On a Mission
War and natural disaster don’t stop this scientist in her quest to solve the AIDS epidemic
Emma, the bulletin of Emma Willard School, is published by the Communications Office for the Emma Willard School community, and its mission is to capture the school’s remarkable history, values, and culture through objective coverage that adheres to the highest journalistic and literary standards.
Rachel Morton
Trudy E. Hall
Editor rachel@rachelmorton.com
Head of School
Gabrielle DeMarco
Director of Communications gdemarco@emmawillard.org Kelly A. Finnegan
Director of Alumnae Relations kfinnegan@emmawillard.org Jill Smith
Class Notes Coordinator jsmith@emmawillard.org Lilly Pereira
Design www.lillypereira.com
Please forward address changes to: Emma Willard School 285 Pawling Avenue Troy, NY 12180 518.833.1787 alumnae@emmawillard.org or visit www.emmawillard.org/alumnae
emma willard school summer 2012
features
16 Dangerous Medicine
CDC scientist Yen Duong ’97 travels to perilous places to help stop the AIDS epidemic.
21 The Times They Were A-Changin’ Principal Bill Dietel brought to Emma not only new notions of leadership, but he also ushered in the cultural and political changes of the sixties.
26 Aerial Athlete
Circus school in Italy pushes physical and artistic boundaries for Marina Mezzogiorno-Brown ’06.
departments 02 Headlines
14 Action
The serious business of play: it fosters creativity and growth.
Scholar-athlete award recognizes student’s drive, heart, and love of learning.
03 Emma Everywhere
FEATURED ALUMNA ARTIST “Found and Lost,” from the Purse Series. Oil on wood panel, 24" x 36", 2004. Ellen Wineberg ’66 exhibits at the Bromfield Gallery in Boston and a show of her paintings will be at the Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA, in April 2013. Her work is in the DeCordova Museum, Simmons College, Dana Farber, Fidelity Investments, and the New Britain Museum of American Art. Through exploration and intuition with oil stick on canvas, her goal is to achieve something that resonates with humor and/or surprise.
Printed on 100% recycled paper that is manufactured entirely with nonpolluting, wind-generated energy.
Commencement 2012, Tangeman Award winner, and retired but not forgotten.
32 Connections
05 Back in the Day
38 Class Notes
Wonder Woman—Emma style.
10 Off Campus NASA internship sets course for this alumna’s life’s work.
12 Click A new chapter commences.
Reunion and Distinguished Alumnae Awards.
42 Memorial List 84 Women’s Work Rachel Cohen Gerrol ’96 brings special young people together— wealth holders and social entrepreneurs. The results can be world changing.
On the cover Yen Duong ’97, a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control, travels the world to stop the spread of AIDS. Photographed by Billy Howard.
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headlines
By Trudy E. Hall, Head of School
Come Play With Me Let’s get serious. How much are you playing these days? Don’t laugh. Well, maybe you should laugh. Playing is serious business and you had better be doing a fair share of it. Some mighty brain power has weighed in on this topic. Ralph Waldo Emerson once noted that “it is a happy talent to know how to play.” Plato knew that “life must be lived as play.” (He also supposedly said you can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.) Even the modern philosopher George Santayana suggested “to the art of working well a civilized race would add the art of playing well.” What is it these wise minds knew? It is while we play that we tap into the most creative places in ourselves. It is through play that we discover who we truly are. We know that play is the way children make sense of their world and move beyond the bounds of It is while we play reality. Gretchen Owocki, an early childhood educator, reminds us: that we tap into the “As astronauts and space travelers, children puzzle over the future; in ourselves. as dinosaurs and princesses they unearth the past. As weather reporters and restaurant workers they make sense of reality; as monsters and gremlins they make sense of the unreal.” Play fosters problem-solving ability, imagination, confidence, cooperation, flexible thinking, perseverance, independence, and emotional exploration. Play teaches us about relationships, relieves stress, keeps us mentally and physically fit and opens our mind to new possibilities. Play is the power of story, the power of pretending, the power of creativity. You know where I am going. What if you gave yourself permission to take your playful self with you beyond childhood and wherever you went? I think it could help the world if you
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tapped into your playful energy while in the board room, at a church council meeting, or in conference with your child’s teacher. This is an idea worth “playing” with. Many smart alumnae tell me that all Emma girls and all Emma’s best traditions have at their heart “something of substance and something of fun.” Smack in the middle of the habits of an intellectual life are the joy and the jolly to put intellectual rigor to the test through humor’s lens. Be it an April Fool’s spoof, a well-constructed senior prank, a pie in the face for the assistant head of school, a surprise Principal’s Play Day, or just a good belly laugh, there will always be lessons to learn about play here on Mount Ida because women who are saving the world need to know how to play well and forever. It is a great sadness that somewhere along the growth journey, many adults start to think about work and play as separate entities. This might mean each of us is less imaginative, less innovative, and less flexible than we might otherwise be if we more intentionally integrated our “play” with our “work.” Need some help to get started? In Rochester there is a National Museum of Play. It has a butterfly garden, a working carousel, a passenger train, and, of course, the National Toy Hall of Fame. Signups for this field trip can be made at thall@emmawillard.org. I, for one, am going to take Michael Jordan’s advice: “Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” Won’t you come?
emma everywhere
A Golden Morning It was a beautiful day in Troy for the 198th Commencement, and families and faculty gathered to watch 85 remarkable girls receive their diplomas and begin the next chapter of their lives. Every senior was personally recognized by Trudy Hall, who spoke of their accomplishments, their talents, and their adventures. She then introduced “Emma’s unofficial dean of philanthropy,” Michal Colby Wadsworth ’65, who spoke with humor about “the real world, philanthropy, and you.” Wadsworth has been instrumental in the formation of the campus group, Phila, which is devoted to teaching students about philanthropy. She reminded the graduating
seniors to give back to Emma Willard. “You young women will go out into that real world with courage to serve and shape your world. With your support, generations of younger girls will follow you. We who came before you answered that call for you. Answer that for future students.” She was followed by Dr. Kathryn Moeller, a speaker at AUDACIA—a global forum for girls’ education that Emma Willard sponsored in New York City last fall. Dr. Moeller spoke about her research on philanthropic programs aimed at empowering girls and women. Before conferring the diplomas, Anne N. DePrez ’73, Chair of the Board of Trustees, awarded the Jameson Adkins
Baxter Award to Linnhe Kapner noting her “uncommonly full and good heart.” Erin Crotty ’84, another board member and past president of the Alumnae Association Council, awarded the Clementine Milller Tangeman Award to Julia Riback. Crotty heralded Julia's “passion, intelligence, lively class presence, and positive attitude.” Two senior speakers, Zhixing Fei and Pei-Ting Hse, then shared the stage for an unconventional and humorous senior speaker farewell, at the end of which, to mark the beginning of “life in the real world,” they led the entiring graduating class in raising their voices to shout the song lyrics, “WE ARE GOLDEN!” across Mount Ida.
