healthy, meaningful life on earth. Which brings me to HB’s Center for Sustainability. A core group of faculty, staff, administrators, and students spent some time this fall articulating a plan for what who we will be and what we will do to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability. Here’s the Vision Statement we came up with: We are a school and community with a hopeful vision of a thriving planet – a planet with whole and healthy people, communities, and natural systems. We pursue this vision with joy, intense creativity, humility and courage in the face of challenge and change. A force of good in the world, we strive to live out this vision not just in school, but in life.

This all sounds very good and inspiring, but it’s very pie-inthe sky. You still probably don’t really have a sense of what the Center for Sustainability is exactly, and you might be interested in some concrete examples of what the institution is actually doing to make the vision a reality.

Some people have equated trying to define sustainability with trying to define other ideas that are hard to nail down, words like justice, freedom, and equality.

On the next several pages, you’ll find stories, photographs, and data points that should make the picture a little clearer. I hope you’ll also take a moment to visit www.hb.edu/sustainability to get a sense of what this all means for HB as we travel the pathway to sustainability. The road ahead of us promises to be a long and winding, but the journey will be rich with learning. This work is our imperative. So let’s embrace the challenge in true HB fashion, finding opportunity where others see threats, and applying all the talent and creativity of our collective community to create a world where social, economic, and environmental systems thrive in synchronicity with one another. The ultimate goal is for all of us to be able to say of HB: “Yes, this is a place that supports healthy people, healthy communities and a healthy environment. I can see it in everything they do.” I have no doubt that our team is well-suited for this task. Our school family is one that’s grounded, yet ambitious. I like to say that Anne Hathaway Brown, in her infinite wisdom, even picked our school colors with sustainability in mind. We are brown, rooted in the earth. We are gold, reaching for the sun.


Carbon Footprint During the 2010-11 school year, as an institution, HB was responsible for 4276.8 metric tons of carbon equivalents. The numbers below represent some points of comparison to give you an idea about what that number means. HB’s yearly climate impact is approximately equal to:

As a ďŹ rst step to understanding HB’s energy use and climate mpacts, the Center for Sustainability conducted a Greenhouse Gas Inventory, tracking the school’s energy use in ďŹ ve key areas from the 2004-05 school year through the 2010-11 school year. Our largest sources of emissions are generated by electricity, followed by heating and commuting. We’ve identiďŹ ed several areas for improvement, and we still have a lot of work ahead of us.

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Credit: Brian Andrew Jasinski


Moving a community and an institution toward sustainability is never the work of just one person. It takes a committed team with the passion to make change. Those with expertise in their fields, must work together to shift an entire system. Meet a few of the key players who collaborate with the Center for Sustainability to ensure that resource conservation and other important initiatives are an everyday part of HB life.

Terry Churchill, Director of Plant Operations Joined HB in 1985

How sustainability concerns guide his work: Terry Churchill and his team are an institution at HB. His commitment to maintaining a beautiful campus and learning environment is clear to anyone who walks through the doors. Harder to see is his commitment to making our buildings resource efficient, while always keeping the bottom line in mind. This year, when an HB grandparent proposed partnering with his lighting company to replace every light fixture in the school with LED bulbs, Churchill’s response to the Board of Trustees was, “this is a no-brainer. Not only does this have a two- to three-year payback time, but it will save my team and me countless hours currently spent replacing light bulbs that we can then devote to other projects on our list. The LED bulbs, while more expensive, last more than twice as long as the fluorescents.” His knowledge of the school’s facilities is deep and he is extremely savvy in assessing how dollars are most efficiently spent to maximize functionality and efficiency. In his words:

Sustainability initiatives undertaken during his tenure: 2006 New energy-efficient windows installed in

the Prime and Classic buildings

2008 Began upgrading lighting from incandescent

and T12 fluorescents bulbs to T8 bulbs in the Classic Building

2012 Now reviewing proposals for an all-school

LED- lighting upgrade

“Since day one, I’ve treated this place as though it’s my home. So it’s not really a job for me; I’m just taking care of my second home. I’ve also been very lucky to have a staff that has the same love for this place that I do. Three of us have been here for 27 years, and Joel Bartel’s been here for 28. He is the only employee from the original crew that I inherited. John Castle came next, at 26 years. We all have great chemistry and it’s just fun to come to work most days.” How he imagines HB’s facilities and grounds 10 years from now: We’ll have all new energy-efficient lighting across campus. For more from Behind the Scenes, see pages 16 and 18.


Linda Shi

Cambridge, Massachusetts

HB Class of 2000 Bachelor of Arts, Yale University, 2004 Master of Engineering Management, Yale University, 2005 Master of Urban Planning, Harvard University, 2008 Research Associate at the Institute for International Urban Development (I2UD)

I saw a comment recently that came in response to a New York Times article about environmental resources. “I’ve never understood why people in water-rich regions should be so concerned with water conservation,” the person said. Situated on Lake Erie, Cleveland is blessed with an abundance of freshwater and will not witness a significant decrease in rainfall under climate change, unlike most other parts of the country. So it’s a fair question. Why should we care? Beyond water for the house and yard, everything we eat, wear, use and inhabit all needs water to be created and transported – much of it from places that are already or will be much more water scarce. In the United States, 40 percent of all the freshwater we use goes toward making electricity, and a good deal of energy is used to produce and treat water. As the cost of energy increases and water scarcity affects more parts of the world, the prices of both will increase. Learn more about the actual amount of water we consume by checking out this excellent infographic: http://bit.ly/J8EAFE.

