HSCReview
The Game Changer
Tiger-Cats owner Bob Young ’72 has had a wild ride in business and sport
The magazine for the Hillfield Strathallan College community
Spring 2019
We are so excited to be back at the school that holds so much of our family history. We are so thankful to be able to continue in their footsteps.
We Can’t Wait! To learn more about having your children carry on the legacy, contact admissions@hsc.on.ca
Ben ’24 and Renae ’22 Clark, along with their cousin Emma Barrow ’22, have a long history with HSC. They join the likes of their Great Great Aunt (Sydney Thompson ’39) and Great Grandmother (Mary Clark ’42), and their Great Great Great Uncle John Chilton ’12 (son to Major-General the Honourable S.C. Mewburn). Each day they walk through the halls and know that they are carrying on their family legacy.
Contents
14
6
38
32
Features 14 The Game Changer Bob Young ’72 has transformed tech and the Tiger-Cats 20 On the Caring Edge Sheila Singh ’90 talks medicine, cancer research and family
Departments 6
College Life
38
Top Honours
32 The Least Funny Person in the Room Mayce Galoni ’12 is one of Canada’s hottest young comedians
48
Giving
35 Safe Spaces Julia Falco ’11 takes the road less travelled
50
Lives Lived
52
Where the Grads Are
24 The Laws of Style Why Shawn Hewson ’91 switched from clauses to clothes 28 AAnne-Marie Powerful Advocate Hourigan ’77 fights for mental health change
The Alumni Award of Distinction The Alumni Hall of Excellence HSC Lifers Stellar Students Great Grads Perfect Prefects The Morgan Family Scholarship benefits inner-city students
SPRING 2019 | 1
852
Gifts to HSC were made last year
Number of students who benefitted last year:
1193
STUDENTS (ALL 4 SCHOOLS)
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
PLAYGROUND PROJECT
DAVID TUTTY JOY AND INNOVATION FUND
SCHOLARSHIPS AND BURSARIES
AREA OF GREATEST NEED
MAKE YOUR GIFT TODAY: HSC.ON.CA/DONATE
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Masthead HSC Review is published by the Advancement and Communications Office of Hillfield Strathallan College. We welcome your comments and suggestions. Please contact Zahra Valani at 905-389-1367 ext. 162, or communications@ hsc.on.ca. Visit our website at hsc.on.ca.
Editorial Director
Text and Photography
Cover
Vanessa Lupton
Eric Bosch, Jessica Deeks,Patricia Hluchy, Alessandro LoSardo, Markian Lozowchuk, Vanessa Lupton, Bruce McDougall, Mirza Noormohamed, Joe O’Connor, Leigh Righton, Kevin Patrick Robbins, Riley Stewart, William Vipond Tait, Nora Underwood, Wandering Eye Photography, Barbara Wickens, Norman Wong, Berton Woodward, Frank Zochil
Photograph of Bob Young by Markian Lozowchuk
Editorial Advisor Berton Woodward
Design and Production Director of Advancement & Communications Zahra Valani
Hambly & Woolley Inc. www.hamblywoolley.com
Printing Barney Printing Copyright 2019 Hillfield Strathallan College SPRING 2019 | 3
Messages
Building Connections The commitment, engagement and generosity of our community is helping us realize our goals of leadership and excellence
AS WE DEVELOPED OUR 2015 STRATEGIC PLAN, Towards 20/20, we wanted to build upon
a strong foundation of programmatic excellence and truly become leaders in independent school education in Canada. When a school thinks about becoming its best self, I’m a firm believer in building on strengths as opposed to looking solely at gaps that may need to be filled. In all of the consultations that we conducted, one of the greatest strengths of HSC was consistently identified as community—a community committed to our past, present and future. One of the strategies that we identified was enhanced engagement and communications with the many different parts of our community. This has been a huge focus for us in what we call “Whole School Connected”. The development of myHSC as a learning management and communication system, the increased use of social media to instantly celebrate learning in the classroom, and even a new electronic sign at the corner of Garth and Fennell are just some examples of how we’re trying to keep the community in touch and engaged. Another exciting goal was related to the development of a mentoring strategy and this has led to the launch of HSC Mentor Connect. This online platform allows HSC community members to share expertise through career conversations, résumé critiques and mock interviews. These one-on-one connections, through the active network of mentors that we’ve developed, help alumni and students build the best possible career networks. The feedback is that the mentors love it as much as the mentees!
By Marc Ayotte Head of College
One final piece of this strategic direction related to the desire for HSC—as an independent school that by definition doesn’t receive outside funding—to build awareness of the need to invest in the College and develop an integrated approach to philanthropy that matches donors’ passions with the needs of the College. With some of the amazing gifts that we’ve had to complete the Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Excellence, the Losani and Lawrie Tennis Complex, and the renovations of Lawson Hall and the Page Gym, we have shown that when there is a need, the College finds a way through the support of parents, alumni, staff and friends of HSC. Another amazing example is the Morgan Family Scholarship. Through the generosity of Nigel Morgan ’86, every year a new Grade 9 student who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend HSC will be able to do so with all tuition and fees covered for four years. This is one of the largest single gifts to endow scholarships at any independent school in Canada, and it came to be because the extraordinary generosity of a member of the HSC community found an amazing match for his philanthropic interests in an opportunity at HSC. For all of you who help support this amazing community with your time, talent, and treasure, we thank you!
4 | HSC REVIEW
Photos by Frank Zochil
“When a school thinks about becoming its best self, I’m a firm believer in building on strengths as opposed to looking solely at gaps that may need to be filled.”
Messages
The Impact of HSC Spring is an exciting time to reconnect with old friends at College alumni events
AS HSC ALUMNI, we have all felt the impact of the HSC community. So much more than just a school, HSC has connected us not only to the College but to one another. As you read through this issue of HSC Review, I hope you feel connected and engaged with this very special community. Spring at HSC is always an exciting time. With Homecoming 2019 taking place on Saturday, May 11, the College will be abuzz with current families, students, alumni, faculty and staff celebrating what it means to be part of the community. Homecoming features a full day of activities, with the evening honouring the alumni classes ending in ’4 and ’9. The 23rd Annual HSC Golf Classic follows right on the heels of Homecoming, and is a favourite tradition at HSC. On Tuesday, June 18, 2019, golf enthusiasts will pick up their putters to help the Alumni Association raise funds for HSC scholarships and awards. Held at the Dundas Valley Golf and Curling Club, the Golf Classic is a great way to make new contacts and reconnect with old friends. Coming home to HSC not only strengthens our connections to the campus and our friends, but it shows current students the magnitude of our community, both past and present. Whether you are still strongly connected to our community, or whether you have lost touch over the years, I encourage you to attend one of these fantastic events and reawaken your HSC spirit.
By Charlie Sherman ’03
President, HSC Alumni Association
“Coming home to HSC not only strengthens our connections to the campus and our friends, but it shows current students the magnitude of our community, both past and present.”
SPRING 2019 | 5
College Life
6 | HSC REVIEW
Not Your Average Cooking Class Senior students show off their culinary chops in a real-life business
Stories by Vanessa Lupton IF A BACON, POTATO AND MONTEREY JACK QUESADILLA SOUNDS GOOD TO YOU, then keep your eye out for the creative creations that
come from the Trojan Panwerx kitchen. The Senior School culinary course provides students in Grades 11 and 12 with the opportunity to learn inventive cooking skills, client management and event planning, and even offers insight into balancing budgets. “We knew that there were students who could really benefit from an elective that was getting them into a different setting, away from their screens,” says Misty Ingraham, who created and teaches the Panwerx course. “The class is very hands-on and offers a lot of skills that are important for students to learn. It operates in a style that reflects project-based learning and really gives students a look at the culinary side as well as the hospitality industry and the business knowledge that is needed.” Crepe making is one of the culinary skills that students in the Panwerx class learn Photos by Wandering Eye Photography and William Vipond Tait
College Life
2018 – 2019
College Life
Rather than use a recipe-based lab approach to cooking, Panwerx teaches professional methodologies and operates as HSC’s own studentrun catering business. “The course has been a big success and our reputation is such that we are continuing to get internal clients,” says Ingraham. “Right now, we are in the process of putting together a proposal for an education conference. We have also done a series of lunch-and-learn sessions with the Student Success Centre, we catered both the Board of Governors Christmas dinner and the Fashion Wish fundraiser.” The Grade 11 course teaches students about safety and sanitation and then moves on to knife work. Students work with a variety of knives,
“The course has been a big success and our reputation is such that we are continuing to get internal clients.”
The Panwerx course gives students a glimpse into the culinary industry while teaching them practical skills (above); learning how to cook a perfectly al dente pasta (right)
ranging from bird beak and straight paring knives to French styles. They learn about the different cuts (e.g., julienne and brunoise) and have lessons on vegetable cookery, producing proper textures (the chemistry behind cooking), and how to properly cook starches. Students in the Grade 12 course study shellfish and other specialty foods, learn how to fillet a fish, and undertake a higher degree of baking complexity. “The program really gives students an introduction to the industry and allows them to learn a new skill set,” says Ingraham. “It has really taken off!” SPRING 2019 | 7
College Life
generated are used to help further enhance this thriving program and allows us to provide authentic experiences for our students.” In addition to revenue from select event ticket sales, the series also actively searches for donors who are interested in supporting the arts. Sponsorship funds help to enhance the education experience of students through visual arts special guests, field trips, music retreats and unique opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t be available. Whether it is creating professional-quality recordings, working with industry professionals or adding a new instrument to HSC’s collection, the Expressions Performing Arts Series can help make those artistic dreams happen.
A Series of Fortunate Events
Creating artistic opportunities for students to shine LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! HSC has a long history
Celebrating Hot Jazz on a Cold Night (right); Middle School students show off their acting chops with their production of Aladdin Jr (below)
HSC’s arts program gives students the chance to explore their passions (left); Senior School students bring Chicago to life (right) 8 | HSC REVIEW
Photos by Eric Bosch and Frank Zochil
of nurturing the artistic passions of its students, whether through the exploration of the visual arts, music or theatrical productions. The Expressions Performing Arts Series helps inspire HSC’s would-be performers and artists by making the arts accessible to the entire HSC community. Many events, such as the school music nights, are free, while revenue-generating ticketed performances include the Senior and Middle School musicals and Hot Jazz on a Cold Night, presented by the HSC Jazz Ensembles. For the 2018-19 year, Senior School and Middle School students had their chance to shine in their musical productions. The Senior School brought Chicago to life, while the Middle School showcased the whimsy of Aladdin Jr. “All performances, both ticketed and free, are part of the Expressions Performing Arts Series,” says Allan Gaumond, Director of Arts. “The funds
College Life
5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know about HSC But now you do
There are between 50 and 55 competitive teams that represent our College every school year. These teams start for students in Grade 3 (U9) and continue through to Grade 12.
$
The David Tutty Joy and Innovation Fund has helped students, faculty and staff to dream big and open the doors of possibility. With 41 projects having been brought to life, this important fund helps to grow students’ confidence to be whatever they want to be. It was established by HSC to honour David Tutty, one of the community’s most active and enthusiastic members, after his passing in 2014.