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Tangeman Medal Awarded
Retired But Not Forgotten
Joyce Wyman Hyde ’42 was awarded the Tangeman Medal, a recognition of her service to Emma Willard School through community involvement, dependability, and strength of character—qualities exemplified by the life of Clementine Miller Tangeman ’23. Over the course of the 70 years since she graduated, Joyce has served as a class agent, admission field representative, trustee, and honorary trustee. She is also a stalwart supporter of the Annual Fund and a pillar of every modern capital campaign—both as a leadership donor and a masterful solicitor. Her own philanthropy toward her alma mater, in partnership with her beloved husband, Fritz—is legendary. They contributed to the construction of Mott Gymnasium, faculty advancement, the dormitory renovations in memory of Principal Bob Parker, and a host of vital needs.
Marilyn Hunter In 1972, with a freshly minted degree from Vassar, Marilyn Hunter was hired by Emma, and has taught Spanish, Italian, and French in the four decades since. A holder of the Nettie Sweeney and Hugh Thomas Miller Instructorship in Language, she has also has served as a houseparent, department chair, dean of students, and faculty trustee.
Fulbright Scholar Eleanor Lumsden ’94 received a Fulbright Scholarship for a year’s residence in Jamaica, where she will research the impact of technology on development in that country. She is especially interested in microfinance and how it brings women out of poverty. Lumsden is currently teaching at Golden Gate University Law School.
Christine Carroll Arriving at Emma in 1975, Christine Carroll has taught English, creative writing, and story telling. Awarded the Julia Howard Bush Instructorship, she has served as chair of the English Department, coordinator of the Deerfield Exchange, 1980–83, and has been the costumer for Revels and May Day for over 30 years. Barbara Wiley She began her career at Emma in 1976, and as Director of Library Services Barbara Wiley has overseen the conversion of the library to an online system. With Dr. Lucy Townsend, she identified and organized Emma Hart Willard’s papers from archives throughout the country, and has served as an advisor and occasional Spanish teacher.
Coming Soon! A new history of Emma Willard School will be available in February 2013. Entitled Wrought With Steadfast Will: A History of Emma Willard School, the book was written by Trudy Hanmer, Associate Head Emerita, and will be published by The Troy Book Makers. Priced at $34.95, the book can be ordered online at emmawillard.org/bicentennial/book. Order now for delivery February, 2013.
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back in the day By Gabrielle demarco
Wonder Woman of History Comic books—their colorful covers and tissue paper-thin pages filled with battling superheroes in shining capes—are an iconic part of American childhood, particularly for young boys who purchased them at corner comic shops starting in the 1930s and continuing today. Superman stopped trains and Batman and Robin saved Gotham city in every issue. The men of the comic book universe saved the damsels in distress and flew off to victory. As America entered the 1940s with World War II raging in Europe, psychologist and inventor William Moulton Marston envisioned a totally new kind of superhero—a superheroine. Marston wanted to create a female superhero who would serve as a model of female power for the young girls of the time. And so in 1941 DC Comics released Wonder Woman in all her starspangling, red go-go booted glory. With her Lasso of Truth and sleek mane of black hair, Wonder Woman completely upset the place of women in the comic book world from crying victim to international intelligence agent and gave girls their own and firstever superhero. Shortly after Wonder Woman first came out, the artists and writEmma Willard is the star of a Wonder ers sought to offer girls real-world examples of “Wonder Women Woman comic from the 1940s. of History.” And in 1946, our very own Emma Hart Willard and her important work for education and for girls was given a comic book treatment. Her life story was featured in Wonder Woman issue number 17 as a model for what a dedicated woman could achieve. We were lucky enough to get access to this Emma comic, originals of which are valued in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars today. She stood as a true wonder woman then and continues to do so today more than 200 years later. Read about our very own caped crusader in all her penciled and zam-bop-pow comic greatness.
“ Wonder Woman completely upset the place of women in the comic book world from crying
victim to international intelligence agent.”
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off campus By R achel morton
Sky’s the Limit with NASA Internship Hannah Bower ’10 is looking for life on other planets. She’s not a dreamer or a science fiction fan, she’s a scientist and she’s in a position to discover them while working at NASA. When the rover craft, Curiosity, lands on Mars this August, it will be relaying data back to NASA, data that will be analyzed using some of the techniques Hannah has been testing. A sophomore at George Washington University, Hannah landed the very competitive Tate internship last summer to join a research group in the Planetary Environment Lab at NASA. The scientists there were trying to refine techniques that would enable them to find and quantify “organics” that were obtained during expeditions to Mars. “An organic compound is anything that contains carbon,” explains Hannah. “And carbon is essential for life. So what we are looking for are any signatures of life on Mars.” That is the “science for English majors” explanation. Here’s Hannah’s excited, full-speed, breathless explanation of what they are really doing: “We put known concentrations of water with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons through a system where we collect organics and run them through a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. Then we compare it to a standard.” Hannah was already back at NASA one day a week during the school year, and will work there full time this summer. Her new project is closely related to this search for organics on Mars, but this summer she’s trying to find organics in deep cores of ice from the Arctic. Scientists believe that this glacial ice is similar to ice found on Mars and will provide a standard to which data from the Mars rover will be compared. Having a hand in such active, planetary research is something most college students don’t have access to.
