NMH Magazine, Spring 2016 by aldeia

NMH Magazine

16 spring

volume 18 • number 1

Northfield Mount Hermon

AFTER 41 DAYS IN AN IRANIAN PRISON, MATT TREVITHICK ’04 TELLS HIS STORY.

NMH Magazine SPRING 2016 Volume 18, Number 1 Editor Jennifer Sutton P’14 Design Lilly Pereira Contributors Sharon LaBella-Lindale P’17 Susan Pasternack Harry van Baaren P’16, ’18 Emily Weir Class Notes Editor Kris Halpin Class Notes Design HvB Imaging Print Production Pam Lierle P’17 Director of Communications Stephen Porter Head of School Peter B. Fayroian Chief Advancement Officer Allyson L. Goodwin ’83, P’12, ’14 Archivist Peter H. Weis ’78, P’13 Northfield Mount Hermon publishes NMH Magazine (USPS074-860) two times a year in fall and spring. Printed by Lane Press, Burlington, VT 05402 NMH Magazine Northfield Mount Hermon One Lamplighter Way Mount Hermon, MA 01354 413-498-3247 Fax 413-498-3021 nmhmagazine@nmhschool.org Class Notes nmhnotes@nmhschool.org Address Changes Northfield Mount Hermon Advancement Services Norton House One Lamplighter Way Mount Hermon, MA 01354 413-498-3300 addressupdates@nmhschool.org

NMH Magazine

16 spring

volume 18 • number 1

features

20 The Fifth American

After 41 days in an Iranian prison, Matt Trevithick ’04 tells his story.

26 The Year of Working Secretly

What happens when two married artists collaborate?

30 Getting the Word Out

J. Peter Donald ’05 helps shape the image of the NYPD.

36 Mastering the Classroom

How NMH’s youngest teachers get better faster.

departments

3 Letters 5 Leading Lines 6 NMH Postcard 8 NMH Journal 14 Movers & Makers 16 In the Classroom 18 Past Present 42 Alumni Hall 46 Class Notes 96 Parting Words << HANDS-ON HOW-TO In NMH’s Science Club, students prototype an inexpensive microscope with a laser pointer lens.

C O V E R PH O TO : J AV I E R S I R V E N T TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S P H O T O : D AV I D WA R R E N

NMH Fund

Take a walk around campus. You are making a difference everywhere. Gifts to the NMH Fund help supply our science labs and art studios, keep technology current, buy team uniforms, and bring fresh produce into the dining hall. No other fund is this versatile. Or this necessary. Or this important. Please make your gift today. Return the enclosed envelope, go to nmhschool.org/give, or call 1-866-NMH-GIVE (1-866-664-4483). 2 I NMH Magazine

Well. Grounded.

LETTERS

NMH Farm Products

Download an order form at nmhschool.org/nmh-farmproducts or return a copy of this order form, along with a check payable to Northfield Mount Hermon, to: Farm Program, NMH, One Lamplighter Way, Mount Hermon, MA 01354. Please attach mailing instructions to your order. All prices include shipping. Please note: The minimum order for each mailing address is $25.

YOU GO, GIRLS

I was thrilled to see the article on the Ivy League women pioneers from Northfield School for Girls (“The Pioneers,” Fall ’15). I am one of them, in a sense, because I got my Ph.D. in classics from Yale in 1966, three years before the undergraduate college went coed. I had gone to McGill in Canada and Cambridge in the U.K. as an undergrad, but still was not permitted to be a teaching assistant at Yale, even though I was given university fellowships. I subsequently taught classics full time at the college level for 46 years, mostly at the University at Albany (SUNY). I also raised a daughter, Siobhan Reagan ’87. So I did not fail to keep up my end. Sylvia Barnard ’55 Albany, New York Thank you for the wonderful article about the first women entering the last of the all-male Ivy League

schools. They were my peers, yet until reading the article, I was unaware of their trailblazing experiences. I was so excited about my history-making schoolmates that I presented their stories to a weekly current-events group that I attend. A discussion ensued about how times have changed. For example, because more women than men now attend college, institutions of higher learning now have to market their programs to men. To the pioneers, I tip my hat. You go, girls! Joan (Elgosin) Milnes ’72 Beverly, Massachusetts