Outdoor learning spaces received a new addition thanks to the Grade 7 students
Learning the Picnic Tables
A math project adds to HSC’s outdoor education space A SET OF PICNIC TABLES HAS helped Grade 7 students learn the practical
Underneath the historic parts of HSC (Holton and Strathallan through to Killip) runs an underground tunnel system that is used to house piping.
Photo by Wandering Eye Photography
HSC has been actively involved with ME to WE since 2011, when we hosted our first annual Mini WE Day event. ME to WE is a social enterprise that empowers people to change the world through their everyday consumer choices. It was founded by brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger in 1995 under the original name “Kids Can Free the Children”, when Craig was 12.
A trio of gargoyle heads once adorned the façade of the Primary Wing entrance of Highfield School for Boys, the original school that later became Hillfield. You may have spotted these historic pieces as they were outside the Holton building for a period of time.
importance of math. It began when a group of faculty members was looking to make math more authentic and project-based for students, and to improve HSC’s outdoor learning spaces. “We wondered if we could create a math project that would fill both of those needs,” says Middle School teacher Carrie Annable. “From this idea the picnic table project was born, and we adapted our final term of Grade 7 math to be focused around it. Students learned about measurement and ratio along with rate and per cent through this project.” In order to bring the plan to life, Annable and fellow Grade 7 math teachers Jill Abrams and Tom Stanton submitted an application for funding for four picnic tables through the David Tutty Joy and Innovation Fund. Once approved, the project was launched with a field trip to Home Depot where students learned about the different kinds of materials they could use for their picnic table proposals. “We were fortunate enough to connect with an alumnus, Cameron Curran, who is a store manager at the Home Depot in Stoney Creek,” says Annable. “He welcomed our students and talked to them about building a picnic table. The students were also fortunate to have Lorraine Roberts from Losani Homes do a presentation about how math is used in building.” As the students worked on their picnic table projects, they received feedback from HSC Director of Operations Chris Kwiecien and former Launch Pad curator Michael Wiens. After the students gave presentations on their proposals, six were selected for a final pitch. The winning design, submitted by Raymond Kong, Ben Rutledge and Charlie DeBoer, was used as the blueprint for building day. SPRING 2019 | 9
College Life
Getting Their Hands Wet
“They are able to use modelling to apply the knowledge they learned while on our trip to the RBG during e-week,” says Hannah, referring to HSC’s week of off-campus education activities held each fall. “We learned from their expert staff, came back and thought, what can we do at HSC to improve biodiversity on campus?” One of the more successful uses of HSC’s aquaponics system is the growth of cattails. The seeds start in the system indoors and, when the cattails become too big, get moved into an outdoor aquatic nursery. Once fully grown, the cattails are transferred to the RBG where they are planted within the wetland. Allowing for further scientific exploration, the aquaponics system was also briefly home to some forest plants—wild ginger in particular. “This year three students used the system to grow wild ginger from root stalk that was locally harvested,” says Hannah. “The students planted it in the system to see if they could get the roots to grow. Essentially it was a cloning experiment and they were able to successfully clone wild ginger that will be transferred to the Carolinian forest that we have on campus.”
Students examine how they can improve biodiversity at HSC MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE LEARNING ABOUT WETLANDS and
biodiversity by building their own mini-wetland. Led by teacher John Hannah, the students are using an aquaponics system to model the natural environment of Cootes Paradise, a wetland that is part of the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) and the broader Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve. An aquaponics system combines aquaculture (fish and other aquatic animals) and hydroponics (growing plants without soil) in a symbiotic relationship which results in the plant life being fed the aquatic animals’ discharge or waste. “In the aquaponics system, the wetland system below is the turtles and the substrate and the nutrients they produce,” says Hannah. “The section above is where the cattails and other plants are, and they receive their nutrients from the water below.” In an example of HSC’s project-based learning approach, the students have been experimenting with cattail seeds, tropical plants and other forest plant roots, with a high level of success.
Middle School teacher John Hannah teaches his class about local biodiversity (left)
Photos by Frank Zochil
The classroom aquaponics system lets students learn about wetland systems (below & right)
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College Life
The Glass Classroom
Celebrating Montessori Week for all to see IMAGINE 16 THREE-TO-NINE-YEAR-OLDS IN DEEP CONCENTRATION ON THEIR STUDIES as
Photo by William Vipond Tait
more than 400 students pass by on their way to lunch, talking and laughing. In March 2019, that scenario was reality as the Montessori School celebrated International Montessori Week by conducting a week-long demonstration in the Kemper Family Lounge as a means of recreating the Montessori Glass Classroom of the 1915 San Francisco World’s Fair. The 1915 version, involving glass walls on three sides, amazed spectators as students took their classes inside, undistracted by the hubbub. It helped launch the Montessori Movement in the U.S. At HSC, each class had the opportunity to work within the space to give the rest of the College a close-up view of this student-centred and personalized learning program in action.
“It was an amazing experience for all involved,” says Montessori Principal Danielle Hourigan. “The children seamlessly adapted to the very public venue and went about their studies.” HSC staff came by, teachers brought entire classes to observe the children, and past Montessori graduates revisited their educational roots. “Overwhelmingly, the main comments about the event focused on how engaged the children were in their activities as they moved happily from one self-selected task to another,” says Hourigan. “This is what we as Montessori teachers see in our classes every day. We are just pleased to have had the opportunity to share a bit of Montessori with the whole College.”
A young Montessori student focuses on the task at hand (right); a Montessori class set up in the Kemper Family Lounge (below)
Students work their way through selfselected tasks in the Montessori Glass Classroom (right)
SPRING 2019 | 11
Muddy Buddies
A new program encourages learning in even the rainiest weather GIVING CHILDREN THE CHANCE TO LEARN AND PLAY OUTSIDE IS an important part
of development, but what happens when mucky weather regularly gets in the way? That question became more urgent with the shift in Toddler-throughSenior-Kindergarten education to focus on programming that incorporates open-ended exploration, inquiry and problem-solving through outdoor play. Leaders of the Junior School found themselves wondering how to balance this new way of teaching and learning with the limitations imposed by unfavourable weather. Inspired by former Junior School faculty member Sarah Walker and her colleagues, the Muddy Buddy program was born. Motivated by The Playground Project to renovate College playgrounds and HSC’s health and wellness commitment in its Towards 20/20 strategic plan, they submitted a proposal to the David Tutty Joy and Innovation Fund which allowed for the purchase of 75 rain suits for children aged 16 months to five years. 12 | HSC REVIEW
Junior School students get ready to get muddy
Given the impact of technology on children’s lives, education experts say, it is important to create balance by providing learning experiences in natural settings that engage and activate all senses. The addition of these “wet weather” suits allows every child to have access to the outdoors—regardless of whether it is beautiful and sunny or rainy and muddy. Learning will not be limited by the weather forecast. Allison Wall, a teacher in the Junior School who was instrumental in the formation of the Muddy Buddy program, credits these suits with an increased level of freedom as well as an understanding of the cause and effect of playing outdoors. (For example, what happens if I jump in this puddle?) “We just want kids to be able to play, for them to know that it’s okay to get dirty and that it’s okay to be able to explore and learn and have fun,” says Wall.
Photos by Wandering Eye Photography
College Life
College Life
From Wishes to Gifts Students give back to the community
Senior School students visit Adelaide Hoodless (above)
Photos by Wandering Eye Photography
EVERY DECEMBER, IN THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE HOLIDAYS , the HSC community comes together
to recognize the importance of giving back. Each of the four schools works to make the season better for children in need. Continuing a long relationship with Adelaide Hoodless, an elementary school in Hamilton, the Senior School’s Christmas Wish Tree allowed students to turn a “wish” into a gift, providing presents to support two classes, each with 25 students. “The Wish Tree has been an integral part of the Senior School’s holiday festivities for many years,” says Service Prefect Meghan Mitchell. “It gives students and teachers a simple way to give back to our local community and provide a young child with possibly their only holiday gift.” Each year the prefects hand-deliver the gifts while spending time with the students at Adelaide Hoodless. “Seeing a child’s eyes light up with so much joy is truly remarkable,” says Meghan. “Every year the prefects come away from the experience moved, usually not without tears, and this year was no exception. The work we are doing as a school is having an impact.”
Middle School students delivered toys to St. Matthew’s House
Continuing to spread Christmas cheer, Middle School students showed their generosity by conducting a toy drive in support of St. Matthew’s House. This Hamilton organization works to provide community support in areas such as food security, children’s services, seniors and low-income families. HSC students rallied to collect toys and, in early December, a small group of faculty and students delivered them so they could be handed out to local children. Following suit, the Junior School and Montessori School also ran toy drives, each collecting enough toys to ensure that more than 100 children received a gift at Christmas. The Junior School partnered with Neighbour 2 Neighbour, and the Montessori School supported Wesley Urban Ministries. Both organizations work towards making a difference in the lives of families within the Hamilton area. “This was a wonderful opportunity for our students to help others, and the Grade 4 students made a trip to deliver the toys once the drive was over,” says Hilary Munn, School Life Coordinator for the Junior School. “It was a fantastic way to give back and spread holiday cheer.” SPRING 2019 | 13
14 | HSC REVIEW
The Game Changer Hamilton Tiger-Cats owner Bob Young ’72 has had a wild ride in business and sport By Berton Woodward Photography By Markian Lozowchuk
SPRING 2019 | 15
ou can call Bob Young ’72 a “serial entrepreneur,” which he pretty
much is. You can even call him a “Luddite,” which he claims he is, despite having co-founded one of the most successful Canadian-owned tech companies ever, Red Hat, Inc.