Save without sacrificing Water-conserving homes can cut their water consumption by half (to 150 gallons a day from 300 gallons a day) without cutting out creature comforts. Many of the solutions that save water will also save energy and reduce wastewater and stormwater. For instance, a front-loading washing machine that uses 40 percent less water will also use less energy to heat and spin the water. Storing rainwater from rooftops reduces stormwater runoff and summer water bills. Calculate your impact and get tips on how to live green at Low Impact Living: http://bit.ly/lALaF.

The cycle is endless Treating wastewater costs five times as much as purifying the same amount of drinking water. The more wastewater we produce, the more money the Northeast Ohio Sewer District has to spend treating it – and the more wastewater gets flushed into our rivers and lakes during rain storms in older neighborhoods that have combined sewers and stormwater drainage systems. Although wastewater treatment is less a problem now in the United States than it was 40 years ago, wastewater and stormwater continue to have impacts here, and especially in poorer countries. For more, see Rose George’s entertaining and enlightening The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Steven Johnson’s The Ghost Map, which describes how an epidemic in London first led scientists to realize the existence of waterborne diseases.

For more Notes from the Field, see pages 15,17, and 19.

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It doesn’t matter where you live

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A Symbiotic Relationship Amelia Visnauskas ’14 and Arianna Kitzberger ’14 signed up for HB’s Science Research & Engineering Program class last fall, but found that their interests in ecology and natural sciences did not line up well with the traditional lab placements that program director Patty Hunt normally arranges. When they learned about the concept of biomimicry, a design approach that looks to nature for solutions to human design challenges, though, the girls found a fit for their interests. So rather than going to research labs, Visnauskas and Kitzberger spent time last year in the Industrial Design studio of Professor Doug Paige at the Cleveland Institute of Art. There, they assisted with a design project that reimagined the shipping channel at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River so that it would better support healthy fish populations. The HB juniors also entered a biomimicry design competition, using their newfound skills in primary literature research and translating biology into design principles to propose a green roof design that would support native biodiversity for Hathaway Brown’s Link Building.

The Lorax, HB’s Upper School environmental club, was founded in 1989 by Josi O’Brien’90 and Torrey McMillan ’90. It carries on today under the leadership of Joyce Guo ’13, pictured here. This year, The Lorax challenged students to make small but meaningful changes to their daily behaviors during Earth Week in April, ranging from carpooling or riding a bike to school, to going vegetarian, to bringing reusable mugs to their favorite coffee shops.


A wide array of additional content related to the work of the Center for Sustainability – including curricular information, Internet resources, charts and graphs, and other materials – is available online at www.hb.edu/magazine.

Cassandra Lynn Johnson Cleveland, Ohio

HB Class of 1984 Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, Columbia University, 1988 Director of Construction, University Hospitals

Start early

Think critically A Growing Ecosystem Growing sustainability at HB is about more than greening the buildings and operations. It is about building a whole web of related, interconnected ideas, practices, and values that support the goals of healthy people, communities and ecosystems. Watching this take root, so to speak, is like watching an ecosystem emerge and evolve. Some concepts and practices are already deeply rooted in the school’s approach, while others are emerging as young seedlings. Still other ideas remain seeds in the ground, waiting for fertile soil and the right conditions to emerge into being. We cross-pollinate and bring in new ideas by connecting with others active in the field in northeast Ohio and beyond. And sustainability at HB is not a program that stands alone. It is one of many trees in HB’s forest, each helping to support the other like the intertwined roots of neighboring oaks.

The process for identifying potential points for project LEED Certification needs to be strategic in order to meet program requirements and to stay within budget parameters. Beyond the prerequisite points required for certification, other points can be obtained in a variety of ways. The team needs to think through which points have the biggest impact on the facility in terms of building operations and return on investment.

Work together The best solutions come from collaboration, with LEED APs from varying disciplines. The discussion teams can become large, requiring more efficient management, yet solutions and strategic decisions are generated much more rapidly in this way.

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The sustainability effort needs to be a part of the project from the earliest stages of planning and design. The later in the project process that the sustainability initiatives are introduced, the further away from a cost-neutral position the project becomes. The most successful projects incorporate sustainability at the onset.

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Ruth Wylie, Director of Food Services Joined HB in 1991

How she collaborates with the Center for Sustainability: HB’s 2011 Education Innovation Summit was focused on how to make change for sustainability in our schools. With sustainability as the focal point of the event, it was important that the event itself reflected the school’s best efforts at sustainability. Torrey McMillan approached Ruth Wylie about the food that would be served, prepared to make her case. But she didn’t have to. To each request, Wylie cheerfully answered, “We can try that.” So it took all of 30 seconds to get Wylie commit to serving the 100 summit attendees an all-vegetarian menu highlighting locally produced foods. After 10 more minutes of discussion, the two found a way to reduce the event’s waste stream. They set the non-recyclable, non-compostable wastes from the meals at zero, which allowed them to remove the trash cans from the dining room completely before the guests arrived.