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The article “Game On” in the Fall ’15 magazine brings back to life — again! — that day when I was in the stands and watched Silliman burn. Many times I have seen the famous Van Fleet picture, but this is the first time I have heard anyone suggest that the fire might

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spring 2016 I 3

LETTERS

Keep Calm and Carry On

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4 I NMH Magazine

have been started by boys “having a forbidden cigarette.” In fact, I have never seen any explanation for the fire before this. It is as if the origin of the fire did not matter (just as, in fact, Silliman itself seemed not to matter very much). Was a cause of the fire ever determined? Ed Sundt ’54 Garrett Park, Maryland

“Many times I have seen the famous Van Fleet picture, but this is the first time I have heard anyone suggest that the fire might have been started by boys ‘having a forbidden cigarette.’” From NMH archivist Peter Weis ’78, P’13: The speculation about a cause for the fire in Silliman Laboratory is just that — speculation. No cause was ever determined. It’s likely that it was electrical, given the age of the building, but we’ll never know.

CROWDSOURCED FACT-CHECK

I enjoyed your little piece about the Dwights (“A President and a Preacher, Connected by a Name,” Fall ’15). But the first paragraph didn’t sound right to me, about a night in October 1890 when Dwight Eisenhower’s mother named him after Dwight Lyman Moody. Great little piece of trivia! However, you stated that Moody “... had not yet founded Northfield and Mount Hermon Schools.” I’m pretty sure I remember the founding dates of 1879 and 1881, respectively, so the schools HAD indeed been founded by 1890! Whether it was a typo or careless factchecking, I’m not sure, but something as big as the schools’ founding years is pretty important! I’d be surprised if other alumni haven’t also written you about this. Don Hodgkins ’69 Wakefield, Massachusetts Editor’s note: Mr. Hodgkins is correct on both counts. We got the date wrong AND more than a few other alums notified us of the error.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? NMH Magazine welcomes correspondence from readers. Letters and emails may be edited for length, clarity, and grammar, and should pertain to magazine content. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not ne e r l re e t the o fi l ol e or o t on o Northfield Mount Hermon e h us at NMH Magazine, One Lamplighter Way, Mount Hermon, MA 01354, or email us at nmhmagazine@nmhschool.org.

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LEADING LINES

A Twig, a Vote, a Field Goal One doesn’t mean much. Thousands do. by PETER B. FAYROIAN, Head of School

I have a confession to make. I did not vote in the Massachusetts presidential primary on Super Tuesday in March. Rather than cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, or any of the other candidates (Roque “Rocky” De la Fuente?), I spent the day completely immersed in NMH business. I chatted with some really smart people interviewing for jobs on campus; wrote dozens of emails, even a few letters; met with admission staﬀ as they prepared to send out emails to newly accepted students; got interviewed by a student writer from The Hermonite; heard a proposal from a senior who wants to establish a student arts council; had lunch with senior administrators; picked up my daughter from school; and finally, had dinner with a job candidate and several faculty members. I was busy all day. That’s what I told myself, and others. But the morning after the primary, shortly before 9, I stood in my oﬃce, looking out the window onto Beveridge Bowl, and I regretted not voting. We had had heavy winds the night before, and the still-frozen grass was littered with twigs and branches. I watched as Fred Anthony, one of NMH’s groundskeepers, steered his utility vehicle to the edge of the sidewalk, hopped out, and collected several handfuls of twigs, which he tossed in the back. He and his colleagues had likely been doing that work for close to two hours, and might well be at it for the rest of the morning. Twigs. Votes. One or two or a handful may not be a big deal. Thousands of them put together are a big deal, whether they’re adding to the already considerable workload of keeping NMH looking its best, or they’re building support for a political candidate. I high-fived myself for coming up with a halfwaydecent metaphor before 9 AM, but still, I felt compelled to go straight to Google and confirm my creative thinking. “Twigs as a metaphor for voting,” I typed. Turns out I’m not as original as I thought. Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief who led a fight for the rights of Native Americans in the War of 1812, had beaten me by a long shot. “A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong,” he said more than 200 years ago, as he gathered a confederation of tribes behind a single cause.