16 | HSC REVIEW
JUST DON’T CALL HIM A “BILLIONAIRE.” Despite those dramatic headlines last fall
when IBM agreed to buy Red Hat for US$34 billion, Bob won’t see much of it. He gradually divested himself of most of his shares—still very lucratively—in the early 2000s. “You could say I was briefly a billionaire, at the peak in 2000,” he says with his trademark self-deprecation. Even so, the company that IBM bought is still infused with the ethic and culture of Bob Young, and his legacy may be to affect IBM more than IBM affects Red Hat. Typically, Bob shies away from that premise—noting it has been 13 years since he was involved—but he readily agrees that his old company’s fundamentals remain incredibly strong. “The joke I tell is they got the headline wrong—it should have been Red Hat buys IBM,” he says. Of course, as nearly every Hamiltonian knows, what Bob really likes to be called is “Caretaker”. That’s his self-chosen title at the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, the languishing Canadian Football League team he bought in 2003 and built into a major contender. As he likes to explain, the Ti-Cats are a 150-year-old
Bob poses in the centre of Tim Hortons Stadium, home of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats
team, and he trusts they’ll still be going 150 years from now. “I am simply the caretaker for this period,” he says. “It’s the fans who own the team.” Not that he blames any fan for what he calls the “crushingly disappointing” end to last season, when the Ti-Cats came so close to making it to the Grey Cup before losing the eastern championship to Ottawa. “The fans assume it was something we did wrong, but it was just that our competitors did it better,” he says. “The team that had our number all season was the Ottawa Redblacks.” Now, he promises, “we are hard at work on a plan that will make us better in 2019.” SPRING 2019 | 17
B Beyond that, he has two fundamental goals. “As a Ti-Cat fan I want to win the Grey Cup,” he says (the last time was 1999). “And I am committed to making the Tiger-Cats financially stable far into the future.” Now, too, he has a new sports passion— getting the seven-team Canadian Premier League off the ground in its debut soccer season, which begins in April 2019. He is enthusiastic about the prospects for the British-style league, built around soccer clubs, and for his Hamilton Forge team being a dominant force in it. “You only have to look at the map to see that Hamilton is at the centre of the Golden Horseshoe, which contains everything from Niagara Falls to Oshawa,” he says. “Toronto is just one of the suburbs of the Greater Hamilton Area.” Of Toronto’s Major League Soccer team, Toronto FC, he says disdainfully: “Yes, the Americans have a team in Toronto that plays in the American league, that is true.” 18 | HSC REVIEW
Bob watches over his teams on visits from his home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he has lived since the early days of Red Hat, co-founded in 1993 with techie Marc Ewing, who lived there at the time. But he feels strongly about his birthplace. “Unlike the glitzy, self-promoting culture of Toronto or other money-centre cities, Hamilton is a hard-working, self-effacing, bluecollar town,” he says. “Hamilton’s culture is very much part of who I am, and who the friends I grew up with in Hamilton and at HSC are.” His Hamilton roots go back to 1820, when John Young, a Scottish merchant, arrived and started a line of family entrepreneurs. They went into textiles and ultimately office equipment leasing as the Hamilton Group. “So it’s no surprise that I am an entrepreneur,” says Bob. “I’m the furthest thing from a self-made man.” He likes the fact that his grandfather, John Vernon Young, played for the Grey Cup-winning Hamilton Tigers in 1913. “His name is on the Cup, under his nickname Bill,” Bob says. Bob’s great-grandfather, James Mason Young, tried to visit Bill when he was an invalid from the First World War, but died with his wife on the ill-fated Lusitania. “They were last seen holding hands jumping into the Irish Sea.” Bob’s father David ’41 as well as uncles William ’35 and Alan ’47, plus many of his cousins, all went to HSC. His father excelled, and received from HSC leather-bound copies of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and Shakespeare plays. “I keep them, reminding me of the differences between myself and my father—he was a very smart guy and a very good student, and I was the very reverse of that,” he chuckles. He thinks he may have undiagnosed attention deficit disorder and swears that an HSC teacher once said that if his head wasn’t attached to his body he would have lost it. He spent his early elementary years at HSC, then moved to Europe when his father was posted there by the Hamilton Group, mainly leasing computers. Studying in Paris and London, Bob ended up well-educated, bilingual and looking for a job. He started selling typewriters for his father in Aberdeen, Scotland, and then, over the next decade, bought and successfully transformed a failing typewriter rental business in Canada, sold it to the family, left to start a computer rental business, got into financial trouble amid the early ’90s recession, sold the business to a financial services company, moved on behalf of that company to the New York City area, and then watched that company dissolve into bankruptcy. “So my net worth, which I thought was something like 3 or 4 million dollars, went back to below what it was when I graduated college 15 years earlier, only now I had three kids and a big mortgage.”
“Unlike the glitzy, self-promoting culture of Toronto or other moneycentre cities, Hamilton is a hard-working, self-effacing, blue-collar town. Hamilton’s culture is very much part of who I am.”
He and his Montreal-born wife Nancy, whom he had met at a ski party in Collingwood, Ont. in 1981, lost a lot of sleep, he says. “But if it had not been for that setback, I would still be in the equipment leasing business.” He started a new business “in Nancy’s sewing closet,” as he tells it, publishing periodicals covering the UNIX computer operating system, which morphed into a software mail-order service. “I found the most popular articles were about open-source software, which was growing rapidly with the spread of the internet.” That included Linux, a free version of UNIX developed by Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds. A couple of customers suggested Bob connect with programmer Ewing, who was offering a well-engineered version called Red Hat Linux. “What we found was a match made in heaven—I needed a product and he needed someone who could sell the product.” So Bob moved to the cheaper environs of Raleigh and they went forward as partners under the Red Hat
Bob takes a moment to snap a selfie with linebacker Simoni Lawrence
name. Soon Bob had built the company into the world’s top provider of Linux and customtailored Linux solutions, used by countless large enterprises around the world to run their systems. But wasn’t he selling software that, being open to anyone, is seemingly free? Bob notes that most services in society are effectively free, if you want to do them—anyone can write their own contract or go to court without hiring a lawyer. But the technology industry— led by, yes, IBM—managed to get around that with computers by keeping the fundamental operating source code secret. “It was like buying a car with the hood locked shut, where the only people who were allowed to work on the engine were the people who sold you the car,” says Bob. “And if there was a problem with your car, and they claimed, ‘No, that rattle is meant to be there,’ you had to put up with the rattle.” There is a similar theme to Bob’s current venture, Lulu.com, which he started in 2004 to help people publish their own writing—after he had a bad experience in the publication of his own memoir. He says traditional publishers have too much clout in deciding what’s good to publish. “We empower all those authors who were going to get a rejection slip to sell their content to their audience without having to ask permission of the publishing industry.” Since 2014, Bob has also been part of the Raleigh-based business PrecisionHawk, using drones to gather agricultural data, and he helps Nancy with her voluminous needlepoint-kit site, Needlepoint.com. He describes himself as an Adam Smith style capitalist, with a Victorian-era belief that self-interested businessmen produce the best society because they must cater to their customers. But he acknowledges that the businesses he’s gone into all seem to support the public good. “I choose to invest my time in projects that cater to mankind’s higher instincts,” he says. “If I can help disseminate knowledge through Lulu, if I can contribute to science by open-sourcing software, and if I can help our society be healthier by inspiring our kids to get out and kick soccer balls—well, they do all fall into that category.” He also supports a variety of causes as a philanthropist. He might demur, but perhaps the simplest and best thing to call Bob Young is an allaround good guy. SPRING 2019 | 19
Photo by
20 | HSC REVIEW
On the Caring Edge
Neurosurgeon Sheila Singh ’90 is a leader in brain cancer research
Photo by
By Patricia Hluchy Photography By Kevin Patrick Robbins
SPRING SPRING 2019 2019 | | 21 21
D DR. SHEILA SINGH ’90 STARTED TO READ THE WORKS OF SIGMUND FREUD when she was all of 10 years
old. She would sneak into the Dundas, Ont. home office/library of her psychiatrist father, who possessed the pioneering psychiatrist’s entire oeuvre, and dip into Freud’s books. She became fascinated with the brain and how little we know about it, she recalls. “My father used to take me to conferences when I was quite young and to work with him at the hospital, and sometimes I’d even see patients with him.” The mission of caring for others—Sheila’s many roles include pediatric neurosurgeon at McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton and scientist at McMaster University’s Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute—was reinforced by her mother, who ended her nursing career to take care of Sheila and her younger brother. “My mother always carried the ethos of a nurse, and she was very caring and nurturing and kind,” she says. “So, from a very early age I did appreciate what it meant to take care of people.” Care for them she has. After Sheila graduated from medical school at McMaster, she trained in neurosurgery at the University of Toronto. And when she met two five-year old patients, both named Christopher, during a neurosurgery rotation at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, she committed to becoming a researcher, too. 22 | HSC REVIEW
“They both had medulloblastoma, which is a deadly, and the most common, pediatric brain cancer,” she explains. “We treated both of the children with gold-standard therapy—surgery, radiation, chemotherapy—but one Christopher survived and the other died. I realized that no matter how much I learned about clinical neurosurgery, I wouldn’t know how to cure the Christopher who died unless I became a scientist. I knew his death lay in something deeper and unknown, and that’s what propelled me to also do a PhD on the biology of brain tumours.” David Bruckmann ’90 has known Sheila since they were in Grade 5 at HSC. “From an early age she knew that she wanted to pursue a career in medicine, and even joked, ‘One day you’ll need a brain surgeon and I’ll be there,’” recalls David, a manager at a San Francisco-area printing facility. “That day came in the summer of 2015. After complaining of headaches, I was quickly diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumour. Of course I turned to Sheila, my counsel and voice of reason from afar, to help me understand what I was being told. “What I saw during my illness is that doctors and nurses who’ve ‘seen it all before’ seem to forget that for most of us, this is our first kick at the can,” says David. “Sheila has always had a particular ability to relate to her patients, and to understand their confusion, their fear. That commitment is also what drives her ground-breaking research, and the important work that she is spearheading within her lab. Sheila made the time in a very busy schedule to come to California for my surgery. I will be eternally grateful to her for that.” Sheila, Canada Research Chair in Human Cancer Stem Cell Biology at McMaster, now spends about one-third of her work time treating patients and the rest doing research, with a focus on developing new immunotherapies—in which a patient’s immune system is activated to fight disease—to combat recurrences of the deadly adult brain cancer glioblastoma. In 2016, she and two other scientists were awarded a Terry Fox New Frontiers Program grant of $2.75 million to pursue this research for five years; almost 20 people work in their McMaster lab. Among other things, their work has yielded an “engineered” CAR T cell. “The CAR T cell is one of two T cells that are the immune system’s foot soldiers, deployed when you have an infection or some invasion or threat to the body,” says Sheila. “So, if you can have the T cells destroy a cancer the same way that they destroy an infection, then you would have a new therapeutic modality. What we do with these CAR T cells is give them genetic instructions to go after a certain target on a cancer cell, turning them into homing missiles that go directly for a cell marker expressed in glioblastoma, and killing the cancer.” On the day of this interview, Sheila was in Toronto in part for a meeting of the company Empirica Therapeutics, which she helped create in order to bring this therapy to market. The therapy builds on Sheila’s co-discovery during her doctoral research, with her mentor at the Hospital for Sick Children, Dr. Peter Dirks, that brain
“I love being with patients, I love being in the lab, I love my research team. If I had to choose somewhere to be happy, I would definitely be in the hospital or lab.”
tumours get started from cancer stem cells called brain tumour initiating cell (BTICs). Her team at McMaster was the first to identify new models for BTICs. Being a clinician, a researcher and a mother—Sheila and her architect husband, Stevan Gacesa, have two sons, Alexander ’20 and Rafael ’21—makes for an extremely busy life. But she’s quick to add, “I love being with patients, I love being in the lab, I love my research team. If I had to choose somewhere to be happy, I would definitely be in the hospital or lab.” She also notes that her Austrian-born mother, Gertraud, helps a great deal with her boys, and that she delegates a lot of responsibility to her trusted fellow researchers. Time away from work is devoted to time with family. She likes to cook and bake for them in the Dundas residence designed by her husband, which Sheila describes as “absolutely beautiful, like living in an art gallery.” And she often takes them and her mother to conferences and other professional events in the U.S. and overseas. They’re also fans of opera and concerts and routinely buy season tickets for the Canadian Opera Company. Sheila attributes her love of the arts to her mother—and to HSC, where her sons go to school. “It had a fantastic extracurricular program in sports and a really extensive arts and music program which I participated in fully, so HSC gave me the opportunity for self-expression and to develop creativity,” Sheila says. “And surprisingly it’s not academic programs that are most important for scientists, but learning how to make observations and ask questions, and so creativity is all-important.” Still, she appreciates that the excellent teachers pushed her academically. “They really understood how to intellectually stimulate students who were doing well.”