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Hannah is utterly jazzed by the science, the people she works with (“I’m so happy I have the mentors I have. They are absolutely awesome!”), and the opportunity to do science that has such an impact. “I used to think I’d go to medical school,” she said. “But now I really want to go to grad school and continue this kind of work. I love planetary sciences!” This happy marriage of student and science began at Emma, says Hannah’s mother, Ann Crotty ’83, who knows firsthand how that can happen. It happened for her as well when she was a student at Emma. Though she, too, liked science and math, she initially took a different path and became an elementary teacher. “I stumbled into science as a first-year, fifth-grade teacher in an urban magnet school for math, science, and technology,” she says. “I ended up pursing a graduate degree focused on science and education.” Her doctoral dissertation was on women and girls in science education and it was fascinating seeing her own daughter traveling this route. “I watched Hannah’s interest and excitement about science gradually take shape in high school at Emma. As a parent and educator, I saw her interest peaking during her sophomore year when she took her first chemistry course. It may not have been her ‘ah ha’ moment, but I recollect it was my ‘ah ha’ moment for her.”
Hannah Bower ’10 and her mother Ann Crotty ’83 both developed a love of science while at Emma Willard.
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how scientists work together, and to see
“ She got to see True, Ann had primed the pump. When her daughters were young (another daughter, Sarah, a senior at Emma, is heading for Hobart William Smith College next year to study life sciences), she’d point out metamorphic rock during walks on trails, take them to see an Imax movie on Jane Goodall, and plant seedlings with them in the back yard. She made sure her daughters knew women who were active practitioners in science-related fields—doctors, mathematicians, engineers. “I always found a teaching moment,” says Ann, “whether they embraced it or not. Oftentimes not!” Hannah remembers those teaching moments. “My whole life I’ve been surrounded by science. We’d have little critters around; my mother would do experiments with us. She wanted me to go to Emma because they have a good science program.” By the time Hannah graduated from Emma Willard, she had taken six years of science, including Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Animal Behavior, Ethics in Science, and Neuroscience, as well as four years of mathematics. Her most formative science experience came during her junior year when she had an eight-week internship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in their biotechnology lab. Hannah says this was certainly the item on her resume that got her noticed by NASA when she was one of many applicants for the internship there. “To me it was like a rehearsal for her future,” said Ann about her daughter’s internship while at Emma. “She got to see how scientists work together and do science, and to see herself in science, too.” It was particularly satisfying to Ann to watch Hannah’s love of science grow and build into a career path because Ann’s experience as an educator had shown her that women and minorities are underrepresented in many science fields. “The STEM pipeline is referred to as ‘leaky,’” she says, using the acronym often used for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The attrition rates of women and minorities are especially high. But for girls inclined toward science at Emma Willard, Ann feels the environment is conducive.
herself in science, too.”
“I think there is a much more concerted effort at Emma over the last decade or so to provide valuable and varied opportunities for students to gain access to science and mathematics courses that not only build their foundational knowledge, but lead to more advanced courses as they move from grades 9 to 12.” She cites the physics course for first-year students at Emma, noting that most schools offer physics to upperclass students only and often with prerequisites that bar many students who are not already confident science students. “This is a statement about the importance of science. How do you know you don’t like physics if you have never been exposed to it?” asks Ann. “Think of all the untapped potential in students who have never taken a physics or a chemistry course in high school—they could be, or could have been, our future engineers, physicists, chemists, bioengineers, biochemists.” No such questions linger for Hannah Bower, future planetary scientist. Next year she is transferring to the University of Maryland because, she says, “their chemistry program is one of the top-ranked in the country and they have close ties with NASA.” And NASA is where Hannah hopes to work, once she completes a graduate degree. “It was awesome to see my own daughter navigating her way…gaining ground toward making such an important commitment and decision about her future,” says Ann. “I describe her NASA experience as ‘life altering’ because it did change her life. It has opened so many pathways, inspired her to take greater leaps. She can see a career with a future.”
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Photo: Mark Van Wormer
action By R achel morton
Giving It Everything She’s Got Natural leader gets top scholar-athlete award Lindsay Pattison grew up on 100 acres of fields and forest. She spent hours walking along a tributary of the Bozenkill River, hiking with her brother to the waterfall, to the bog, learning about the animals who shared the bountiful wilderness—the deer and bear, the birds and coyotes. This pastoral environment gave her a set of enduring passions: love of the outdoors and physical activity, love of science and the natural world. Those aspects of Lindsay’s character came together this spring when she was named the top basketball scholar-athlete in the Central Hudson Valley League. She was selected from top scholar-athletes representing nine Section II schools. In her acceptance speech, Lindsay thanked her coach, Tony Holston. “There have been many lessons that Coach Tony has taught me through the game of basketball,” she said to a crowd of friends, coaches, and family members gathered at the Albany Marriot to celebrate the student nominees and winners. “But one of the most important ones has been to play with heart. To want the ball, to put everything you have into every second of every practice and every game.” During her last sectionals game, she was guarding a player who was a very good three-point shooter. “I was diving to intercept balls that were being passed to her or from her and usually landing on my side on the floor, working hard to avoid picks on me so that my player could get open to take the outside shot, and trying to keep up with my player,” she says. Though they were down by many points and it was clear they wouldn’t win the game, Lindsay never let up. Lindsay Pattison ’12 was named the top basketball scholarathlete in the Central Hudson Valley League.