PHOTO: MICHAEL DW YER

So, on Super Tuesday, I did not make anyone’s bundle of political twigs stronger. (Rest assured, I will do so in November.) On that morning after the primary, as I watched Fred go about his work, my metaphorical thinking grew further, beyond twigs, beyond votes — to NMH, this place, and what it takes to make it go. It’s every student: the ones speaking up in their Diversity and Social Justice class (p. 16), the one breaking field-goal records on the basketball court (p. 10), and the ones who make a retired teacher miss his job (p. 96). It’s every mom, dad, and grandparent who shows up for Family Days. It’s every teacher — veterans and newbies (p. 36) alike. It’s every alumna/us who comes to a reunion and either loves what we’ve done with the place or is full of complaints. It’s every song belted out in an a cappella concert, every enrollment form filled out in anticipation of the coming school year, every muﬃn baked at 5 AM in the basement of the dining hall. And I’d be avoiding the big fat elephant in the room if I didn’t also mention: every dollar you donate. We need those dollars. We — I speak for students, faculty, and administrators — make excellent use of them. And we deeply appreciate them. In the coming months and years, as we embark on a campaign to fund our strategic planning initiatives, I will have more to say about your dollars and how they can help propel your school into the future. But for now, enough. Let’s get back to talking about the election. [NMH]

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NMH POSTCARD

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NMH JOURNAL

I N QATAR While attending a Model UN Conference in Doha, Qatar, in February, NMH students and faculty visited the Souq Waqif, a local marketplace. P HOTO: GLEN N MIN SH ALL

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NMH JOURNAL

Saying the F-word

According to Gloria Steinem, it’s more important now than ever. Political activist and feminist leader Gloria Steinem brought a simple but powerful message to the NMH campus on March 29: “None of us is being treated fairly if we’re not all being treated equally.” It was a familiar theme from the woman who co-founded Ms. Steinem’s visit magazine in 1972 and, for many, remains the face of 20th-century was supported by the Jacqueline feminism. The Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree spent an Smethurst Series. afternoon talking with NMH students in classes and small groups View a video of before giving an evening address to the entire school. the evening talk at http://bit. Isabella DeHerdt ’17, who introduced Steinem at the evening ly/1WXCkrV. event, called her “a personal hero,” and “a woman who has impacted history, the world, and every one of our lives in a way no one is going to forget.” Soon after the 82-year-old Steinem arrived on campus, she dove into a question-and-answer session with NMH students from several history and literature

8 I NMH Magazine

courses, with the discussion ranging from race, class, and gender to prisons, the late Congresswoman Bella Abzug, abortion rights, sex traﬃcking, and the origins of lacrosse. The word “listen” figured prominently in the conversation. “If you’re in a group that has power, remember to listen as much as you talk,” Steinem advised. “And if you’re part of a group with less power, talk as much as you listen.” When Emily Jacobson ’16 asked how Western women can advocate for

“If you’re in a group that has power, remember to listen as much as you talk. And if you’re part of a group with less power, talk as much as you listen.” feminism in places such as Saudi Arabia, where many don’t embrace the concept, Steinem replied, “Listen even to the people who won’t listen to you; listen, and support those women.” For young people trying to find their own path to feminism, Steinem suggested, “Ask what’s not fair. Then say, ‘I’m going to do whatever I can about it.’ That will grow into projects and alliances, and then change.” Steinem’s name has long been synonymous with the struggle for women’s rights. But does her message resonate with today’s youth? Do they even recognize her name? Drew Platt ’16 had heard of Steinem before her visit, but wasn’t sure what to expect. “A lot of what she said about eliciting change through understanding other people’s issues transcends generations,” he said after spending an hour with her in class. Allie Stamler ’16 described Steinem as “an inspiration to my mother’s generation [who] has continued to illuminate both modern and historical women’s issues for mine.” Taking the long view during her address in the chapel, Steinem pointed out crucial links between human-rights issues. “Our movements have tended to grow up in silos, so we think of the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, and the LGBT movement as separate,” she said. Each of these onceinvisible movements had to declare its own importance, she said, but “now we are ready to emphasize our interdependence.”