Sheila in the Boris Family Centre for research in human stem cell therapy
Which might also help explain how Sheila eventually came to be among the 10 per cent of Canadian neurosurgeons who are female. She does not believe gender has hampered her in any way, but hopes she is a beacon for other females. “Almost everything I’ve chosen to do is male-dominated. And what I’ve recognized is it’s good for all other women to see a woman in those roles so that they know they can achieve the same thing.” Sheila has certainly been a source of inspiration for Maleeha Qazi, a senior PhD student who works in Sheila’s lab. “She brings her patients and their families into the lab, giving us the opportunity to link our work directly to the people in whose lives we hope to make a difference through our research,” says Qazi. “She has shown us that you can be a neurosurgeon and a scientist and a wife and a mother all at the same time and excel in all those arenas.” Sheila wouldn’t say it’s easy, but she’s one of those rare, gifted, loving, hard-working women who really does seem to have it all.
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The Laws of Style How one-time corporate lawyer Shawn Hewson ’91 became a fashion designer and TV personality
By Joe O’Connor Photography by Riley Stewart
SHAWN HEWSON ’91 IS HAVING A “TERRIBLE” DAY, he says, a day that didn’t start off terribly but
went sideways soon after he dropped his daughter, Georgia, and son, Griffith, at school, before looping back to Parliament Street in Toronto’s east end, in his old but not ancient Range Rover, to grab a morning coffee at his favourite neighbourhood cafe. Shawn parked out front, or at least he thought he did, and bounded up to the door only to glance back over his shoulder and, oh my, there was a car, his car, rolling backwards down the street. Naturally, he gave chase—he was an athlete at HSC, after all —and hopped in the runaway vehicle, thus beginning a middle-aged dad’s morning not with a coffee but with an automotive headache that will require a healthy sum of cash to fix.
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N Now it is 12:30 p.m. and Shawn is dying, still, because he hasn’t had a coffee yet. It is a crisis our server at Soho House, a cozy downtown eat/meet/hangout spot for people in the creative industries, resolves by placing an Americano by the 46-year-old’s right elbow. “I really needed that,” Shawn says, taking a sip. Surveying the room, he spots someone whose name he should know but can’t recall because he is terrible with names. Ruth Promislow, his lawyer wife, often jokes that her husband’s next design project should be for a facial recognition app. As for his present designs, well, Shawn is wearing a few examples of them, as he does daily: a doubleknit grey hoodie, double-knit grey pants with zipper pockets, a checked grey shirt, cool black shoes and tortoise-shell glasses that he occasionally lets slide down the bridge of his nose so he can peer at you, over top of the frames, with twinkling brown eyes. In sum, the man’s got style, and describes the outfit as his “tracksuit,” which is kind of like describing the CN Tower as just a building. Shawn and Ruth are co-founders of Bustle Clothing, a menswear line they originally started as a graphic t-shirt company in 2002—and as a creative outlet for Shawn, who was writing legal contracts as a corporate lawyer and slowly dying inside. The t-shirts generated a buzz. People started buying them. Shawn was contemplating a move to a new Bay Street firm when Ruth had a better idea: quit his day job and reinvent himself as a fashion designer. Sixteen years later, the recovering lawyer is a small-c celebrity about Toronto, a former judge/mentor on Project Runway Canada, a sometime television commentator, a guy with his own fashion label and an extremely 26 | HSC REVIEW
likeable lunch companion. Shawn freely admits that one of the miracles of his life is that he didn’t exactly sketch out a map to get to the place where he finds himself professionally. “There is no master plan,” he says, laughing. “I have no plan.” He is joking, sort of. Designing clothes isn’t the same as working through a complicated legal contract, although it isn’t entirely different either. Lawyers need to have an eye for the tiniest of details, designers too. Shawn is currently working on new uniforms for the staff at the Toronto-based Four Seasons hotel chain (Bill Gates is a co-owner). Designing for the hotel requires both an understanding of the brand—the Four Seasons is selling luxury—and marrying it to the physical layout of the place and the needs of the employees wearing the outfit. There is function, and there is form, and a uniform has to tie it all together, and be comfy. “There is this whole intersection going on between interior design, architecture and fashion—and it is actually pretty cool,” Shawn says. “And I actually feel like the clients at the hotel are almost more grateful for the work we do.” What he means is: the fashion business is tough, especially for a small, independent Canadian designer. Major retailers of high-end garb don’t necessarily need Shawn Hewson so much as they want Hugo Boss or some other name brand
Various pieces from Shawn’s 2018 collection for Bustle Clothing
Shawn and assistant Blaise Crocker working in his studio
that is guaranteed to sell. Cracking through that wall isn’t easy, and by branching out into the world of uniforms and major brands in addition to the menswear line—Shawn has done work for Audi, Vespa, the City of Las Vegas, to name a few— the designer not only gets to feed his creative impulses but to reliably pay the bills. In Bustle’s early years, the company lost money or barely scraped through, while its proprietor came to understand that a small businessman, unlike a lawyer at a big firm, did everything for himself. “A law firm is like Plato’s Republic—you don’t sharpen your own pencil, because that’s someone else’s job,” Shawn says, laughing. “But when you run a business the size of ours, it is not the infrastructure you are used to, and so I had a lot of trouble adjusting to that.” His typical day involves chasing down new business opportunities, ensuring the business is humming along and, of course, designing clothes. It is a skill Shawn expresses a hint of sheepishness about, admitting he doesn’t actually know how to sew and is a terrible sketch artist, but possesses a good feel for fabrics and is surrounded by a highly talented team who help execute his vision. His vision now is of a glass of white wine, since it is a lunch date. Shawn opts for a Spanish verdejo, offering a sip to the writer who is otherwise abstaining on this day. The gesture says a lot about Shawn. He is affable, a talker, and a walking personification of the cheekiness embodied by the clothes he makes. Being stylish doesn’t mean being uncomfortable, or snobby. Shawn has a tuxedo version of the tracksuit in his closet, a look he has pulled off at red-carpet events. (He also designs blue power-suits for Ruth, a litigator.)
I ask him what to make of me, a 48-yearold with young children and no fashion sense beyond what I have time to throw on each morning. His answer, after eyeballing my outfit—grey pants, red plaid shirt, brown shoes—is that the outfit suits me, because I am at ease in it. “My main critique of bad fashion boils down to, why do people wear something they are clearly uncomfortable in?” Shawn says. “If it is inappropriate for the occasion, that’s one thing. But if you see a 5-foot-8, 250-pound guy wearing skinny jeans because they are in fashion, that doesn’t make any more sense than me wearing baggy pants that are going to make me look 5-foot-2. “Don’t wear something because it is hot right now, because it shows when there is a lack of confidence.” (Note: Shawn is not 5-foot-2.) As for confidence, he is not lacking for any, and partly attributes his strong sense of self to the years he spent at HSC. He was asked back to the school to speak with a new crop of Prefects not long ago. He was flattered and, in a way, flabbergasted, because the reality—one he didn’t fully appreciate until after he had graduated and entered the world at large—was that he grew up “in a culture of excellence at HSC.” “I didn’t want to say to the students, ‘Thank your parents for sending you here,’” Shawn says. “But you kind of realize when you graduate from HSC that you have been surrounded by excellence and high expectations, and that maybe that isn’t the norm in the outside world. “There was an expectation that you hold open doors, that you look people in the eye—and I can actually remember getting in trouble for not doing things like that. Our teachers did a fantastic job of turning us into well-rounded, welleducated, polite individuals.” He loved growing up in Hamilton, he says, and even stuck around for university, getting a combined philosophy/political science degree at McMaster before heading to law school at the University of Toronto and the great career twist thereafter. Now it is 2 p.m. Time to go. Before we leave, Shawn detours past a buffet spread to a row of glass jars, each containing candy. Scooping up a napkin full of multi-coloured Mikes and Ikes, and politely offering his guest some, he heads for the stairs. The sun is shining. The terrible day is nowhere in sight. SPRING 2019 | 27
A Powerful Advocate Former Ontario judge Anne-Marie Hourigan ’77 now campaigns for a better mental health system By Barbara Wickens Photography By Riley Stewart SPRING 2019 | 29
I IT’S NOT EVERY DAY THAT A PERSON WALKS AWAY FROM COMPELLING, MEANINGFUL WORK, especially when
it comes with a title that society, not to mention one’s friends and family, holds in high esteem. But that’s exactly what Madam Justice Anne-Marie Hourigan ’77 did in 2014 when she stepped down from the Ontario Court of Justice. It was an unusual move with an unforeseeable future. Still, Anne-Marie knew one thing for certain: during her 30-year career in the criminal justice system, including 12 as a judge, she had encountered far too many offenders struggling with mental health and learning challenges who hadn’t gotten the help they needed, when they needed it. “So many people had simply fallen through the cracks in our educational, mental health and social welfare systems,” says Anne-Marie. “It was an alarming pattern. If they had had access to appropriate services and supports at key points in their lives, before they got into serious legal trouble, things might have turned out very differently for them, their families and their victims.” 30 | HSC REVIEW
She also had a first-hand perspective on how a different outcome is possible. Her oldest son has a non-verbal learning difference, but thanks to an early diagnosis and effective treatment, he has grown up a successful, contributing member of society. “I don’t see a difference as a disability per se,” says AnneMarie. “Everybody learns differently because everyone’s brain functions in different ways.” As a judge, Anne-Marie’s options for dealing with offenders were spelled out in law. She’d often order psychiatric and psychological assessments and, when feasible, stipulate treatment in her sentencing. Still, even if this approach had worked, it was fundamentally flawed. Helping one person at a time was too limited in scale and ignored root causes. Concerned about the correlation between mental illness and the justice system, Anne-Marie took early retirement, determined to do something about it. Just 55, she could have remained a judge for 20 more years. Today, she is on the board of directors of the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC), a national, non-profit organization Ottawa established in 2007 to create a better mental health system for Canadians. Funded by Health Canada, the MHCC works on a number of fronts, including the correctional system, housing and addictions, to develop sound public policy. It provides recommendations to governments, service providers and other stakeholders and works with these partners to implement them. Anne-Marie wasn’t always willing to be a public figure. She recalls being so shy when she entered HSC in Grade 9 she could barely speak. She survived, she says, thanks to the school’s time-honoured traditions, such as the house system where older students mentor younger ones. “For an anxious kid, the structure was fantastic,” says Anne-Marie, who was in Strathmore House and became Head Girl in 1977. “There was a real sense of family.” She vividly remembers the day she entered—and won—a cross-country race. She didn’t actually like running, she says, but thought the race would help her attain her real goal, getting on the school’s field hockey team. In second place near the end of the race, Anne-Marie realized that with a final push she could overtake the front runner, a top athlete whom everyone expected to win. “HSC taught us that we shouldn’t be afraid of trying new things, that it was good to step out of your comfort zone,” she says. “I had learned not to be intimidated by people or new situations.” Upon graduation, Anne-Marie received the Governor General’s Gold Medal. After earning a BA in Canadian history from the University of Toronto, she attended Queen’s University in Kingston for an LLB. Called to the bar in 1986, Anne-Marie joined a small Toronto law firm with wellknown defence lawyer John Hamilton for what turned out to be a baptism of fire. Her first case as an articling student was a murder trial where her firm defended a 14-year-old who had killed his parents and sister. He received a three-year sentence, then the maximum for a young offender convicted of murder.