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Photo: Mark Van Wormer
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“ There’s an intensity and In the last two minutes of the game, the coach began pulling out the seniors and Lindsay was the last one off. Coach Holston and Assistant Coach Quinn shook her hand and congratulated her, and as she walked down the line of players on the bench, they all stood and hugged her. “The team knew that I had given it my all and that was their way of thanking me—not just for playing with heart and encouraging them to play with heart in this one game, but for the whole season. “There’s an intensity and power and drive when you play like that. You are not thinking about anything else. That’s all there is at that moment. That desire.” Though she is passionate about sports and has competed on teams since she was five years old, Lindsay thinks of herself as a student-athlete, with emphasis on the word student. “I love sports.” Lindsay asserts. “I love the game, the competition, but I’m a student first. I’ve always been into academics, and then sports.” How does a three-sport athlete with such commitment to her teams manage to put that same spirit of “giving it her all” into her academics as well? Her biology teacher, Linda Maier, lauds Lindsay’s zeal for any challenge, her diligence, and her natural leadership as a boon to any classroom. “Lindsay is absolutely fantastic,” writes Maier, “her attitude, drive, motivation, sensitivity… She is bright, curious—a teacher’s dream! Whether in the classroom, on the athletic field, or mentoring her classmates, Lindsay gives 100 percent.” Lindsay’s AP Biology course with Maier was the first biology course she had taken, so the demands of the written materials and of the lab were new to her and she needed some guidance in how to handle it all. “It was a difficult course at first,” admits Lindsay, “but Miss Maier helped me find ways to handle the course load better.” Maier says that Lindsay not only rose to the challenges of the class, but she was also a natural class leader. “Her demanding athletic schedule coupled with her rigorous reading-intensive course selections could have been a recipe for disaster,” wrote Maier in a letter of recommendation, “however Lindsay took charge of her learning.” In order to attend classes, participate in sports practice, compete in games, complete homework, and still
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you play like that. That’s all there is at that moment.”
have time to eat meals and have a little down time with friends and family, Lindsay has learned to follow a precise schedule. “I don’t watch TV,” she says. “I use all my free time when I’m not in class to do my homework. I’m organized; I’m on top of things.” Lindsay will continue with her science studies next year at Hamilton College, and though she’ll play sports, she expects it will be club sports, rather than intercollegiate competition.“There are other things I want to explore,” she says, “like Outing Club.” Hiking is an important part of Lindsay’s life and it has been since she was an 11-year-old camper attending Camp Chingachgook on Lake George. She recently completed a leadership training program, where she hiked the high peaks of the Adirondacks. “We hiked about seven high peaks in like four days,” she says with some satisfaction. “I just like being outside,” she says. “I like nature. I like carrying the heavy pack and being a little dirty. I think I like uphills for some reason!” There are a lot of uphill moments in sports and Lindsay has experienced them in not only hiking and basketball, but in her other two sports—soccer and lacrosse. In the last game of the soccer season, the game went into overtime. It was snowing and she remembers sliding around the field. They’d already been playing for 90 minutes but in spite of fatigue, “we were pumped.” In the end, there was just one final penalty shot and Lindsay took it. “It was my last game. That’s the last thing you can ever put into that game. I put all my focus into the shot.” Though Lindsay’s shot went in, the team didn’t end up winning the game. But that part of it doesn’t faze Lindsay. “It was sad, but knowing I put so much into it made it a better ending.”
Summer 2012
Photo: Billy Howard
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Dangerous
Medicine
Scientist tackles AIDS epidemic in some of the world’s most dangerous places By Kim Asch
Summer 2012
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Yen Duong does AIDS research at the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
The flak jacket-clad Ph.D. is like a female Indiana Jones, except instead of wielding a whip in self-defense while searching for archeological treasures, she is armed only with a fierce sense of mission as she navigates war zones, natural disasters, and Third World conditions to advance a new technology that could help conquer AIDS around the globe.
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Photo: Billy Howard
When she’s at home in Atlanta, Yen Duong conducts her groundbreaking HIV research in a sterile, high-tech environment at Centers for Disease Control headquarters. But the fearless microbiologist is equally at home when she’s working on the other side of the world in perilous places like South Sudan, Mozambique, and Afghanistan.
19 Duong ’97 has spent the past three years in the field leading a comprehensive effort to assess the accuracy of a new CDC-developed lab test that can distinguish between long-term and recent HIV infections. The test provides vital information that can help direct international efforts focused on HIV prevention, care, and treatment. It helps to measure the rate of occurrence, the transmission dynamics, and allow tracking of epidemiological trends. It provides crucial data during vaccine trials. “The test is fantastic. It’s spot-on accurate,” says Duong, whose name is listed first among eight authors of the journal article published in March announcing the successful results. Once the test kit is commercialized, Duong predicts its use will be widespread and to great benefit. She won’t see any profits from the sales, but she says she wouldn’t have gone into the field of public health if she measured her rewards in dollars and cents. “This has been a labor of love,” she says, adding with a laugh, “my program really attracts morons like me who feel they can come in and save the world.” Debra Wadford, who collaborated with Duong investigating HIV inhibitors while pursuing their Ph.D.’s at UC Davis and is now a microbiologist for the state of California, concurs that “none of us is in public health to get rich—we do it for the public good.” Wadford is proud of her friend’s important work and a little awed by her daring. “When I try to text or call her, nine times out of ten she’s out of the country in some exotic, dangerous place. I wouldn’t want to go to any of those places, so kudos to her,” says Wadford. “She goes for the sake of the science and the work. She goes regardless of the danger. But I think she also gets a little rush from the adventure of it.”
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native of Vietnam who emigrated with her family when she was very young, Yen Duong (pronounced “Ing Dwon”) exudes an irrepressible exuberance about everything from great coffee (cappuccino: only froth, no milk) to viruses (“I love viruses, they’re so clever.”). She adores nature and food—and makes an effort to enjoy both wherever she is. “She always says her happiest place is on the side of a mountain,” Wadford muses. “And she is a fantastic cook—she can whip up the best simple, rustic pies in no time.” Duong attributes her wanderlust to what she calls her “geographical confusion” as a child. She spent her first years as an immigrant in bustling Long Island, N.Y., before moving to small-town Saskatchewan in Canada, where her parents put in long hours at the bakery they continue to own and operate. It was a cold, boring place, she says, “I only ever wanted to leave.” Boarding school offered an escape and Duong convinced her parents to let her go if she got in. “I went to the library and got a big directory and wrote letters to dozens of schools,” she recalls. “My dad picked Emma because it was the only girls’ school in the mix.” At Emma, Duong was in her element. “I could be dorky and smart and still be accepted, instead of pregnant like many of the teenagers in my hometown.” She painted, practiced photography, and sang in the choir. Having inherited her parents’ cooking talents, she impressed her teachers by making them homemade Vietnamese spring rolls in their kitchens. But she really loved and excelled in Chemistry and AP Chemistry classes: “From there I knew I was hooked on science.”