Sustainability initiatives undertaken during her tenure: 2007 Began efforts to source local foods

Replaced plastic plates and silverware used for events with compostable disposables

Removed trays from the Margery Stouffer Biggar ’47 and Family Dining Hall, cutting down on food waste and dishwashing

2010 Began pre-consumer and Early Childhood

food composting program

2011 Moved to serving whole-grain breads

and pasta to the entire school

2012 Expanded composting program to include

post-consumer food scraps from all divisions

Enrolled HB in Sodexo’s SMART program (sustainability management and reporting tool)

Collaborated on the Focus on Food month in April, bringing locally available featured foods to the Dining Hall each week

In her words: “Whether at work or in my personal life, I am always looking for opportunities to live a more sustainable lifestyle. I am concerned about preserving the planet and our natural resources and I am focused on ensuring that future generations enjoy our planet as much as I have. I make an effort to keep up with national sustainability efforts and best practices in order to constantly improve our work at HB. Although I am limited at times by my operating budget, I am proud of the way we can maximize our available resources to improve the sustainability of our operations at school.” How she imagines HB’s food service program 10 years from now: We’ll have more local and sustainable food options that appeal to people with diverse dietary needs.


Carolyn Coquillette San Francisco, California HB Class of 1996 Bachelor of Science, University of Michigan, 2000 Owner and Lead Technician, Luscious Garage, an environmentally-conscious auto repair shop

Words matter

Though not yet fully formed fruits, these ideas have surfaced this year. They are ideas that are waiting in the soil for the right conditions to grow. We hope that they will begin to blossom in the next year or two. Green roof on the Link Building Investing HB’s endowment with social and environmental impacts and policies of the companies in mind Planning for Zero Waste and Carbon Neutrality

Find the right fit Everyone has a choice: do nothing or do something. The “something” depends on how strongly you care – there is no way to fake it. The authenticity of a business’ message, on “green” or any topic, inevitably speaks to the quality of its root product or service. Thus it’s better to do nothing than pretend otherwise.

Take action Business owners: Check out B-Corp certification (www. bcorporation.net). “B” stands for “benefit,” with the idea that businesses are far better agents to solve problems than government regulation. The certification process is rigorous and holistic, where “green,” “sustainable,” and even “organic” designations fall short. Personally: Just do the best you can. In San Francisco, it’s pretty easy for me to ride a bike, eat local, and keep consumption down. Everyone is different, but every step toward reducing your impact will challenge you to do more.

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In the Seed Bank

I’ve never been a big subscriber to the terms “green” or “sustainable,” personally or professionally. For shorthand they’re indispensable; in practice they’re dangerous. Lacking specific benchmarks, both words can (and often are) used without any necessary commitment. They also risk selfcongratulation, suggesting that we’re doing something good, when really we’re doing something less bad.

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Vanessa Butler, Director of Marketing Joined HB in 2007

Sustainability initiatives undertaken during her tenure: 2007 Began printing the school magazine and

many other institutional publications on FSC-certified paper

Selected Oliver Printing and JakPrints to produce the school’s paper publications

Began the ongoing process of shifting from paper to electronic publications where possible

2012 Transitioning all copy and computer

paper used internally to 100 percent recycled and chlorine-free

How she makes sustainability a part of her personal and professional life: On a typical Saturday in the summer, you can find Vanessa Butler riding her Dutch cargo bike home from the farmers’ market, with plenty of fresh produce and her 2-year-old twins, Jude and Vaughn, in tow. At HB, her commitment to sustainability has translated into reducing paper use by creating more digital marketing materials, changing the type of paper we use for our publications, and carefully selecting the vendors we use for collateral materials. Butler contracts with Oliver Printing, a fourth generation family-owned Cleveland company, for the school’s high-end publications. She made that choice because she has seen that the company is committed to taking care of their employees, their community, and the environment. Oliver conducts operations at a level beyond that required by the rigorous Forest Stewardship Council for certification (the company was the first FSC-certified printer in Ohio). JakPrints, the printer Butler works with on smaller printing jobs with tight deadlines, also has a strong environmental ethic, choosing to limit their paper selection in order to reduce shipping and transportation costs. They also only use vegetable-based inks and have instituted incentives for their customers to recycle paper, and they run their own stellar in-house recycling program. In her words: “It’s important for us always to think about the mission of the school. Our mission is closely aligned with sustainability in the sense that we want to be a change agent, and I think our alumnae expect it of us. At home and at work, we need to remember to practice what we preach. Before I came to HB, I spent eight years working for advertising agencies and as the brand manager for Cuyahoga County Public Library system. Because that was a county government position, vendors and contractors bid on the jobs and we most often went with the company that had the cheapest price. This often frustrated me because the companies that had the lowest prices were not necessarily the ones that were the most responsible stewards of the environment, their employees’ wages, etc. So I sort of made a promise to myself that once I was in a position to choose vendors, I would pay more attention to those matters, because they really mean a lot in the grand scheme of things.” How she imagines HB’s communications office 10 years from now: We’ll be nearly paperless, with all publications distributed electronically.


Katherine Ann Freygang Cornwall, Connecticut and New York, New York HB Class of 1970 Bachelor of Arts in Human Ecology & Art, Connecticut College, 1974

The seed idea of having a community vegetable garden on campus has been floating around for a couple of years, and this spring it literally sprouted. Under the leadership of Megan Callanan ’14 and Caroline Doll ’14, HB has constructed five raised beds at the south end of the tennis courts next to the Pony Barn. Swing by the garden and take a peek if you are on campus for a sporting event, meeting, or just because you love to see a garden growing. Callanan and Doll are organizing a student leadership committee for the garden that will ensure that it is well cared for and utilized by a broad cross-section of classes at HB. They plan to donate a portion of the harvest to the Heights Food Pantry and imagine that in the future, the garden will produce a signature product for sale at the Brown Bag. Kale chips anyone?

Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Architecture, Rhode Island School of Design, 1981 Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design, Rhode Island School of Design, 1982

HB

The Community That Grows Together

Exhibition Designer, Educator, Ecologist, Artist

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Educate yourself Sustainability refers to a cultural shift that recognizes our natural resources as finite and precious, to be used wisely at any given time. This is not a foreboding message, but an invitation challenging our ingenuity to create behaviors that better consider and conserve what we have, because, as it turns out, there are limits.

Go online There’s plenty of help and fun afoot to co-create new behaviors, technologies and educational programs. My favorite links are: Ecological Impact Explained http://bit.ly/094L4L47 The Story of Stuff Project http://bit.ly/97hwa2 Center for Ecoliteracy http://bit.ly/P9RCuj Global Warming Solutions http://bit.ly/c8hI3

Pay attention It’s essential to notice the impacts of conservation practices (even on your electricity bill) and to become politically active, alerting legislators to support clean energy, education, state incentives and financing programs.


Gina Rubin Cody ’80, Elizabeth Chandler ’83, pictured with their children on the Mixon Family Playground at HB.

in foods and food production. Her concerns about chemical exposure have led her also to become active with the Shaker Heights group Beyond Pesticides Ohio. Having children changes everything. So does having cancer. The intimate presence of each as part of daily life brings to the surface some of the tough questions that we so often set aside as we contend with the day-to-day to-do list. At least, that’s what happened for two Hathaway Brown alumnae and parents, Gina Rubin Cody ’80 and Elizabeth Chandler ’83. Gina and her husband, Bill Cody, both were diagnosed with cancer last year. With twins Blake and Sara in Pre-K at HB and son William entering the Early Childhood program, the two had to confront head-on the questions of why and how cancer came into their lives. They had to ask themselves if there might have been something in the environment that triggered the disease. And they had to consider whether their children might have been exposed, too. Elizabeth and her husband, Carl Greppin, have a daughter, Katie, who is a third grader at HB. Their son, Chase, attended HB’s Early Childhood program and now is in the first grade at University School. He has several food allergies that led Elizabeth to pay even closer attention to the ingredient content

Both Elizabeth and Gina became involved with HB’s Center for Sustainability because they had questions and concerns about what kinds of pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals their kids might be exposed to at school. We asked them for their thoughts about improving the health and safety of the campus environment. Why should others in the HB community care about the products the school uses on its playing fields, grounds and in the buildings? Elizabeth: Children take in more pesticides relative to body weight than adults and they have developing organ systems that make them more vulnerable and less able to detoxify toxins. They have higher rates of respiration and more skin surface area per unit of body weight. Studies have shown that lawn pesticide product formulations show effects on learning ability, aggressiveness, memory, motor skills, and immune system function. Why at a place like HB would we not want to do what we can during these windows of vulnerability in our children’s lives to mitigate risk factors that could potentially compromise their mental and physical health, not to mention that of HB’s staff or our own?


Gina: Because it is a girls’ school raising smart young women to make educated choices at all stages of their lives. Because so much of what you read about pesticides and common household products says have serious toxins that are linked to endocrine, reproductive and developmental issues, not to mention increased risk for cancer. Think back to when we were growing up – was there this much cancer, food allergies, asthma, autism? If babies are being born with an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants already in their tiny bodies, doesn’t it make sense to start to be aware of these things and limit our exposure?

What barriers do you see to making more of these changes at HB? How can we overcome them? Elizabeth: Barriers include perceived cost, skepticism of an alternative program’s effectiveness and ability to achieve desired results, low tolerance for less-than-perfect grounds (especially at the onset), and lack of awareness. Education of the HB community would help it to overcome these barriers and make change in these areas more of a priority. Just take these few facts: Of the 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 19 have studies pointing toward carcinogens, 13 are linked with birth defects, 21 with reproductive effects, 15 with neurotoxicity, 26 with liver or kidney damage, 27 are sensitizers and/or irritants, and 11 have the potential to disrupt the endocrine (hormonal) system. Old ways harm microorganisms, beneficial insects, and earthworms essential to maintaining healthy soil and turf. They contribute to soil that restricts air and water movement and moisture retention. Fields without toxic chemicals can perform as well as any chemically maintained turf, with greater resiliency, safer playing surface, less water consumption, and greater drought resistance. Then consider how often HB kids are on the grass: terrace lunches, outdoor class, doing calisthenics before sports practice, playing sports, running around at recess, throwing water bottles, equipment, and clothing on the ground and the transfer to kids when they drink or use the equipment or clothing … this doesn’t even include their exposure to indoor chemicals and pesticides when they eat lunch or snacks, wash their hands several times a day, walk the halls, sit in class, study, or play with toys.