“HSC taught us that we shouldn’t be afraid of trying new things, that it was good to step out of your comfort zone,” she says. “I had learned not to be intimidated by people or new situations.”
“I realized things were not as black and white as we’d been taught in law school, that the problems were multi-systemic,” she says. “The boy clearly had undiagnosed mental health issues, but at the time youth mental health was way under the radar.” Anne-Marie was married and pregnant with the second of her two children when the 24/7 demands of criminal defence work prompted a professional change. In 1993 she became an agent of the Attorney General of Canada where, as a prosecutor, she had control over her schedule. Anne-Marie also found time to earn a Master of Laws (Criminal) from Osgoode Hall Law School before being appointed to the bench in 2002. When her boys were older, she left work for two years, in part to oversee how the school system was accommodating her eldest son. He subsequently completed his education at a U.S. school that offered a therapeutic residential program. That was only possible, she says, because she and her ex-husband, a corporate lawyer, had resources many others do not. After a thorough search turned up nothing similar in Canada, her initial objective when she retired in 2014 was to found a school like the one her son had attended. Armed with an idea but few resources, Anne-Marie turned to two people she knew “lived education”: former HSC academic director Michaele Robertson and HSC Headmaster Emeritus Barry Wansbrough, a married couple who left the school in 1995 after more than two decades of service. “I went to visit them in Bracebridge where they now live, and it was like no time had passed,” says Anne-Marie. “They still used the name they called me at school and their first words were ‘Annie, how can we help?’” With their support and guidance, she began working toward her goal. But as she dove deeper into the research about mental illness and its widespread
Anne-Marie at home in Toronto
impacts, her thinking began to shift. “The statistics are staggering,” she explains. “One in five Canadians experience a mental health problem or illness each year. So establishing one school is not a broad enough solution. I realized that my strength is to be an advocate.” With that, Anne-Marie looked for opportunities where she could be of most service. She sat on the boards of organizations dedicated to improving the mental health of Canadians, including the Institute of Families for Child & Youth Mental Health in Vancouver and the Eva Rothwell Centre in Hamilton. She joined the 16-member board of the MHCC in 2017 and is currently chair of its Governance Committee. In addition, Anne-Marie continues to advocate for change by speaking to various organizations, including the Canadian Senate and groups representing educators, judges, lawyers and mental health professionals. Working to effect systemic change, including reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness, might not be in everybody’s comfort zone. But for Anne-Marie, it’s exactly where she wants to be right now. SPRING 2019 | 31
The Least Funny Person in the Room?
Hardly. Mayce Galoni ’12 is a rising star on Canada’s comedy scene By Bruce McDougall Photography By Leigh Righton
H HALF-BLINDED BY A SPOTLIGHT, Mayce Galoni ’12 stood alone on the comedy club’s tiny stage and faced his audience. Sitting at tables with their drinks in front of them, some people looked back at him, some kept talking. He could feel beads of sweat on his forehead and under his arms. Trying to keep his voice steady, he opened his mouth and began his six-minute monologue. Rosy-cheeked, a bit pudgy, wearing hornrimmed glasses, Mayce talked about body hair, how young boys can’t wait to get it and how adults find ways to get rid of it. “They do things like waxing,” he said. From out of the shadows came a woman’s voice. “Sugaring!” Mayce had been writing jokes for more than three years, lately testing them on classmates at Hillfield Strathallan College. But this was his first appearance at a club and the first time that anyone had interrupted him in the midst of a performance. It was February 26, 2010. Six months earlier, Mayce had transferred into Grade 10 at HSC from Saltfleet District High School in Stoney Creek. He was 15, too young to go into a bar unaccompanied by an adult. This evening his parents had walked with him up the stairs to the second-floor showroom above a videography shop on King Street East in Hamilton. His best friend, Connor MacDonald ’12, had come with him.
“How did they come up with the idea of waxing anyway?” he said. “Sugaring!” the woman cried. The voice sounded familiar. Mayce squinted past the lights to look into the audience. “It was my mom,” he says. Modest and unassuming, Mayce says that his first public performance was “brutal.” But people had laughed, and his mother said later that she was just trying to help. And despite the anxiety and the heckling, he says, “I’d fallen in love with stand-up comedy. I knew that I wanted to do it for the rest of my life.” Back at school the next day, he told one of his friends that he intended to become a stand-up comedian. The friend said, “That’s interesting, but you’re not funny.” Mayce didn’t think so either. “I looked up to people who were funny,” he says, “like my dad and Connor, but I was never a funny person.” Funny or not, he persevered. He’d started writing jokes to complement the magic tricks that he performed for his friends and family, but now he abandoned the magic to focus on the humour. He’d stay after school, testing his jokes as he rode the late bus home with Connor. “I was embarrassed to do it,” Mayce says, “but he was my best friend. He helped a lot.” For the next four years, Mayce studied comedians like George Carlin, Steve Martin and Bill Hicks, listening to their albums and working on his routines. In the evenings, he took his jokes to comedy clubs around Hamilton. “He was always doing open-mic nights,” says Connor. “Night after night, he did the hard work, until people started to notice that he was really good.”
“He was always doing open-mic nights. Night after night, he did the hard work, until people started to notice that he was really good.”
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After graduating from HSC, Mayce and his friends went in different directions. Connor went to London to study business at Western University, then returned to Burlington where he found a marketing job. Encouraged by his parents, Mayce started performing full-time in clubs around Ontario. “My parents said, ‘do what you want to do.’ HSC did, too. We were encouraged to do what we wanted to pursue.” And at last, he was getting paid to do it. “Some kids went to university,” he says. “I spent four years working at comedy without making a penny, but when I started doing it full-time, I had no student debt.” Within five years, Mayce has become one of the hottest young comedians in Canada. He has performed at Just For Laughs Montreal and comedy festivals in Winnipeg and Halifax. In 2016, he was a finalist in SiriusXM’s Top Comic and the Seattle International Comedy Competition. SiriusXM plays frequent cuts from his debut comedy album “Praying to See Boobs.” In addition to taping a set for Kevin Hart’s LOL Network on YouTube, he has appeared on MTV and performed as an opening act for comedians like Doug Stanhope, Gerry Dee and Gilbert Gottfried. But even for a rising star, comedy is a precarious way to make a living. Mayce’s girlfriend, Sophie Buddle, tells a joke about splitting up with a former boyfriend and feeling angry enough to damage his car. “But he didn’t have a car, because he was a comedian, so I tore up his bus pass.” With income from regular appearances on CBC Radio’s The Debaters and now, as a writer for CBC Television’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Mayce can afford a used car, “and I can pay the rent,” he says. 34 | HSC REVIEW
Mayce and his dog C-Mac
Fortunately, he seems motivated less by money than by his love for writing funny stuff. “I’ve always liked writing,” he says on the phone from Halifax, where he and Buddle both work on contract for 22 Minutes, “going through the day, noticing little things, maybe something about Oreos.” Oreos? “They’re in front of me. I don’t have a routine about cookies.” He continues: “Everything gets tested in front of an audience. No matter how successful you are, you have to do it. You do it on stage, try to tighten it up, and if it goes well, you tighten it up again and repeat the process. That’s when it’s good: when you hate it.” Mayce still consults Connor when he’s working on a sketch. “He’s still my best friend,” Mayce says. “I owe a lot of my comedy career to him. He had the comedic voice that I wanted.” For Connor, his former classmate’s success is a source of pride. “And it certainly hasn’t gone to his head,” he adds. “If he had a big ego, why would he call me? “People think after high school that you’ll grow apart,” Connor continues. “But Mayce and I are better friends than ever. We’re just more grown up. And he still thinks he’s the least funny person in the room.” Audiences across Canada beg to disagree.
Safe Spaces Julia Falco ’11 is helping empower girls and women around the world By Nora Underwood Photography By Jessica Deeks
A AS HAPPENS TO MOST DIEHARD CAMPERS, Julia Falco ’11 hit that awkward
stage at the age of 14 where she was too young to be a counsellor and too cool to be a camper. But instead of lazing around doing nothing and feeling bored, she and her cousin, Mina Kazemi ’10, decided to start their own summer camp. Camp Stella Puella (“star girl” in Latin) wasn’t your average young teen’s concoction—a couple of kids sleeping in a tent in the backyard for a night or two with parents delivering meals. Rather, it was a social action and self-esteem camp, which started with 10 girls—mostly family members—but grew over its eight years to a six-week overnight and day camp with as many as 25 campers each week. Girls were offered the typical camp fare— games, sports, canoe trips and campfires—but it was mixed with workshops and talks focused on personal growth and such issues as bullying, sexism, homophobia and racism. “Growing up, I don’t think I had the right words to understand concepts like patriarchy and misogyny,” explains Julia. “I wanted to create a space that was safer and more comfortable to support younger girls to have those conversations.” In addition, every week campers would choose a global or local issue they were passionate about and host a campaign or fundraiser around it. They even partnered with people from the Six Nations reserve close to their camp in Dunnville to do workshops about missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women. So it is hardly surprising that by 2017, only six years after she had graduated from HSC, Julia could be found in Kampala, Uganda, on a fellowship with the Aga Khan Foundation Canada working as a gender specialist, helping 36 | HSC REVIEW
“Learning to ask for help, and learning how to keep going and grow from challenges or failure, for me was critical to those years and to how I move through the world today.” to enhance the organization’s skills around gender equality and women’s rights. With an undergraduate degree in International Development (with a specialization in Gender and Development) from the University of Guelph and a master’s degree in Gender Studies and Feminist Research from McMaster University, plus a four-month stint working as a campaign coordinator with Amnesty International, she was well equipped for the challenge. Julia stayed with the Aga Khan Foundation, relocating to Ottawa as a gender adviser, providing input on its portfolio of health, education, economic inclusion and climate change mitigation projects across Central Asia, West Africa and East Africa. “It’s engaging work—I love working with many teams and I’ve been very fortunate to work in five different countries this year,” she says. “I see that my personal goals are deeply intertwined with my professional and political goals.” In January 2019, Julia transitioned to a project officer position at the foundation, leading on its flagship sexual and reproductive health and rights programming being implemented in Cabo Delgaod, Mozambique, with Aga Khan Foundation Mozambique. Julia acknowledges that she has taken a road less travelled; many of her friends went on to medical, business or law school after graduating from HSC. “My path certainly was different,” she concedes. “I did feel like a bit of an outlier, but I was okay with that.” But it was during her years at HSC—she was a “lifer,” starting in Montessori and continuing through to Grade 12 and her position as Head Girl—that she discovered and started to pursue her interest in creative
writing, languages, geography, world issues and the arts. “I had some fantastic teachers who were really foundational to my interests and also to my skills in writing, communicating and being a facilitator.” She credits other aspects of her time at HSC—and the support of both her family and the school—with influencing the direction she has taken. “I definitely enjoyed and still appreciate interactive and collaborative ways of learning,” she says. “And I think in some ways it sparked my interest in understanding differences and different cultures and cross-cultural relationships.” She also feels it was deeply formative to have exposure to so many experiences— from outdoor education to the Model UN conference at Harvard University or a trip to Chicago for a band competition—as well as opportunities for personal growth and leadership, especially through the school’s extracurricular program. And, just as important, with the development of close friendships and the mentorship of teachers and coaches, she learned how to fail, she says. “There was one point where I really needed to learn how to deal with stress and my mental wellness in a healthy way, and I was able to seek services from the guidance counsellor,” says Julia. “Learning to ask for help, and learning how to keep going and grow from challenges or failure, for me was critical to those years and to how I move through the world today.” On top of it all, she had a wonderful class. “I found that sense of community to be really unique. Today community is a driving force and aspect of my life that’s most important to me.”