PIECE BY PIECE On Diversity Day in February — when classes are canceled and the campus community participates in dozens of workshops led by students — each student painted a ceramic tile to represent themselves. Installed by art teacher Mona Seno, the result now brightens a stairwell in Beveridge Hall.

Steinem tied environmentalism to overpopulation and women’s reproductive rights. Racism and sexism are “twin systems that can only be uprooted together,” she argued. Domestic violence and public violence by men stem from the idea that men are “born into a system that says they’re not masculine enough unless they are in control,” she said. During a question-and-answer session at the end of Steinem’s talk, Spencer Wierda ’16, a self-described conservative, asked if Steinem thought political correctness in the U.S. had gone too far; he also compared his situation at NMH

to Steinem’s, stating that both of them expressed views that society around them didn’t want to hear. Steinem politely disagreed. “It isn’t the same thing,” she said. “Nobody is stopping you from talking; they’re just getting mad at you. People get mad at me, too; you just have to live with it. But I support you saying what you believe.” Throughout the day, Steinem challenged her audiences to see feminism at the heart of every important human issue. “Think of the human race as a bird with two wings,” she said. “If one is broken, the bird can’t fly.” —Emily Weir

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NMH JOURNAL

THE SHOT HIGH P O IN T During the 2015–16 season, forward Vanessa Udoji ’16 broke records to become the leading scorer in NMH et ll h tor mon oth em le nd m le thlete th fin l t ll o 1,540 o nt ored o er her our e r t NMH rl r t o h r e ehn u t o do , ho he d to onne t ut u nn n er t th ll ne h u t e un to r t h the ur e o her otent l

HEAVY HIT T E R S The boys’ nordic ski team won the Lakes Region Athletic League championship after winning every Lakes Region race in the 2016 season, becoming the fir t NMH nord te m to e unde e ted Lakes Region champions. The girls’ alpine ski team clinched its fourth consecutive Mount Institute Ski League (MISL) championship. On the boys’ alpine ski team, Nick Bertrand ’16 on the N A nt slalom championship race, becoming the e ond NMH r er to n mult le

10 I NMH Magazine

nd du l Ne n l nd t tle n the t 20 years (he placed second in the slalom race). Bertrand also won the MISL giant slalom championship. Wrestler Jordan Rowlette ’17 earned All Amer n honor t the N t on l re h m on h , ell fir t l e fin he n the l A nd Ne n l nd championships. The boys’ varsity basketball team won the N A AAA h m on h , th Nate Laszewski ’18 earning MVP honors for the tournament. The team swept both regular-season and postseason play for the fir t t me n NMH h tor he te m l o d n ed to the N t on l re

Championship Final Four for the fourth consecutive year. The girls’ varsity basketball team on t fir t Ne n l nd ht hool Tournament championship. Last fall (after our fall issue went to press), the boys’ cross-country team on the Ne n l nd re hool r Association Division 1 championship for the fir t t me n e 1 1 nd too the to two spots: Estevan Velez ’16 fin hed fir t, t 1 0 Ace McAlister ’16 placed e ond oth runner re e ed All Ne England honors, Velez for the fourth year in a row.

PH O TO : R I S L E Y S PO R TS PH O TO G R A PH Y

NMH JOURNAL

More Voices Join Leadership Team Both familiar and new faces will help NMH implement strategic priorities. NMH will get an infusion of fresh energy this summer, according to Head of School Peter Fayroian, who recently announced the return of Charles A. Tierney III, a familiar face to many, as the new associate head of school. Fayroian also announced the hiring of a new dean of diversity, equity, and social justice, and a new director of athletics. The latter two positions will be elevated to become part of NMH’s senior administration, as will the director of college counseling, Peter Jenkins. “It’s an eﬀort to bring more voices to the table as we embark upon the implementation of our strategic plan and prepare to launch a new capital campaign,” Fayroian says. “Each of these positions represents areas that are of critical importance to the future of NMH. Having this kind of input at the senior level will help us better meet our institutional goals and fulfill our mission to educate students to act with humanity and purpose.” Tierney will return after two successful years as head of the Tatnall School, a day school for 650 students in Wilmington, Delaware. He will replace Dr. Sharon Howell, NMH’s associate head since July 2014. Howell led the school’s strategic planning eﬀorts throughout her two years on campus, and also oversaw the design process for a new $34 million integrative science and math facility that will be built on campus in 2017–18. Howell will become the director of Indian Springs School, a progressive day and boarding institution with 300 students in Indian Springs, Alabama, outside Birmingham. She will be the first woman to lead Indian Springs. From 1998 to 2014, Tierney worked at NMH in a variety of roles: history teacher, coach, dorm advisor, dean, assistant head of school, interim plant facilities director, interim communications director, and interim head of school. “I’m delighted to have Charlie Tierney back at