What would you like to ask others in the HB community to do? How can they help be part of the change? Elizabeth: Take the time to educate yourself and your children and be an advocate. It starts with you and what you do in your own home. Let your school and communities know that you care about these issues and that they are important to you. Be open to new ways of doing things and change. Collect ideas and best practices and share them. Wherever you reside, join this learning process that we all are in together. Gina: HB has a wealth of knowledge in our faculty, staff, parents and alumnae to start with. There is a repository of experience that starts in the home that we could bring to the school in a process-oriented way. It would at least create a hot list of things that we are collectively concerned about. This should be followed by a product audit in all areas of the school. I see this as jointly done by staff, parents and students. We need to research what other educational institutions are doing in this regard – there is no reason to reinvent the wheel or approach this in a vacuum. If others have a leg up and have made some strides in the same areas, we can build on and improve upon those. We can do this and be leaders in the Greater Cleveland area. I would like to see a committee formed to gather information and construct a plan of action. No doubt it will be a multi-step execution plan, but I think it would leave us with a “road to run on,” so to speak. Facts, combined with research of the broader community and listening to the specific needs of our families, faculty, staff and students will make for a great initiative that we can be proud of. I’d like to see HB, as it has so often done, set the bar for other institutions to live up to. If you have questions, concerns, or would like to get involved, please email tmcmillan@hb.edu or call 216.932.4214 x7227

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Industry, science, health care and public agencies are all looking closely at how these products are making their way into our lives. It is no longer the case that we don’t know the problems caused by these products. It is also no longer appropriate to use cost as an excuse for not taking protective action. We need to grab hold of the situation and seize control of our microcosm so that we can proactively protect those dearest to us: our children. I’d like to see HB and its greater community lead the way.

Gina: I see the barriers in a similar way. There is always the perception – and sometimes actual increases in cost – when it comes to undertaking some of these kinds of changes. Innovative changes are always this way. We need to push through this perception, while negotiating for best cost, and lead with the notion that the cost to our children’s lives is inestimable and that we should leave no stone unturned when it comes to their health now and in the future. I think HB’s progressive attitude and innovative mindset is already primed for pushing through common obstacles and barriers. We can’t wait for the EPA and FDA to take care of us; we need to do it now for our own good and let common sense lead the way.

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Adventures at home and in our nation’s capital Thirteen adventurous HB Upper School students began an odyssey of discovery last summer in the study of American Government and Constitutional Law. Their summer assignment was to read not only the U.S. Constitution, but also to read Hardball, a book by political analyst and MSNBC host Chris Matthews. In reading the book, the students came to understand the Matthews Maxims, which include such nuggets of wisdom as “dance with the one that brung ya” and “all politics is local,” through a written paper as well as class discussions. To tie the summer reading book to the class and to real life, HB alumna Colleen King ’00 came to Shaker Heights to speak to the students. King, a segment producer for Hardball with Chris Matthews, recounted her professional journey to this point, sharing anecdotes about

her time at HB, through college, and into her career. Not surprisingly, she was inspiring and energetic, and the girls loved her. All of the readings, discussions, visits, and videos prompted the class to take a trip to Washington, D.C. May 20-25. The experience was one they couldn’t have had on their own. Many people, including King and HB board member Chris Coburn (father of Caroline ’06 and Bridget ‘12) helped to coordinate visits to The White House, The World Bank, coffee with Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and tours of the Pentagon, the Smithsonian Museums, and historic Georgetown. Here’s what it was like from the girls’ perspective: this was no ordinary field trip. As we got off the train from Baltimore, finding ourselves in the impressive Union Station, we

encountered what would prove to be the biggest challenge throughout our stay: the DC Metro. Riding the Metro was a bit frustrating at times, but in the end it really made the trip less like a tourist stop and more like a true D.C. city-living experience. We spent our first few days looking at the beautiful monuments and museums around the National Mall, seeing Sheer Madness at the Kennedy Center, and eating at local food joints. We explored everything from Chinatown (our home base for the week), to the outskirts of the city, to the Smithsonian Zoo. We even spent an afternoon in Georgetown. On May 22, we headed out for our much-anticipated tour of The White House. After moving through three security checkpoints, we made it inside. Although we were only permitted to see a few select rooms, we got to chat with Secret Service


by Molly Krist with help from the members of her 2011-2012 American Government and Constitutional Law class

On the set of Hardball with Chris Matthews

After a stop at the United States Supreme Court that included a tour of the courtroom itself, we were lucky enough to meet with Tommy Ross, the intelligence and defense adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). He shared with us a brief overview of what his job encompasses, and then let us ask him questions about his office, what it’s like to work in Washington, and the state of U.S. foreign policy. Our last day started out a bit earlier so that we could be on time for our coffee with Senator Sherrod Brown at the Capitol Building. Once we arrived, we had the chance to ask him a few questions, too, and he even posed for a picture with us.

Our final stop before heading back to the airport was at NBC Studios, where we watched the filming of Hardball. Not only did we get to meet host Chris Matthews, but his guest that day was former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. What an incredible whirlwind tour of our nation’s capital! We’re so grateful that we learned so much from each other and from so many others over the course of an amazing and memorable year in the Upper School.

While she was at HB in October, Colleen King ’00 delivered the students a very special gift: a personal video address created for them on the set of Hardball by Chris Matthews himself. Visit www.hb.edu/magazine to watch.

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agents who were very knowledgeable about the history of the spaces, and we heard some wonderful stories about former Presidents and their First Ladies. We didn’t have a chance to meet President Obama, but we did see his family dog, Bo, who was being taken out by his own Secret Service agent. That evening, we joined Colleen King for dinner at Old Ebbitt Grill, a famous restaurant located just a stone’s throw from The White House.

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by Alyssa Furth ’13

aspire

Muchas Gracias to the Class of 2012 for their $14,000 donation to Aspire! The class voted to keep the proceeds from their fiesta-themed carnival fundraiser within the Hathaway Brown community and help ensure more girls have a chance at success.