Julia in the main atrium of the Aga Khan Foundation in Ottawa
Aside from her work, Julia writes poetry and performs spoken word, and she is also the volunteer director of equity and inclusion for Indigo Girls Group, an organization founded by another HSC alumna, Adele Heagle ’12, for young women’s empowerment. “It seems for youth that there’s still high stress and pressure for conformity to social norms, gender roles and academic perfectionism, and so, for me, learning to discard those distractions and unrealistic expectations and embrace both my gifts and my areas for growth was really important,” says Julia. HSC provided an environment where she could create her own vision of success. “Because my education and upbringing were quite holistic,” she says, “I’ve been able to continue creating a vision for my life that is focused on living my truth with intention, integrity, and a commitment to lifelong learning.” It’s a vision that is sure to inspire the girls and women whose lives she touches. SPRING 2019 | 37
Top Honours
Top Honours
2018 – 2019
38 | HSC REVIEW
The Alumni Award of Distinction The HSC Alumni Award of Distinction Program celebrates the achievements of alumni in our community who have lived the aspirations of the Hillfield Strathallan College vision and developed into global citizens who have in effect bettered the world around them.
Beautiful Spaces
Interior designer Lori Morris ’82 is an international success in high-end décor THE RIVER OF CREATIVITY RUNS DEEP IN LORI MORRIS ’82, who has
travelled the world helping clients turn their homes into luxurious pieces of art. For more than 30 years, the Toronto-based designer and founder of Lori Morris Designs (LMD) has been carving out a spot for herself in the high end of the industry as one of the best, whether it’s designing a home from the ground up or helping bring life to a living space. She attributes her career-building drive to her days at HSC. “While my time at the school was short, it was formative in that it gave me a stepping stone to the value system of hard work and preparedness,” she says. “It taught me that having a strong work ethic and being disciplined are important not only in your life but in your career.” After completing Grades 12 and 13 at HSC, Morris went on to York University for her Bachelor of Arts, then to what is now the International Academy of Design and Technology in Chicago. Upon graduating in interior design in 1987, she started her own company and has been wowing clients ever since. With a keen ability to listen, observe and capitalize on the advice given to her, it’s no wonder that LMD is such a success. “I have learned a lot from a lot of people and continue to do so,” Lori says. “I think the biggest mistake people make is thinking they know everything. I am very aware that I constantly need to grow and learn, which I do every day. I always appreciate getting advice; I take that advice, isolate it, and integrate it into my own life. Listening to people who are more successful, more intelligent and more experienced than you is one of the best things anyone can do.”
Top Honours
Photo by Norman Wong
Lori Morris ’82
LMD offers everything from interior design to home renovation to full decoration. The firm works with builders, developers and architects to bring its concepts to life, and even offers a concierge program for its clients to help ensure that their home maintenance needs are cared for once the project is completed.
With locations in Toronto, New York, Miami and San Francisco, LMD also has a branch office in Port Carling, Muskoka, and is working towards opening a product line of home décor pieces as a means of appealing to a wider market. Lori’s work ethic, forged in her teens at HSC, is still going strong. SPRING 2019 | 39
Top Honours
The Alumni Hall of Excellence celebrates alumni who embody and promote the ideals of Hillfield Strathallan College. By honouring this distinguished group of alumni, the College continues its tradition of inspiring others through the legacy of alumni who have come before them.
Jonathan Waters ’66
Connoisseur of Computers
Jonathan Waters ’66 has been designing criminal justice systems for almost 50 years FOR JONATHAN WATERS ’66, Hillfield Strathallan College has been like a member of the family for more than 60 years—pretty much literally. “My history with HSC is both as a long-time student, and as the son of two HSC staff members,” he says. “Not only did I attend from 1954 to 1966, but my father taught at the school from 1954 until his retirement in 1977 and was the head of the Junior School for many years. My mother also taught at HSC from 1954 to 1955.” 40 | HSC REVIEW
After completing his studies at HSC, Jonathan attended McMaster University, where he completed a Bachelor of Science in Physics. Drawn to the magic of computers, he moved into a successful career in programming, which allowed him to travel worldwide. Some of the systems he has designed and implemented have been used as national standards for law enforcement and criminal justice processing, and are used by the FBI, the RCMP and many U.S. states. Not surprisingly, he liked his HSC education, and he gives the school special praise for making sure students learned languages. “When I was in school we were taught Latin, French, German, and, of course English, which has helped me tremendously over the years with all of the international travel that I have done,” he says. “You know what happens when you are parachuted into Brazil on business and have to get around— stranger in a strange land? The Latin base and the knowledge of French suddenly flood back and you find yourself having a great time meeting people on the beach in Rio.” What’s the best advice he’s ever received? Jonathan responds with: “‘Never be soft’, which doesn’t imply a lack of empathy; what it really means is ‘never give up’.” For someone with such rich ties to the HSC community, it is fitting that this prime advice came from the head of the Junior School—his father. Jonathan also firmly believes in the notion of never looking back. “It doesn’t imply that one should not be aware of the past, but in one’s career one must always keep growing and climbing.” After 50 years in the everchanging tech industry, he’s still ready for the next challenge.
Photo by Frank Zochil
The Alumni Hall of Excellence
Top Honours
Navigating the Fertility Journey
Reproductive specialist Stacy Deniz ’00 supports couples through family-centric care FOR COUPLES LIVING WITH FERTILITY ISSUES, the
road to raising a family can be full of grief and hardship, but thanks to Stacy Deniz ’00, it’s a process that doesn’t have to be isolating. The reproductive specialist and McMaster University professor currently works with the ONE Fertility centre in Burlington, Ont. helping couples navigate these often-choppy waters. “I feel as though fertility is an area where people are very vulnerable and need a lot of social support,” says Stacy. “It’s something that people go through their life expecting to have and to get easily, and it’s a very difficult struggle for a patient when it doesn’t come naturally. Some of our patients try for three, four, even five years just to have that baby. The work that we do is a niche medicine revolving around family-centric care and providing support to patients through a struggle that is very personal and private.”
Stacy began her time at HSC in Grade 9 and graduated after her OAC year, adding academics, sports and the title of Head Girl to her HSC resume. She completed her Bachelor of Health Sciences at McMaster University, then graduated from McMaster’s medical school and went on to complete a fellowship in reproductive technology and endocrinology. She credits her success in her post-secondary academics to the education she received at HSC. “I really didn’t enjoy elementary school because it wasn’t a challenge,” she says. “Attending HSC gave me that challenge academically, socially and athletically, which taught me how to balance multiple things at one time. It’s a skill set that has served me well through university, medical school and my career.” When she isn’t working with patients, Stacy is busy educating medical students and residents in her role as a McMaster professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She recently received a recognition award for her teaching—an honour not typically bestowed upon professors so early in their career. And if that isn’t enough to keep the busy mother-of-two on her toes, she also remains active in her research, which focuses on how to better support patients through the fertility process. She works to understand how patients can be helped in their decision-making when faced with tough choices, what kind of information they need and when they need it. “I never thought I would end up in fertility—it wasn’t really what I set out to do,” Stacy says. “I set out to do social work or inner-city medicine, but I found this niche that I really, really love. “I think it’s really important to approach things with an open mind,” she continues, “because you might find something you truly love or are really passionate about. It might not be what you initially expected, but as long as you approach everything working your hardest with a good attitude, a lot of doors will open that you didn’t think would open.”
Photo by Frank Zochil
Stacy Deniz ’00
SPRING 2019 | 41
Top Honours
Road to Contentment Gema Zamprogna Boich ’95 helps develop performing artists
FOR GEMA BOICH ’95 (NÉE ZAMPROGNA), performing
is something that comes as naturally as breathing, and she is passing that passion on to the next generation of performing artists. Gema, one of three Zamprogna siblings who attended HSC, grew up in a household that deeply valued the performing arts. Her actor/ dancer parents, Lou and Pauline, met in the early 1970s on a movie set, and after moving to Hamilton opened The Dance Centre, which still teaches everyone from toddlers to late bloomers the art of ballet, jazz and tap. In addition to creating the studio, Lou worked with Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton for close to 40 years. “My family has been involved in the arts my entire life,” says Gema. “At a certain point in my childhood I decided I wanted to get an agent and wanted to start acting. My dad took me to get an agent and shortly after I was lucky enough to get my role on 42 | HSC REVIEW
Road to Avonlea.” For six years, she played teenager Felicity King on the Emmy-winning CBC/Disney series. Having begun acting when she was in middle school, the transition to HSC in Grade 9 involved a lot of moving pieces. From administration to tutors, it was a team effort to keep her current on her academics while still filming the show. “The teachers at HSC really made you feel like your education was a collaborative effort,” says Gema. “As I was filming while attending school, it often meant that I was missing days of class. HSC worked with me and a tutor so that I was always up to speed, which meant that I could succeed not only in my acting but in my classes, despite a busy schedule.” After finishing Road to Avonlea and attending Queen’s University, Gema resumed acting for a few years before transitioning to the next phase of her life—entrepreneurship. In 2014, she opened a Grimsby location of The Dance Centre in addition to operating a Pilates studio out of her home. As if that wasn’t enough, Gema also manages the Hamilton family dance studio with her sister Amanda ’98, and recently started up a new initiative with Amanda called Zamprogna Arts, a performing arts program for kids as young as seven through to adult performers. “I love what I do,” says Gema. “I didn’t find that right away. When I was 20 and out of university, I thought I wanted to continue acting. But it came full circle back to dance when suddenly I had a daughter who was three years old and starting ballet, and then she was six and starting jazz. I kept thinking that I could be teaching it.” So, “sort of organically” dance became the centre of her business, she says. “I found it a bit later in life, but I really think that now I am doing what I was meant to do.”