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She goes for the sake of the science + the work. She goes regardless of the danger. But I think she also gets a little rush from the adventure of it.
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Duong majored in chemistry at McGill University in Montreal where her mentors groomed her for graduate school. “Most of the people in the program were destined for the lab doing basic research,” she explains. “But I wanted to work on something to be used in the field. Why do it if it’s not going to directly affect people’s lives?” Upon completion of UC Davis’s six-year doctoral program in pharmacology and toxicology, she had two patents to her name. Both resulted from her work with potential entry inhibitors to block HIV in the cell and stop its migration to other cells. It’s unclear whether these compounds will ever become viable treatments, she says, because “it can’t go from my lab to people’s mouths without industry coming in and putting tens of millions of dollars into the development of the drug.”
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20 After completing her post-doc work at the CDC, Duong decided to stay on, even though she’d always imagined working for a nongovernmental organization. “I realized that it’s all about having an impact, and the CDC has the weight of the United States government behind it,” she says. And unlike a career in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, Duong would be able to focus on the public health mission, free from concerns about profits and losses. “My parents cringe when they hear me say I don’t care about money. It causes them grief,” she says, without a hint of confusion. “I get it. They’re immigrants and they emigrated to achieve financial security. I’m secure, I just don’t want to be independently wealthy.” Instead, Duong prides herself on being a model government employee. “When I go abroad I’m there to represent the U.S. government and I’m pretty serious about that. You have to represent properly.” Despite her independent and strong sense of identity, she dons a head scarf while working in places where they are the custom for women. “When I work with my Afghan colleagues, they offer tea which is a gesture of kindness. It is rude to say no to the tea so even if I think I’m going to get sick from it, I drink it anyway. That’s how you build trust and a working relationship in that part of the world,” she says. Another aspect of her job with the CDC involves helping developing countries create clinical lab systems to secure accurate results. The work is akin to the proverb that it’s better to teach someone how to fish than to give him a meal. The only place Duong refuses to go is Nigeria because, she says, the restrictive safety precautions would prevent her from getting anything done. “I joke that in my branch I’m like the civil unrest lab liaison,” she says, adding that she chooses the uncomfortable and risky assignments because, “these are the places that need help the most. The need and the ability to have an impact is what attracts me to them.”
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here is a lot of discomfort involved in her travels, which keep her away from her life in Atlanta about 40 percent of the year. Much of it is unavoidable, but even where modern accommodations are available, Duong usually chooses to “rough it” by staying in places that aren’t too far removed from the way the locals live. “I figure as long as I have a bed, a shower, a sink, and clean water, I’ve got everything I need,” she says. Duong is rewarded by the way the sights, smells, sounds and tastes of each unique location so thoroughly work their way into her senses. “One strong sensory memory I have is of the dirt in southern Africa. It’s red and it has a smell to it and when I see and feel it, I know exactly where I am in the world. There is no other place like it. “When I’m in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland, and Namibia, I try to go on safari as often as possible. I never get tired of seeing the game there. In Swaziland, which has become my adopted homeland, they have a sanctuary for black rhinos that are officially extinct. I also love the elephants, lions, crocs and anything else I can see.” She says the people of Afghanistan have captured her heart. “After decades of war the spirit of the Afghans is amazing. They really still believe they can rebuild their country.” In poetic terms, she describes the country’s effect on her: the way the dust and smoke rush into her
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I joke that I’m like the civil unrest lab liaison.
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nose and eyes and suck the moisture from her skin, the delicious kabobs and flat bread she eats with every meal when she’s there. On one of her visits, she and her colleagues were able to go out to a local restaurant, and when they got there they were greeted by an armed guard. “I like to start off all my meals with an AK-47,” she cracks. Maintaining a social life outside of work is a bit of a challenge, but Duong manages to keep up with her friendships and even to date. She met a Marine while in Kabul who returned to New York and she sees him when she can. For Thanksgiving, she and a friend toured Greece and Turkey, and at Christmas she was home in Saskatchewan to visit her family. Her work assignments in Vietnam have allowed her to practice her Vietnamese and reconnect with her roots there. On a recent trip to Vietnam, she bought a painting of a child sitting on a water buffalo playing a flute. “It’s an iconic Vietnamese story and every time I see this painting, it reminds me where I came from. I could be that kid on a farm working today, but luckily I am not.”
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Setting the stage for our Bicentennial Celebration in 2014, we present some of the pivotal people and meaningful moments in Emma’s history. Â
The Times They Were
A-Changin
the Dietel Decade at Emma
In 1960,
life at Emma Willard was much as it had been before the Second World War. Girls were provided an excellent education by dedicated women teachers, and their activities and deportment were rigidly constrained.