Photo credit: Kevin Reeves

inspired by


“I get to be with 100 students who want to be here, learning, all summer long. That’s just awesome.” Sharon Baker, seventh grade English teacher, English Department Chair and Director of the WEST Fellowship Program at Hathaway Brown, lights up as she talks about her time at Aspire. “Here, they have an opportunity to be smart,” she says. Passion radiates as Baker talks about the three-year summer program that gives middle school girls from underresourced public schools the opportunity to develop their leadership skills and realize their academic potential.

According to Baker, many of the shy, quiet, “good” girls are ignored in the schools they come from; Aspire gives these girls a safe and loving environment in which they can learn and thrive. Shannon Jeffries, Aspire alumna and now apprentice teacher, describes her experience: “We all wanted each other to do well and succeed … It’s important for middle school girls to be here.” What really sets Aspire apart, though, is its two-part mission: Where girls learn to lead, and people are inspired to teach. There is no other program in Ohio that gives the college students the same opportunity as the Aspire teachers have to learn and grow. Rather than assisting as they would in other programs, college students lead in the classrooms and create a five-week core curriculum to teach to the Aspire girls. With the guidance of directing teachers who have professional experience, these apprentice teachers come up with their own lesson plans and conduct classes each day. It’s an experience that many of their peers will not get until much later in their careers.

It is clear by the number of teachers who have gone through the program that Aspire has done something right. Since its inception, the program has served 175 faculty from schools all over the country, including Vanderbilt, Bates, DePauw, The Ohio State University and Smith College – 87 percent of whom say that Aspire has solidified their decisions to choose careers in education. Serving as Directing Teachers and Deans, a number of faculty from the HB community are involved as well. Chris Franc, who has taught in the third grade for 12 years, is a Directing Teacher of social studies, while Baker, in her fifth year at Aspire, is Dean of Directing and Apprentice Teachers. Beginning her teaching career at East Technical High School in Cleveland, Baker knew she wanted to stay connected to the urban school district. She chose to work at HB expressly because the Aspire program would give her the perfect opportunity to do so. “Same-sex education—I think it’s incredibly powerful, and I just thought, ‘I have to know these girls,” Baker says. A longstanding member of the program’s admissions committee, she has served as Dean of Junior Teachers as well as a Directing Teacher in language arts. It is clear she is excited to be working in her current role, closely advising the teachers, helping them to develop their ideas and hone their teaching skills. “Teachers love to talk about teaching” she says. It’s evident right away that she feels the same way. Everyone involved with Aspire is infected with passion, inspiration and love. As you walk through the halls, you can feel the girls’ excitement for learning and leading bubbling from every direction, and spreading quickly to any stranger who visits. Aspire works because of the support and energy the community members give to each other and the commitment the students and staff have to learn, to lead, and to work together. To learn more about Aspire and to view a slideshow of the 10th Anniversary celebration, visit www.hb.edu/magazine.

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Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Aspire was created in 2002 by Cammy Dubie ’88 and Koyen Parikh Shah. Following in the footsteps of the five founding sisters of HB, these two women paved the way for girls in Cleveland to have an equal opportunity at education and leadership as their male peers. The program has served 394 girls coming from 28 Cleveland area elementary schools since its launch.

Aspire is a feedback-rich environment that provides layers of educational mentorship for its teachers and encourages them to flourish. “It’s a life-changing experience,” explains Jefferies, a psychology major at The Ohio State University. The Directing Teachers can sit down and critique the Apprentice Teachers immediately, and that kind of learning experience is hard to match. “Constructive criticism every second of every day … It’s just so valuable and rare,” Baker says.

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Honoring Our Traditions, Celebrating Our Future Alumnae Weekend 2012 was a great success. Alumnae traveled

2012

Alumnae Weekend

from near and far, returning to campus to celebrate the traditions

and relationships inspired by their alma mater, and to see how HB

is moving forward in educating young women today. Highlights from the festivities included the popular Lessons for Life Lunch

Box Forums, Cocktails and Conversations featuring a guided wine tasting with Margaret Mann ’03, and the Alumnae Luncheon with

guest speaker Elizabeth R. Click, a wellness expert and HB parent and trustee. Save the date – May 17-18, 2013!

“I just want to tell you how much I enjoyed my 50th reunion last weekend. It was so beautifully done – each event had its own meaning, its own purpose – and allowed us all to reconnect with both our classmates and our school. It also enabled those of us who don’t get back often to understand (more than we can through the publications) just how far HB has come, and how well prepared its graduates are to participate in this new world in which they will have to make their way.” - Suzanne Knecht ’62


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“We all have the ability to feel energized on a daily basis. Staying present in the moment is one key strategy.�

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- Elizabeth R. Click

Photo credit: Jason Miller



Photo credit: Jason Miller

1972 HB 29

1942

See more photos at http://hbalumnaeweekend2012.shutterfly.com/


Alumnae “I found going to a girls’ school an enriching experience,” says 2012 Distinguished Alumna Libbet Richter. “The value of women supporting women was ingrained in me early on.” Libbet ’62 and her sister, Katherine “Kitsy” Dunlop ’64, came to HB in 1958, when they moved from Canton, Ohio, to Cleveland Heights. Richter was in ninth grade.