Photo by Wandering Eye Photography
Gema Zamprogna Boich ’95
Top Honours
HSC Lifers 2018 Front Row (left to right)
Photo by Eric Bosch
Sofia Beraldo Mary Cooper David Pearson Stephanie Gerend Darius Mahdavi Andrew Tedesco Liane McPhee Simona Spallacci Serena DeSantis
Second Row (left to right) Nikhil Natarajan Kristina Mehta Victoria Altmann Julia Dobrovolskis Alexandra Nemy Anastasia Drakos Aurora Schatz Allison Mitchell Natasha Kodarin Noah Levinson
Every year as we celebrate the graduating class at HSC, we say goodbye to a group of students we know as “Lifers�. These students joined the College at the start of their education and have been part of the HSC community throughout their school years.
Third Row (left to right)
Julia Watson Drake Mosca Michael Grace Calvin Elliott Akash Tejura Thomas Stirling Harrison Lee Nuval Jeejeebhoy Christopher Goater
Back Row (left to right)
Daniel Kuhn Jayden Sohal Lukas Faulkner Aleksander Sormaz Jason Heddle Nico Corrado Jack Masilwec
Top Honours
Singular Students
The Alumni Association Leadership Award Scholarship is given to one male and one female Grade 9 recipient who embodies the College’s Mission, Vision and Values, especially through outstanding leadership potential.
Peyton Bear Earn House
Nicky Grigg Pine House
girl. Whether it is in an academic environment, or learning the skills taught through athletics or community involvement, her learning is continuous. Always striving to better herself, Peyton joined HSC in Grade 7 after seeing the opportunities that her brother was exposed to that her previous school wasn’t giving her. Upon her arrival, Peyton made a point of joining as many groups and clubs as possible so she could take advantage of the full HSC experience. Her continued involvement helped her feel as though she was part of a big family and to feel at home at her new school. As part of this involvement, she joined the Community Committee, volunteered as a Montessori and Junior School Mentor, and became a reading buddy at Adelaide Hoodless School. While passionate about academics and school involvement, Peyton has a love for sports that began when she was young. She started playing Rep hockey when she was seven years old and enjoyed being part of a team that offered her the ability to learn many life lessons, such as hard work, effort, enthusiasm and teamwork. At HSC, Peyton joined the Senior Girls Hockey team (as their youngest skater) and then added the U14 Basketball, Girls’ Soccer and Flag Rugby teams to her list of activities. She proved that hard work pays off—she was named the most improved player for both basketball and soccer. Outside of academics, clubs and athletics, Peyton has become more involved within the HSC community by helping out in the Junior and Montessori Schools. She is also a member of the World Issues Committee, the Math Olympiads, the Concert Band and the Writer-in-Residence program, and is a House Captain. “Being a House Captain has been an amazing leadership experience so far,” she says. “I love that I can have an impact on the younger girls in my house and be a positive influence for them.” 44 | HSC REVIEW
Peyton Bear
Nicky Grigg
NICKY GRIGG first walked through the doors of HSC in Grade 7 and quickly became involved in the school community through volunteering and co-curricular opportunities. Academics were always one of Nicky’s strengths. While attending schools in Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore, he excelled academically, achieving standardized test results in the 91st percentile in language, 94th in reading and 99th in math. Those skills have been finessed throughout his HSC education. He achieved honour status in Grade 7 and was part of HSC’s Grade 8 Math Enrichment program. With his strong desire to learn more about the world, Nicky was chosen to go to rural Indonesia to help teach English, an experience that allowed him to be of service. “Having grown up in second and third world countries, I know the importance of giving back to society,” he says. “We had a rather conventional approach to our teaching, but what I found particularly interesting was our ability to bridge the cultural and language differences through soccer.” Continually striving to make a difference, he also participated in a 28-km walk to raise money for women in Africa, and was selected to attend We Day with HSC. In addition to volunteering and striving for academic excellence, Nicky keeps busy by participating in a variety of after-school activities. He began playing soccer and made the U13 and U14 soccer teams at HSC, receiving the most improved player award during his time with the U13 team. Always looking for something new to learn, he has also participated in ultimate Frisbee, robotics, stage crew and the digital media club, as well as a coding club and a drama club. “I am a sponge, soaking up information and experiences,” Nicky says, “and I aspire to find a relationship between some of my diverse interests and blend the skills.”
Photos by Frank Zochil
PEYTON BEAR has loved learning since she was a young
Top Honours
Great Grads
The Colin McNairn ’56 Alumni Award of Distinction Graduate Scholarship is given to one or more departing students who epitomize the nature of service and leading by example.
Victoria Altmann ’18
Sophie Dyment ’18
Community humanitarian
Volunteer extraordinaire
Photos by Edge Imaging
MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE IS A PRIORITY FOR VICTORIA ALTMANN. It’s a task she has been working at BLAZING THE WELLNESS TRAIL, Sophie Dyment’s passion and commitment to motivating her fellow students has always been strong. In addition to being the Wellness Prefect for the 2017-18 academic year, Sophie has a long list of volunteer experiences both in and out of the College. As a member of the student council and the English Conversation Circle (ECC), as well as a school ambassador, an E-Week counsellor and a previous member of the rowing team and robotics club, her involvement with the HSC community has given her the opportunity to explore and give back. “I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to be a student at HSC because it has allowed me to be part of numerous life-changing initiatives,” says Sophie. “I joined ECC because I have a passion for helping others and I believe that the best way to truly experience joy is by instilling it in others. I am very grateful for the privileges I have had in life and always seek out opportunities where I can facilitate people who may not be able to help themselves.” In true HSC fashion, Sophie has taken those leadership skills and desire to make a difference outside of the College and into the world. On a service trip to Ecuador, she assisted a community in building a playground of recycled and repurposed car tires, helped remove invasive and poisonous plants while reintroducing native species, and volunteered at a local school. “By helping people,” she says, “I have developed a sense of empathy and satisfaction that comes from knowing that I have made a difference, however small, in the life of someone who needs it the most.”
Sophie Dyment ’18
Now studying integrated biomedical engineering and health sciences at McMaster University
Victoria Altmann ’18
Now studying health sciences at Western University
through her extensive volunteer and humanitarian initiatives. As an active member of the HSC and Hamilton communities, Victoria has been the student council President, a Model United Nations Delegate and the Grade 8 Valedictorian. But her community involvement didn’t end there. As a mentor for young refugees through the Hamilton Public Library’s English Conversation Circle, Victoria provided academic tutoring and confidence-building to new Canadians. As the group leader she was responsible for organizing student volunteers and facilitating weekly sessions while fostering a welcoming learning environment. Her drive to better her community exceeded even those initiatives. In her Grade 11 year at HSC she was selected for the Make 150 Count initiative hosted by the Royal Bank of Canada. “I was granted $150 to make a positive impact on my community,” says Victoria. “By working with a community-based program I was able to educate myself on the needs of the vulnerable within the community and I used the funds to create a series of care packages that I distributed to the homeless in downtown Hamilton.” In the spirit of giving back, she continued her community work by raising funds to support Syrian refugee families through collaboration with a local business to sell candles. Some $2,500 was raised, and Victoria was able to secure matching government funds. The initiative was recognized by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, which awarded her the Dundas Youth Volunteer of the Year award. SPRING 2019 | 45
Top Honours
Perfect Prefects
These 12 students are this year’s leaders across Hillfield Strathallan College. From reading to dinner companions, here’s what they’re into.
Currently reading
Owen Treleaven
Future ambition
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
Future ambition
Head Girl and Female Athletic Prefect Astronaut
Favourite subject Physics, of course
Chemistry, Ninth Edition by Zumdahl
Elon Musk
Head Boy and Male Athletic Prefect To be happy where I am and enjoy what I do
Favourite subject Biology
Favourite lunch
Favourite lunch
Mitchell Horwood
Currently reading
Future ambition
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
Favourite subject
Breakfast for lunch Dune by Frank Herbert
Middle School Prefect Lawyer
English
Russell Wilson
Favourite lunch
Hashbrowns
Currently reading
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? Masai Ujiri
Sausage and perogies
Alexandra Kolios
Favourite lunch
Ali Miller-Boothe
Favourite lunch
Meghan Mitchell
Currently reading
Future ambition
Currently reading
Future ambition
Currently reading
Future ambition
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
Favourite subject
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
Favourite subject
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
Academic Prefect
Working in math/ business Math (Calculus and Data!)
46 | HSC REVIEW
Shepherd’s pie
Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
John Green
Wellness Prefect
To be a member of Doctors Without Borders Biology
Kale and cranberry salad Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Serena Williams
Service Prefect
Forensic Psychologist
Favourite subject
Law and World Issues
Favourite lunch Caesar salad
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Liz Murray
Photos by Frank Zochil
Camille Bruckmann
Top Honours
Maya Oster
Junior School Prefect
Future ambition
Marketing manager for the NHL
Favourite subject Drama
Currently reading
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? Beyoncé
Favourite lunch
Zahra Panju Spirit Prefect
Future ambition
Working for the UN
Favourite subject Law
The protein box
Biology and Vocal Music
Future ambition
Future ambition
Favourite lunch
Favourite subject
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
Law
Exploring and creating
Emma Williamson
Future ambition
Sir Nicholas Winton
Future ambition
Currently reading
Vincent Tang
Beowulf
Arts Prefect
Favourite lunch
Currently reading
Favourite subject
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be?
Sophia Richardson
Malala Yousafzai
Alyssa Spaan
To work for the World Health Organization
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Pesto pasta
Christmas Dinner
Montessori School Prefect
Currently reading
Chapel Prefect Car designer
Favourite subject Physics
Favourite lunch Guacamole pizza
Currently reading
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? Lin-Manuel Miranda
Favourite lunch Perogies
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Elon Musk
Media & Public Relations Prefect
To become a screenwriter for a streaming service like Netflix
Favourite subject
Comm Tech and English
Favourite lunch
Vegetarian burrito bowl
Currently reading
Escaping from Houdini by Kerry Maniscalco
If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? The Queen
SPRING 2019 | 47
Giving
2018 – 2019
Creating Opportunity The Morgan Family Scholarship brings innercity students to HSC
Giving
NIGEL MORGAN ’86 IS CONSIDERED A WISE INVESTOR AND RIGHTLY SO.