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meaningful
moments in history
There were rules for everything,
and they were enforced by the two formidable co-headmistresses of school—Miss Anne Wellington and Miss Clemewell Lay. These women had been at the helm at Emma for nearly 20 years and the school they presided over represented everything that had been prized in educational circles but was now being questioned by the emerging Boomer generation: a classical curriculum, social decorum, and nearly 150 years of tradition. The changes beginning to roil society were simmering quietly at the school, held in check by the two imposing headmistresses, who were respected and feared. Bill Dietel, who became principal of the school in 1961, succeeding Wellington and Lay, remembers a moment as he was poised to take over the school—a moment that was a beautiful illustration of the old and new exchanging a bumpy embrace in passing. Before their official installation at Emma, Bill and his wife, Linda Remington Dietel ’48, were invited to spend the weekend on campus. Typical of an earlier era and in keeping with the formality of the school and of the co-headmistresses, a tea with the seniors was planned in Sage Living Room. Teacakes were served and the legendary Gracie Bartholomew played the piano. “Anne Wellington turned to me,” says Bill, “and said, ‘I think we should do the gavotte.’ “I looked at Linda. I didn’t know how to do the gavotte.” Bill realized what the rest of the girls knew full well. If Anne Wellington said they should do the gavotte, well, it was time to do the gavotte. With Gracie’s piano accompaniment, the 33-year old Bill took the 64-year old Miss Wellington into his arms and they danced in front of the transfixed seniors. “She led me!” Bills says. “Believe you me, Anne Wellington led me in the gavotte !” And on that note, Bill Dietel danced into his life at Emma. Once they moved to campus, Bill and Linda needed no such formal events to get to know their students. They had four young children at the time (a fifth was born while they were at Emma) and a pony. The Dietels would put their kids in a cart and let the little pony pull it around the sidewalks on the inner campus. Needless to say, the students were captivated. That pony perhaps pointed the way to the Dietel's future life—on a farm, or, as their children like to call it, a “Fark”—part farm, part park. In Virginia rolling farm country, it includes homes for Bill and Linda, and for their daughter, Betsy, and her family. The farm part is Linda’s doing. She raised sheep for many years and describes herself as a retired sheep farmer. But “retired” for Linda does not mean sitting home knitting. She is heavily involved in community and nonprofit fund raising, she created a foundation to support local public education, and she is active in the local Democratic Party. Bill, too, is active in the community (the two were named 2007 Citizens of the Year for service to the Rappahannock County), but his main business is running an international philanthropic advising firm, helping major investors use philanthropy for social change. Three of his children are principals in this firm. Though it has been more than 40 years since Bill and Linda’s tenure at Emma, they still feel deeply connected to the school. It is more than the fact that Linda is an alumna, that two of their daughters went to Emma, that Linda served on the Board of Trustees and was its president,
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and that she and Bill chaired the major gifts part of a capital campaign in 1980 and played a leadership role in the campaign of the 1990s. “We’ve had an association with the school since 1946,” says Bill. “I went to Exeter for four years during the war and I’ve remained very attached. I went to Princeton, did graduate work at Yale. But Emma. Emma is special. That’s where the family jelled and I matured professionally,” says Bill. When Bill O Linda arrived in 1961, Bill was 33, Linda, 30. They came from Amherst College, where Bill had been assistant dean of the college. The arrival of this young couple, with four young children and a pony, was nothing less than astonishing. “He was a breath of fresh air,” says Trudy Hanmer, Associate Head Emerita, whose history of the school, Wrought With Steadfast Will: A History of Emma Willard School is being published this winter. “In January of that year, JFK was inaugurated and there are a lot of parallels.” It was common at the time for the wives of secondary school heads to take on major roles in running the schools, though they were unpaid and often unrecognized. Linda was a major asset to Bill and to the Emma community. “Linda was really co-principal,” Bill says. “It was fortunate for me,” says Linda. “I knew the school inside out and backwards. A lot of faculty members I had were still there.” At the time, the girls wore uniforms and the rules and regulations were strictly upheld. According to Hanmer, “there were rules for everything—even how you picked up your fork.” The students were bridling under the regulations, some of which were relics of an earlier era. Though the Dietels did not abolish the rulebook entirely, they did begin to loosen the strictures, “Bit by bit these things changed,” says Bill. “Not fast enough to suit all the girls, but moving in the right direction.”
Bottom left, clockwise: Bill and LInda Dietel came to Emma with four children and a pony; Bill with Lucile Tuttle, dean of admissions, reading news announcing plans for faculty housing; addressing the community; with a plaque naming the Dietel Library.
More importantly, they supported the students’ desires to join in the social and political actions taking place in the world around them. When it came to civil rights, Bill Dietel “was keenly attuned to the tenor of the time,” says Hanmer, and he set an example for the school. He was dedicated to increasing the presence of black students and teachers on campus. In 1968, he took the students downtown to a civil rights vigil. He provided transportation for students and faculty to go to a protest in Albany, and to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to hear Bob Dylan. Linda was active in Troy, involved with the YWCA on improving housing, and involving students in community service. Bill’s colleague from Yale, William Sloane Coffin—then a vocal and respected opponent of the war— came to the Emma campus and spoke on a few occasions. Bill’s liberal political stance wasn’t always popular among alumnae or
special.
“ Emma is That’s where the family jelled and I matured professionally.” the Board of Trustees. When he told the board he was going to try to enroll 15 black students the next year, an alumna took him aside and told him she didn’t approve. But that alumna, in spite of her disapproval, “ended up being one of the most supportive individuals in the history of the school,” he says. Where Bill made immediate and permanent changes was moving the school to a more professional administration. “I’d seen what was going on at Amherst,” he says, and he wanted that model for Emma. “A professional model,” he says, “means that you had people who are experienced professional managers rather than a faculty member who
is taken out of his Latin class two days a week to become the financial secretary. When I got here, there was no development officer. Serious independent boarding schools could not survive with the old model.” When he arrived, the board was composed of businessmen from Troy and had been for decades. In fact, from 1872 to 1930 one Troy family held the board presidency. “We were an international school so a parochial board was inadequate to the challenges ahead,” says Bill. He proceeded to bring new blood onto the board, including men who could, and did, actively fund raise. In 1965 Clementine Miller Tangeman ’23, was named president
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of the board—a pivotal moment for the school and the first time an alumna had chaired the board. Tangeman was a national figure and had served on the board of the national and international Girls Guides and Scouts as well as charities at her homes in New York and Columbus, Indiana. Her impact on the board and the school was legendary and continues to this day. “Clemmie was one of the great ladies of the country,” says Dietel. People wanted to be on the board with Tangeman who was an inspiring leader.