After HB, Richter pursued a history degree at Wellesley College. Then she realized her dream of traveling abroad by working at the BBC’s European English radio service in London, through the Wellesley-Vassar Exchange Program. She worked as a production secretary for shows promoting Britain to continental audiences, including the pop music series Let’s Go and Focus on the Arts in Britain. She returned to the U.S. to work for It’s Academic, a television quiz show for high school students produced in Washington, D.C. Her lucky blind date with city planner Tobin Richter led to the couple’s 1970 wedding as Tobin began law school at the University of Virginia. Then her career took a “print” turn when she became women’s editor of the Charlottesville, Virginia Daily Progress. The couple moved to Chicago and Richter joined WLS-TV (ABC7) as a news writer, and later producer and executive producer. There, she received nine personal Emmy nominations and won a Chicago Emmy as producer of magazine series Eyewitness Chicago, but is perhaps best remembered for recruiting Oprah Winfrey to host AM Chicago.

Distinguished

Alumna Award

Elizabeth Dunlop Richter ’62

After 11 years, Richter moved to WTTW11, Chicago’s primary public television station, where she held various management positions, including vice president of production and vice president of national development. She continued to make her mark as a producer in Chicago when she served as director of theater at American Girl Place, establishing the company’s first live theater and producing stage musicals, television pilots, and music CDs based on American Girl books. Following a year with a healthcare Internet start-up, Richter established The Richter Group, a media strategy consulting firm. In 2008, she became vice president of marketing and communications for The Chicago Community Trust, the region’s community foundation. And today, Richter is a senior consultant with Arts Consulting Group, a national practice focusing on the arts and culture sector. Active in the community, Richter sits on the boards of TimeLine Theater, Green City Market, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, and the Rush University Medical Center Woman’s Board. Richter also credits HB and Wellesley with teaching her how important it is for women to help other women. When the dot-com boom imploded in 2000, she helped found Women In Transition (WIT), a professional networking group. In the last 12 years, more than 1,000 women have been supported through WIT, and there now are 250 active members. Richter is affectionately known among them as the “Mother of WIT.” “At HB, we were trained to be intellectually adventurous, to think critically, and to try a variety of things,” Richter says. “That has always stuck with me.” She and Tobin also have worked hard to instill those values in their adult children, Ian and Lauren, both now based in California.


Awards

Profiles by Kathleen Osborne Photos by Kevin Reeves

When she came to Hathaway Brown in the seventh grade, Jane Dalton ’62 was determined to make the most of all of the opportunities the school afforded. She and her sister, Nancy Dalton Perkson ’64, entered HB at the urging of their father, a graduate of University School who believed in the importance of topnotch education. “I really think HB gave me the belief that I could excel in anything I chose to do,” the 2012 Distinguished Alumna says. “Being among all girls was a wonderful environment for learning.” In the classrooms, Dalton remembers the teachers being dedicated to bringing out the strengths of their students. She also had a strong interest in music. During her HB years, Dalton was a member of the Glee Club, and she sang during assemblies and school performances. Outside of school, she sang with the Robert Shaw Chorale at her church. She continued to sing in college, and also to play field hockey, a sport that she took up at HB.

In 1971, Dalton took a full-time position with Duane Morris. She started in the Trial Department. To this day, she remains with the firm. The first female partner at Duane Morris, she has practiced before trial and appellate courts and administrative agencies in the areas of employment discrimination and personnel management, unfair competition and constitutional litigation, and other administrative litigation. She has defended law firms, educational institutions and businesses in individual and class actions in federal and state courts, defending various employment matters, including claims of discrimination, harassment and retaliation based on age, race, sex, disability, religion and national origin.

JANE LESLIE DALTON ’62

Over the years, she has defended several highly controversial and highly publicized cases. Officially retired from full-time practice at the end of 2010, Dalton continues to consult with Duane Morris and to represent some of her longtime clients. She also still is actively involved with the Philadelphia Bar Association. Dalton always has been committed to helping her female colleagues, and she now serves as co-chair of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession. Although she is still extremely busy, Dalton’s new schedule allows her some time to spend reading, learning to play golf, and visiting with her 10 grandchildren, all of whom live nearby with their parents. Balancing everything in her life hasn’t always been easy, but it certainly has been a priority. “When I was home, I couldn’t bring the office with me,” she explains. “And my children made sure that I didn’t.”

Distinguished

Alumna Award

HB

After high school, Dalton went on to study at Smith, and then to earn a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In the fall of 1968, she was one of 22 women in a law school class of 225. Having been married while she was working for the government, Dalton became pregnant with the first of her four children while she was a second-year law student. That same year, she was hired by Duane Morris LLP to work as a summer intern. She was the only woman in the office at that time.

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Hathaway Brown’s 2012 Alumnae Achievement Awardee holds the title of Vice President of Information, Technology & Solutions for Cleveland’s University Hospitals, a $1 billion, 15,000-employee, notfor-profit organization that includes an academic medical center, six community hospitals, 19 ambulatory care centers, six urgent-care centers, three outpatient surgery centers, and four fast-care clinics. “I am where I am today because my parents gave me an opportunity to attend Hathaway Brown,” says Liz DeMarco Novak ‘77. “It instilled in me a wonderful work ethic and helped make me who I am.”