48 | HSC REVIEW
He has consistently found opportunity in overlooked assets that are capable of great potential, but needing only a fresh environment, expert encouragement and patient nurture to flourish and provide profound returns on principal. And once again, Nigel, an HSC alumnus and parent, is making just such an investment in the future of deserving HSC students. The Morgan Family Scholarship has been endowed by Nigel so that each year one eligible Grade 9 inner-city student can join HSC’s unique learning environment with a financial award that covers four years of tuition fees together with the purchase of books, uniforms and associated school expenses. Nigel says he founded the scholarship because he is concerned that growing wealth inequality puts a good education beyond the reach of many strong, motivated and aspiring students who are not afforded an opportunity to fulfill their potential. In considering how best to address this issue, he determined to make a difference that would have a real and visible impact, and considered the College the best place to start. “I was a student at HSC in high school, and my children are currently enrolled in the Montessori program,” says Nigel. “I really believe in the College and the education it offers, so I am happy to be able to create opportunity for students who could benefit from it.” For Nigel, in order to create change, you have to change people. “There are so many kids who don’t get a fair shot,” he reasons. “Creating a scholarship doesn’t give a donor that sense of instant gratification, as it takes years to see the effect. The reward is when it allows them to venture into the world and create their own change.”
Photo by Frank Zochil
Giving
Nigel draws on his own experience, where he was disinterested in academics until his Senior School physics teacher at HSC took the time to foster his knack for science. His interest in math, chemistry and physics grew because “he found a way to motivate me by making science fun and engaging. He really put in the effort to connect with me and the other students.” It was a milestone in his educational journey. “I remember doing an analysis of rocket engine shapes and acceleration. Another student and I took our learning and entered the Science Fair at McMaster University—and our project won.” The ability to create similar opportunities for students to enjoy a transformative experience and develop a passion and dedication for learning is just one reason among many for establishing the scholarship. “It is my hope that others will see the success of scholarship opportunities like this one, and inspire them to donate in turn,” he reflects. “When you are giving back you need to be patient. The satisfaction is observing the impact cumulate and compound to the point where it really makes a difference in the lives of these students.” For Nigel, it’s a return on principle.
“It is my hope that others will see the success of scholarship opportunities like this one, and inspire them to donate in turn. When you are giving back you need to be patient. The satisfaction is observing the impact cumulate and compound to the point where it really makes a difference in the lives of these students.” SPRING 2019 | 49
Passages
2018 – 2019
JANE ROSS HOWELL SPEARS ’39, teacher, volunteer and sportswoman who
loved skating, tennis, golf and the Ti-Cats; wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. On February 24, 2019, at 96. WILLIAM ROBERT “BILL” MACGREGOR ’39, husband, father, grandfather, great-
Lives Lived
grandfather; HSC Corporation former member. On April 22, 2018, at 94.
50 | HSC REVIEW
JANE SIMPSON “PENNY” WELCH (NÉE COYNE) ’39, vivacious arts lover and history buff; graduated in fine arts from the University of Toronto in 1944; coauthored Nurturing Yesterday’s Child: A Portrayal of the Drake Collection of Paediatric History in 1994, highlighting items relating to children’s care dating to Greek times collected by the co-inventor of Pablum, Toronto’s Dr. Theodore Drake; helped work on the collection at the Academy of Medicine in Toronto; enjoyed poetry, art and theatre; remembered as “beautiful and stylish, a vibrant dresser [who] loved parties—hosting and attending”; wife of Dr. Robert “Bob” Welch (deceased), mother, grandmother. On October 5, 2018, at 96. PATRICIA “PAT” DYKE (NÉE HOBBS) ’41, librarian and “bridge player extraordinaire”; wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. On May 17, 2018, at 93. CHARLES DOUGLAS “DOUG” BOOTHE ’41, industrial engineer at Stelco for
25 years; Second World War naval veteran; church elder for 49 years with Central Presbyterian Church and board member for Boy Scouts of Canada and Hamilton Civic Hospitals; skier and sailor; husband of Pat (67 years), father and grandfather. On August 19, 2018, at 94. THOMAS WILLIAM GALLAGHER ’41, former chairman of Hamilton industrial
fabric firm Soper’s; avid traveller and sportsman who enjoyed skiing, golfing and sailing; husband of Joan (née Rumney) ’41, father, grandfather, great-grandfather; HSC Corporation former member. On January 22, 2019, at 89. GWENYTH ELEANOR “GABBY” HOLTON (NÉE WEBSTER) ’41, wife for 58 years of former HSC Governor and Trustee Charles “Chick” Holton ’41 (deceased); mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. On January 29, 2019, at 95. GRANT WARNER HOWELL ’42, lawyer for 53 years, farmer and active member
of the Hamilton community; proud of his United Empire Loyalist roots and legal advisor to the Hamilton branch of the United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada; also affiliated with the Hamilton Conservation Foundation, Amnesty International and the Hamilton Program for Schizophrenia; husband of Pat (61 years), father, grandfather; HSC Corporation former member. On March 8, 2018, at 91. GEORGE VICTOR VALLANCE ’46, longtime professional engineer at Stelco;
golfer and curler; enjoyed distributing fruit to friends and family from his 75-acre apple farm, Georgian Valley, near the Georgian Bay town of Thornbury; husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather. On February 11, 2019, at 88. JOAN MARIE LAPP (NÉE SCARLETT) ’55, Muskoka lover who in 1984 built her own cottage at Scarlett Point, Lake Joseph, and after retirement worked at the Glen Orchard General Store near Port Carling; wife of Dr. Fred Lapp (deceased), mother, grandmother. On May 11, 2018, at 82.
Passages
WILLIAM ELLSWORTH “BILL” HOLTON ’58, retired stockbroker whose father, William V. Holton ’32, was instrumental in the merger of Hillfield and Strathallan schools in 1962; husband of Marion ’63 (54 years), father, grandfather; HSC Builder and former Governor and Trustee. On November 12, 2018, at 77.
innovative uses for old things, such as used tires for his roof garden or used panels for his solar projects; active in politics as a member of various smaller parties, including the Canadian Action Party and the Family Coalition Party, liked debating controversial issues and regularly posted on social media; husband, father. On January 28, 2019, at 72.
MARION WILSON HOLTON ’63, widow of William
Ellsworth Holton ’58 (above), whose family said her passing came “three short weeks after the loss of her soul mate Bill. She died of a broken heart”; mother, grandmother. HSC Corporation member. On Dec. 6, 2018, at 74.
KENNETH MAGEE HOLLINRAKE ’64, former security
consultant known for his sense of humour and passion for life; in retirement used a wood lathe to make bangles from different woods mounted on surgical steel or copper cores; husband, father, grandfather. On February 13, 2019, at 74.
ROBERT “BOB” INNES ’64, mechanical engineer
who moved on to recycling and waste management engineering and became an entrepreneur; spent much of his life restoring old homes and working on his self-made cabin in Bancroft, Ont.; lived by the motto “waste not, want not” and loved finding
DOUGLAS RAMSEY EVANS ’68, Air Canada pilot
for 33 years and passionate about aviation; remembered by cockpit colleagues as a generous mentor and a “true gentleman”; husband of Donna (38 years), father, grandfather. On November 2, 2018, at 69.
MAXINE ANNE BRANDON ’69, psychiatric nurse and social worker; former HSC Prefect and Tay sports captain who went on to the University of Guelph; loved animals, always sided with the underdog and marched to her own drummer. On February 5, 2019, at 67. LOIS ANNE LOCKWOOD (NÉE MILLER) ’75, Hamilton-
raised, Calgary-based marketing and communications executive and founder of Scout Communications; listed in 2014 as one of the W100: Canada’s Top Female Entrepreneurs by PROFIT and Chatelaine magazines (her advice then: “Keep your own counsel. Don’t talk about everything with everyone. Get a small circle of trusted confidantes and stop there.”); master’s program instructor at University of Calgary for 10 years; animal lover known for her sense of humour and joy in life; mother; Alumni Award of Distinction and Alumni Hall of Excellence; HSC Corporation former member. On March 18, 2018, at 61.
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By the Numbers
Where the Grads Are
Canada The Breakdown 24 11 8 8 8 7 6 5 5
Western University University of Waterloo McMaster University Queen’s University Ryerson University University of Toronto University of Guelph Carleton University University of Ottawa
98 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1
Dalhousie University McGill University Wilfrid Laurier University Trent University Acadia University Brock University Gap Year Huron University College University of British Columbia
Local View NS
USA
QC
BC
United States 52 | HSC REVIEW
3
The Breakdown 1 1
1
Ave Maria University MMG Performance Golf Academy The New School
The Class of 2018 has gone on to study at top institutions across North America
26 18 35 1 20 Majors
Arts ⁄ Liberal Arts ⁄ Arts & Science ⁄ Humanities ⁄ Social Sciences
Business ⁄ Commerce
Science ⁄ Health ⁄ Mathematics
Engineering ⁄ Architecture ⁄ Technology
Fine Arts
Minahil Nadeem '18 is studying at McMaster University
TITLE SPONSOR
Tuesday , June 18, 2019 Dund
IN APPRECIATION OF OUR 2019 TOURNAMENT SPONSORS REGISTRATION & LUNCH SPONSOR
RETIRED FACULTY BREAKFAST & FOURSOME SPONSOR
PUTTING GREEN SPONSOR Waterdown Collision DRIVING RANGE SPONSOR TD Wealth Management MULLIGAN SPONSOR Pearson Dunn Insurance
GIFT SPONSOR
COCKTAIL RECEPTION SPONSORS Brownlow Partners Chartered Accountants (Brianne Barton ’03) JDI Cleaning Systems (John Simpson ’75) Judith King-Siganski ’62 National Bank Financial (David Simpson ’73) Whitley Wodehouse Chartered Professional Accountants (Herb Wodehouse ’71)
AWARDS SPONSOR Cooper Construction
b
19 0 2 f l go / a c . sc.on
Go l f y e l l a as V
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HOLE SPONSORS Burger Barn Bryan & Hedden Financial Capo Industries Ltd. Clearcable Connects Core Urban Inc. Global Fuels Inc. MNP LLP Radius
Take part in a full day of events and celebrations for all members of the HSC community, your families and guests. It’s time to reconnect and reminisce as we honour those classes ending in ‘4 and ‘9, in addition to the 2018 Athletic Hall of Fame honourees.
REGISTER ONLINE: hsc.on.ca/homecoming
n Student
and Alumni Athletic and House Games Pancake Breakfast and Barbecue Lunch catered by The BBQ Gourmet n Hektor’s Home Run 1KM & 5KM Family Fun Run n HSC Community Tennis Tournament n Student Visual Arts Exhibit n Pine/Yre Student Council Charity Car Wash n Campus Store n Kids Zone Activities n Early Education Open House n Trojan Hospitality Zone n Vendor Village and Minute to Win It Tables n Campus Tours led by Admissions & Student Ambassadors n Athletic Hall of Fame Ceremony followed by Reunions Mixer n Complimentary
For more information, please contact: Bianca Barton ’03, Alumni Relations Officer 905.389.1367, ext. 117 alumni@hsc.on.ca Photo gallery of last year’s event!
galleries.hsc.on.ca/homecoming2018