Bill and Linda Dietel now live in Virginia where both are involved with nonprofit fund raising and international philanthropy.
meaningful
moments in history
“Bill helped shape the board,” says Hanmer. He brought on alumnae and men who would actively fund raise and who would recruit wealthy, well-connected individuals for the Board of Trustees. While the addition of new blood to the board—mostly men—wasn’t radical, the addition of new blood to the faculty—mostly male—was. Emma had been an entirely female enterprise when the Dietels arrived (save two men, Russell Locke, head of the music department for 50 years and Arthur Homan, chair of the history department when Bill arrived). But though there was more money spent, money was coming in. The Dietels instituted the first capital campaign in the history of the school. New buildings were
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constructed—the Tangeman housing complex, the Snell music wing, Dietel Library, and the faculty duplexes. Dietel discontinued the riding program and moved maintenance to the old stables. He made the laundry a student center. He took a decidedly less aggressive tack with the academic program. Academically the school was nationally renowned when the Dietels arrived. Co-headmistresses Wellington and Lay had instituted a curriculum in 1948 that integrated the history, literature, and arts of Western civilization, which, Linda says, “was talked about in educational circles nationally.” By 1968, though, many of the teachers who had helped build this curriculum were gone, and new teachers, says Bill, “had new things they wanted to do. They found an inherited program restrictive.” “So we tried to hang on to bits and pieces of the old curriculum while giving faculty members more of an opportunity to develop their own areas of academic interests.” The school had always had an interest beyond the United States, so there was a further broadening beyond Western civilization and culture. Also, science education was becoming more important in the Sputnik era, so Bill beefed up math and science and instituted an internship program. They also placed a greater emphasis on the arts and started a dance program that was of particular interest to a growing number of students, and though music and art had always been strong, during Dietel’s era they added a performance component. If the former co-headmistresses were known for strict formality and protocol, the Dietels were known for their approachability, and in fact many students of the era referred to him as “Daddy D.”
“He was like a father figure,” recalls Mags Conant ’67. “I think most people adored him. He was beloved.” In the spirit of the new Dietel era, pranks were played—by and on Bill. Bill recalls that when the girls realized that he didn’t really know all the words to the Alma Mater, which was sung every week at morning assembly, one day the entire student body stopped singing after the first verse, leaving Bill loudly singing his lah, lah, lahs. At another morning assembly, Bill introduced a visiting diplomat from Russia. “This was 1965,” Conant says, “so it was in the middle of the Cold War. The visitor was describing why Russia was so wonderful and what was wrong with America.” She recalls that the students were getting perturbed and a French teacher in the balcony stood up and left. After he finished his anti-American speech, the Russian diplomat sat down and Bill said, “We are very lucky to have today a parent of a student who would like to refute the things you’ve just heard. Welcome Bill Chenoweth, the senator from Colorado.” And then the same guy—the Russian diplomat— stood up. Bill enjoyed making the announcement of Headmaster’s Holiday a dramatic performance. On one occasion, while a speaker addressed the students during morning assembly, the curtain behind him opened and there was Bill, in slippers and housecoat, reading the paper and smoking a pipe, exclaiming, “Headmaster’s Holiday!” Bill pulled another fast one on the students when he insisted they attend a special evening event—a renowned German poet would be reading poetry. The students were unhappy and grumbled but arrived to see a statuesque woman, Professor Doktor Gertrude von Rauschnitz, ascend the stage.
Photo: Molly McDonald Peterson
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25 “She was tall, had good looking legs, and carried a reticule,” remembers Bill. “And wore a veil and a gray hat,” adds Linda. The poet proceeded to tell the assembly, in a thick German accent, that she was disappointed that they didn’t offer German classes or speak German. “The students were not amused,” laughs Bill. “Who is this woman putting our school down?” She began to read some Goethe and the students, bored and eager to get back to their studies, began squirming and whispering. At which point the poet railed at the students. “It’s extraordinary that you young ladies could be so badly behaved!” she exclaimed. “It’s enough to make me tear out my hair!” So she did just that. Tore off her hair—a wig, and beneath that wig, was Bill Dietel. Pandemonium ensued. “It caused almost complete bedlam among the students,” remembers Kimi Okada ’69. “It was so funny,” says Linda, who was up in the balcony laughing out loud. While the Dietel years at Emma were building years—new structures, new programs, new teachers and administrators—Bill and Linda realized, by the end of their tenure, that all-girls’ schools were losing ground. As many boys’ secondary schools began going coed, the pool of Emma applicants was reduced and the future of all-girls education, at the secondary and collegiate level, began to look imperiled. In the years that followed, schools changed and evolved to meet the demands and expectations of the changing times. Some all-girls’ schools became coed, some folded. But Emma Willard remained true to its mission.
“ This school says,
let’s go for it.”
Then came the study by Harvard psychologist Carol Gilligan that Emma underwrote. “That was an important mind-changer about all girls’ schools and women’s education,” Linda says. Gilligan asserted that developmental differences between males and females worked against young women in educational settings, where they learned during puberty to suppress their “authentic voices” and true ideals in maledominated society. “That put us back on the national education scene,” Bill says. “That gave Emma a shot in the arm. It’s part of the business of being pioneering and taking chances. This school says, let’s go for it. Finds a new way to be creative, to rethink women’s education. Emma Willard has historically consistently played over its head
and that explains the loyalty of the alumnae, the dedication of the faculty, and the commitment of the board.” No one has been more loyal, dedicated, committed—or pioneering—than the Dietels. In 1969, Bill exited from his role as Emma’s principal with the same drama and flair as when he entered it. “I will never forget that day,” remembers Ann Evans ’72. “A helicopter began to circle over the Triangle. Once it became clear that the helicopter was going to land on the campus everyone gathered to watch. My memory is that when Bill Dietel stepped out his arms were filled with daffodils and he announced “Headmaster’s Holiday!” Approaching each and every student and handing her a flower was his way of saying farewell. He’ll never say goodbye.
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Photo: David Sosnow
by Marina Mezzogiorno-Brown ’06
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aerial athlete
When she joined a circus school in Italy, this alumna found her footing.
How it all started I began taking silks classes around two and half years ago because my mother, of all people, told me she thought I’d enjoy flying. After about a year of on-and-off classes and lots of fun with the Brooklyn/New York circus community, I felt the pull to go deeper. I started the professional program part time at the Circus Warehouse in Queens doing silks and flying trapeze (the best thing ever), ballet, and stretching classes. The school is absolutely great but too expensive to do full time and not as complete of an education as I realized I desired. Full-time, rigorous circus schools exist primarily in Europe with a few in South and North America and Russia. My sister had twin boys in August of 2011 in Italy so that helped me decide to head toward Europe, as did the fact that I speak French and Italian. I did some research, packed up my life and flew to Milan. A fantastic teacher of mine from the Circus Warehouse had mentioned she had seen some cool stuff come out of FLIC in Turin, so I headed there and there I stayed.