ut our hone Quick: Can you name the six most populou t e n Ne n l nd he o ernor ho on e ho ted the mm he num er o tenn ourt t NMH h t t te o r N ht, n o sional Friday-evening activity hosted by h tor nd o l en e te her r nt on le nd mu h elo ed the 50 or 60 students who typically show up. In te m o fi e, the n er ue t on th t

o n, t

NMH,” Fayroian says. “He has a deep understanding of and aﬀection for the school. He has been and will continue to be a trusted school leader.” NMH history and social science teacher Martha Neubert will become the dean of diversity, equity, and social justice. She succeeds James Greenwood, NMH’s director of multicultural aﬀairs for the past nine years, who will join the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as director of inclusion and multicultural practice. Charles Tierney Neubert joined the NMH faculty in 2005 and, in addition to teaching, has Martha Neubert served the school as a dorm counselor, advisor to the Gender Sexuality Alliance, lacrosse coach, and coordinator of numerous programs related to diversity, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and privilege. Neubert recently earned a master’s degree in education and child study from Smith College. Finally, Kevin Klein will join NMH as director of athletics. He replaces Tom Pratt, a 21-year NMH veteran who has held the A.D. job since 2005 and also has coached the boys’ varsity hockey team for nearly a decade. Pratt will move on to Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire, as Kevin Klein director of leadership gifts. Klein served as deputy director of athletics at the U.S. Naval Academy, his alma mater, for four years, as well as a strategic planner for the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Haiti and director of operations for the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

N ht

cover science, sports, history, geography, pop culture, and current events. “Everyone gets really into it, so it’s competitive in a un , uren o ne 1 he ue t on re h llen n , nd t m re sive because so many kids are getting the n er r ht on le tr e to n lude to the tudents are interested in, such as lyrics from songs that were popular when

P HOTOS: SHAR O N LA B ELL A- L IN D AL E , G L E N N MIN SH AL L , C O U R T E SY O F K E V I N K L E I N

they were younger, or movies from their h ldhood th n ne here re NMH o u ed ue t on , too, u h th one n front of Memorial Chapel stands a fountain th t ded ted n honor o hom they can’t answer that one, I want them to think, ‘How come I pass by this every week nd don t no h t t on le (Answer: Harriet Ford Cutler)

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NMH JOURNAL

WHO •WHAT •W H Y

Mr. Nice Guy During his first winter at NMH, Yash Mehta ’16 liked to go sledding down the snowy hill by Memorial Chapel after every Monday-morning all-school meeting. In just a T-shirt and jeans. No jacket. No gloves. “It was the first time I ever saw snow, and I was just loving it so much,” Mehta says, grinning. “Sometimes I even rolled down the hill!” Many NMH students make a name for themselves in one way or another. Over his two years at NMH, Mehta, who’s from Mumbai, India, has earned a reputation as the most cheerful kid on campus. There he goes, whizzing across campus on a mountain bike, waving madly. There he is again, leading a conga line of giggling ice skaters on Shadow Lake in January. When he described the dining hall’s burrito bar at a storytelling event, he threw his arms open with joy, as if oﬀering a giant hug. Ask him what he thinks of his courses, and he marvels, “Every day, I walk out of my Genetics and Ethics class and think, ‘Oh, my God, what just happened?’ DNA is so cool!” In the 2016 yearbook, Mehta is listed as the senior “Most Likely to Brighten Your Day.” Not so, he insists. “It’s the other way around. Everyone else here makes my day.” Mehta says his upbeat outlook comes from his father. When Mehta was about 12, he was in a restaurant with his dad, eating a cheese sandwich. “If you’re in a restaurant in India, there is always someone asking you for food, and it happened that day,” Mehta recalls. “I didn’t give the person my sandwich, and my dad asked me, ‘Are you happy?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Go buy five sandwiches and give them to those people over there.’” Mehta protested, but his father was firm. After Mehta handed out the sandwiches, his