Photo credit: Kevin Reeves

Novak calls herself “almost a lifer” at HB – she came to the school when she was in third grade and her sister, Karen DeMarco Converse ’79, was a first grader. Always drawn to mathematics, Novak earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Denison University after she graduated from HB. She followed that with an MBA from the University of California, Irvine, and she became a Certified Public Accountant. Her career began at the global firm KPMG, where she managed financial statement audits in the healthcare industry for a number of years. While she was there, she caught the attention of administrators for University Hospitals. In 1999, she was hired by UH to be the Chief Financial Officer of the organization’s academic medical center in University Circle. As technological advancements and streamlines have become increasingly important in business operations, Novak’s insights and expertise allowed her to successfully transition from Finance to Technology within UH. Because she so thoroughly understood the business processes that the technology would have to support, she was ideally suited to be the person who set UH’s strategic initiatives in this regard.

Elizabeth DeMarco Novak ‘77

In 2001, she accepted her current position as VP of IT&S. In the decade that has followed, she has overseen several major projects that have affected daily operations across the organization. Among other things, she supervised a team of 92 people who migrated all Financial, Human Resources, Supply Chain, and Grants Management computer systems to the Oracle platform. In partnership with Siemens, she also took the lead in moving all seven UH hospitals from disparate mainframe applications to an integrated state-of-the-art system to handle patient accounting functions including appointment scheduling, invoicing, and payment collection. The web-based Soarian platform that she helped activate was the first of its kind in the United States. Novak lives in Pepper Pike with Joe, her husband of 28 years. In the summer, they spend time boating, golfing, and gardening; in the winter, they curl. She also has kept in close contact with many of the women she met when they studied and played field hockey together at HB. In fact, several of her classmates who reside in the Cleveland area still meet to catch up and share memories. “HB is where I was given my foundation. I would love to be a student there again,” Novak says. “To see all of the programs offered, the outstanding curriculum, the focus on diversity – it’s awesome and very inspiring. The girls are so strong, and what they’re accomplishing is remarkable.”

HB’s 2012 Alumnae Award Winners were honored at a special dinner in May. To read extended profiles of these remarkable women, please visit www.hb.edu/magazine.


Alumnae & Friends

Photo credit: Lena Ransohoff ’13

Cambodia Trip March 2013

This March, 14 Upper School students had the opportunity of a lifetime to tour Cambodia through HB’s Center for Global Citizenship. It was a deeply meaningful educational experience that was both sobering and uplifting. Among other things, the girls paid their respects at the infamous Killing Fields where tens of thousands of people were executed by the Khmer Rouge, and they danced and played with children in an orphan village called A New Hope for Cambodian Children. HB will sponsor a special Cambodia trip for alumnae & friends of the school March 12–24, 2013. It will be patterned after the student trip. Visit www.hb.edu/cambodia for more information.


“It was so rewarding to meet my scholarship recipient and her mother. As I entered the front doors of Hathaway Brown and walked its halls, a wonderful flood of memories came rushing in – of my days as a senior blaring music in the senior room, our musical ‘talent shows,’ and of course, graduation day.

College, where she majored in English and French literature. She earned her J.D. from Case Western

Reserve University School of Law and practiced law at two international law firms in Cleveland before

I came home that day and told my husband, Rick, the entire experience was one of the most significant things I’ve done in a long time. I’ll never forget the fact that others donated to make my HB education possible and it’s an honor to create similar opportunities for others.”

joining McKinsey & Company. She now lives in

Richfield, Ohio, with her husband, Rick. Lisa has long believed in the importance of giving back, and she’s

a member of the Mary E. Raymond Legacy Society,

Lisa Battaglia Fedorovich ’83 Cleveland, OH

having generously included HB in her estate plans.

To learn more about contributing to the Principle Scholars Program, becoming a member of the Mary E. Raymond Legacy Society, or other ways to support Hathaway Brown, please contact Clarke Leslie, Associate Head for Advancement at 216.320.8107 or Mary Rainsberger, Director of Gift Planning, at 216.320.8115 or mrainsberger@hb.edu.

Alumnae News

Photo Credit: Jason Miller

Lisa Fedorovich HB ’83 attended Mount Holyoke

The Principle Scholars Program gave me the opportunity to meet the HB student who benefited from my donation. She’s a stellar achiever with remarkable potential, and her mother was lovely and so appreciative. As a scholarship recipient myself, I truly appreciate the importance of this gift.

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19600 North Park Boulevard

Shaker Heights, Ohio 44122

mark your calendar www.hb.edu/upcomingevents Dance Concert

September 21, 2012, The Ahuja Auditorium, 7:30 p.m. Bill Evans Dance Company

Learning for Life Speakers’ Series

September 25, 2012, Margery Stouffer Biggar ’47 & Family Dining Hall, 6 p.m. Dr. Edward Hallowell

Education Innovation Summit Keynote Presentation: October 4, 2012, HB Gymnasium, 6:30 p.m. Thomas Friedman, The New York Times

Middle & Upper School Open House: October 21, 2012, 1:30-3:30 p.m. For prospective families, grades 5-12.

Infant & Toddler, Early Childhood & Kindergarten Open Houses: November 10, 2012 and January 26, 2013, 10–11:30 a.m.

Choosing a Kindergarten:

November 14, 2012, Anne Cutter Coburn Reception Room, 8:30 a.m. For parents of prospective kindergarten students.

Upper School Musical

November 16-17, 2012, The Ahuja Auditorium, 7:30 p.m. Hairspray

Meet the Author Series:

December 4, 2012, The Ahuja Auditorium, 7 p.m. Jennifer Miller, The Year of the Gadfly

MasterWorks: Photo Credit: Martha Strong ’12

December 10, 2012, 7:30 p.m., Tri-C East Campus A winter concert of HB choruses and orchestras.


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