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I love to fly
Photo: David Sosnow
My disciplines are the aerial rope and the silks. The rope hangs from a 25-foot ceiling in our school, and I climb and wrap and unwrap myself in various ways, often including drops of 10 or more feet. The silks are similar except that there are two pieces of fabric hung from the ceiling.
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The rush of performing The adrenaline you get from having a public is unlike anything else. Performance is also the ultimate gratification for months of work, and the place where you get to test your artistry. It is where, if you’re good, you get to force people to think outside the box and feel things they don’t normally feel. That is the whole point of art when it is done well.
Developing a tough skin It takes months to habituate your skin to the tear of the rope and your hands to the hold you need to stay in the air. Most ropists (including me) wear jeans to practice and perform, as tights just don’t cut it. It requires a huge amount of strength as well—the majority of movements start with a pull up, at the very least. Constant concentration is imperative when you’re talking about acrobatic movements at 20 feet in the air—one misstep and you break a vertebra. Not an uncommon injury, unfortunately, at FLIC. At the end of the day I have just enough energy left to get home, cook dinner and pass out. In fact, I’d like to take a moment to apologize to all of my lovely Emma girls for my absolute lack of contact. I love and think about you all! I just can’t move most of the time!
I spend my days trying to reach the limit of what physics (and common sense) permit. My class schedule For one hour in the morning we have physical preparation, which consists of either strength building or flexibility training. We’re talking an hour of pull-ups, push-ups, ab closures, jumping, etc., in every possible configuration the devil can come up with—hands close together, hands far apart, elbows wide, elbows at 90 degrees, squatting, legs at 30 degrees, legs straight jumping with only your ankles, and that doesn’t even begin to explain the depth of variation. Flexibility focuses on legs, joints (hips/shoulders), and back. This means minutes in all three, splits, bridges, straddles and so on. Physical prep is followed by acrobatics—I can now do a round-off back handspring and am working on my round-off back flip! We then have modern dance class. It’s super exciting to mix disciplines; that is, throw a handstand or a cartwheel into a dance choreography. This interdisciplinary fluidity is the objective of FLIC’s training. We also have physical acting classes, mask and clown workshops, as well as intense stretching lessons. The final piece is, of course, circus class. Aerial rope and the silks. Swinging trapeze, aerial hoop, tight wire, hand to hand, roux cyr, German wheel, Chinese pole, acrobatic ball, ladder, hand standing, and if you are interested you can work on juggling and contortion as well.
Not just clowning around Contemporary circus is nowhere near the “TA DA!!” of traditional circus— traditional being the sort with parading animals and trapeze artists in glittering tutus. Today’s circus is closer to a mixture of modern dance, acting, and mad skills. It is about pushing the audience, and performer, into a world where the laws of physics and common sense are less applicable. It is not easy and often it is not fun in the sense that the word “circus” brings to mind.
What circus means to me It is about using the body as your artistic instrument—learning to control your movement and your discipline (mine is the rope) in such a way that you can express something deeper than the sum of your tricks. In this world there will always be the gymnasts and dancers that began at age six who best you technically—the challenge is to find what makes your performance moving, to find how you can use your body to show your soul, your ideas, and to use that to move people.
Forget sick days Consistency is also a huge, huge element for physical fitness. In most schools if you are sick they tell you to stay home. At FLIC, unless you can’t move you better show up. A cold is not an excuse; neither is a pulled muscle or a twisted ankle. The first show at the school I performed with a fractured nose from doing a certain type of twoperson front flip.
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My ‘gritty’ new community This is still a fringe community, even if the number of people in circus is exploding, and the people you run into are some of the most cooperative and gritty you will find anywhere. The ideal is to have your own Chapiteau (tent) and travel as an autonomous group. That means you are always with the people in the company (a bit like Emma, you are forced to get along with the people around you, you live with them), and you share everything. You share the work of mounting and dismounting the tent (no small feat), you share food, you share ideas, you share creation time and you share down time. This is the politic of circus. It is, on one hand, super individualistic because everyone works for themselves with their own number. On the other hand it is ultra-communal. It is an intense combination and a great balance for me.
More than a dress rehearsal
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Reconnecting with my Italian side I am half Italian and half American. The Italian half is all here in Italy, including my sister who was born and raised here. I was born and raised in the US but have dual citizenship. When I was young I came here once every two or three years to see my family, and when I was 16 I decided to spend my junior year of Emma in Italy to learn the language.
Surrounded by colorful characters There are students from all over the world—Brazil, Costa Rica, USA (I’m not the only American), France, Spain, Austria, Poland, all over Italy, Sweden, Latvia, Ireland, and so on. I guess the biggest difference between the people in this school and the other schools I’ve been to is that here we all work with our bodies in an extreme way, for which a certain madness is a base requirement.
Photo: David Sosnow
When you’re talking about acrobatic movements at 20 feet in the air—one misstep and you break a vertebra.
Monthly or bimonthly the whole school puts together a show under the direction of various artists. These shows are nothing like a cabaret, they are full-on productions with a theme and often carry a vague story line. We don’t sleep from Thursday until 3 a.m. Sunday when the show is over and the gym-turnedtheater is dismantled and returned to normal. I was totally taken aback when I saw the number of people that showed up to the first Circo In Pillole—the school’s shows have become something of a sensation in Turin and a few hundred spectators come.
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If I had a crystal ball In five years I hope to be working with a company of brilliant artists traveling the world with our show.
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emma willard school 285 Pawling Avenue Troy, NY 12180
SAVE THE DATE Reunion 2013, June 8–10 Classes of 1933, 1938, 1943, 1948, 1953, 1958, 1963, 1968, 1973, 1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008 If you’d like to volunteer for Reunion, please call or email the Alumnae Relations Office at 866-833-1814 toll-free or alumnae@ emmawillard.org. Look for your invitation in March with all the details of the weekend’s activities.