12 I NMH Magazine

father asked him again if he was happy. “I said, ‘Dad, what did you do? I’ve never felt this way before.’ Ever since then, I have understood that eating a sandwich will make you happy, but when you give the sandwich to someone else, that’s true happiness.” Mehta comes from a large, close, extended family, and when he calls his parents in India, he’s often on the line for a couple of hours as the phone gets passed from one relative to another. Yet he does not get homesick, he says. The transition to NMH was only hard for about 10 minutes. “I’m pretty sure there was no time that I was actually sad,” he says. “Everyone was so friendly and nice. It felt right away like I had a new family.” At NMH, Mehta has launched himself on a busy, I’ll-try-anything trajectory. He ice-skated for the first time. Read crime fiction. He’d never paddled a canoe or ridden a mountain bike, but as a member of the NMH Outdoor Team, he competed in, and eventually won, boat-bike-run triathlons in western Massachusetts. When his aﬀection for those NMH burritos led to extra pounds, he asked his best friend across the hall in the dorm, Will Desautels ’16, a varsity soccer goalkeeper and a pole-vaulter, for help. “Will taught me to pick out foods that were good for me, like spinach instead of dessert,” Mehta says. “This year, he said, ‘Let’s work harder,’ and he started training me. He’ll say, ‘This is the last sprint,’ and we do the sprint, and then he says, ‘Just kidding, let’s do 10 more.’” That’s got to be annoying — even for the most cheerful student on campus. Right? “Oh no,” Mehta says, surprised. “I love it!” Mehta sports his and his teammates’ numbers after a triathlon, and (above) leads a parade of skaters on Shadow Lake.

PH O TO S : G L E N N M I NS HA LL

NMH JOURNAL

FOR THE RECORD

READING LIST

“!I was a dorm cleaner Mr. Splitfoot By Samantha Hunt ’89 Hou hton M n H r ourt January 2016

A New York Times Editors’ Choice, and a 2016 Most Anticipated Book in New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Bustle, The Millions, BookPage, National Book Review, BookRiot, Estella’s Revenge, The Week, and Refinery

freshman year, and it was the first time in my life I had ever used a vacuum cleaner. My parents were surprised when I went back to Korea and actually did my own laundry and cleaned my room.” SUBIN LEE ’17, describing one of his workjob experiences during an accepted-student visit day on campus in March.

Literary April

Choice of Enemies

The Genome Rhapsodies

Worlds to Discover

M.A. Richards ’74 Sunbury Press January 2016

Anna George Meek ’87 Ashland Poetry Press No em er 015

Jim Payne ’57 Lytton Publishing Co. No em er 015

Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics

Little Gangster

The Spaceship Next Door

Phil Jamison ’71 n er t o ll no June 2015

Victor Cino ’57 n er e September 2015 re

Gene Doucette ’86 Amazon Digital Services December 2015

April may have been the cruelest month, as T.S. Eliot once wrote, but this year, it also was the most fertile, especially for readers and writers. In honor of National Poetry Month, the English department created a rich agenda of literary events. Topping the list was a visit by novelist Ruth Ozeki, whose books — A Tale for the Time Being, All Over Creation, and My Year of Meats — have been published in dozens of countries around the world. Poets Laura-Eve Engel and Michael Morse each settled in for a weekend-long residency, leading workshops with students, visiting classes, and reading their work. And students were invited to submit their poetry and prose in a literary contest judged by Samantha Hunt ’89, author of Mr. Splitfoot (see “Reading List,” left), The Invention of Everything Else, and The Seas. “Visiting writers are an extraordinary opportunity for NMH students to enhance their classroom encounters with literature,” says English teacher Michelle Chan Brown, who organized the events. “The workshops debunk the notion of the “Writer” as inaccessible, and talent as given, not developed through practice.”

spring 2016 I 13

MOVERS & MAKERS

Last year, more than half a million refugees, mostly from Syria, entered Europe through Greece. Right: Megan McIntosh Frenzen (left) and her husband, Seth Frenzen.

Nonstop Need In a refugee camp in Greece, Megan McIntosh Frenzen ’95 makes herself useful. by JENNIFER SUTTON

Late last year, Megan McIntosh Frenzen ’95, a health care economist based in Burlington, Vermont, lost her patience with presidential candidates Chris Christie and Donald Trump. Christie, the governor of New Jersey, had just declared that his state would not open its doors to a single Syrian refugee, and Trump had announced that, if elected, he would ban Muslims from entering the country. Frenzen and her husband, an orthopedic surgeon, had spent a decade doing service work, mainly in Haiti, Cambodia, and Uganda. “I knew we could find a way to be useful,” she says. So she started looking for hands-on ways to help migrants who were trying to make their way out of Syria. She located refugee-support organizations in southeastern Europe, raised money for travel expenses and supplies, and assembled a team of volunteers — some of whom she’d worked with before in Haiti. The group included her husband, a local Vermont nurse practitioner,

14 I NMH Magazine

several other nurses, and a Syrian-Canadian student at St. Michael’s College in Vermont who volunteered as the group’s interpreter. By early January, they were on Lesbos island in Greece, six miles oﬀ the coast of Turkey, where in 2015 alone, half a million migrants entered Europe by making this short but perilous crossing of the Aegean Sea. Frenzen and her team worked with an organization called Oﬀ Track Health, which ran a 24-hour clinic in the chaotic Moria refugee camp on Lesbos — the same camp that Pope Francis would visit in April. According to Frenzen, the camp housed roughly 500 people, with several thousand others occupying tents in a muddy olive grove nearby. Some of the refugees came from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and Morocco, but Frenzen says most were Syrian women and children who stayed in the camp for a week or two, waiting to register with the European Union before moving on. Frenzen and her team worked the night shift at the clinic, treating upper respiratory infections,

PH O TO : N I C O L A S E C O N O M O U

“!Imagine 3,000 soaking wet, terrified people showing up on the beach every day.”

wounds, stomach viruses, and hypertension; providing prenatal care to pregnant women; entertaining children and cleaning — whatever needed to be done. “There was nonstop need,” Frenzen says. After finishing their shift, they’d go down to the shoreline, where boats packed with refugees were coming in from Turkey. “Imagine 3,000 soaking wet, terrified people showing up on the beach every day,” Frenzen says. “We’d help get them into dry clothes, hand out blankets and juice boxes for the kids, and make sure there were no immediate medical problems.” Then the volunteers would load the refugees onto United Nations buses that, at the time, were running shuttles between the beaches and the Moria camp. Much of the volunteer work on Lesbos was nonmedical, Frenzen says; in other words, anyone could do it. Besides helping refugees as they came ashore, volunteers collected all the wet clothes and life jackets left behind on the beaches, working with small grass-roots groups in Greece that “are pouring their heart and soul into their work,” according to Frenzen. After eight days on Lesbos, Frenzen returned home to her young son and her job, to the “guilt of privilege” she says is the byproduct of doing service work. She remains connected through email and social media with other volunteers who are still working on the island, and hears stories like that of a 5-year-old girl who died of hypothermia just before her boat made it to shore. “Every single one of us has the opportunity to choose compassion when it comes to this crisis,” Frenzen says. She hears about boats coming ashore without any volunteers or aid workers available to meet them. “Some of the refugees don’t even know where they are. They just pick up their children, find the nearest road, and start walking.” [NMH]

BRIGHT LIGHT

REVIVING THE VILLAGE VOICE When Peter Barbey ’76 (below) heard The Village Voice or le l t e r, t too h m out fi e m nute to de de to buy it. hree re on r t, he ould ord t H m l o n he North e, m erl nd, nd ee e n e ond, o the Reading Eagle n enn l n , r e no u l h n He h d hun h he ould re the l e nto the on Voice, h h h d tum led r rom t e n the 1 0 , 0 , nd 0 n ll erh mo t m ort nt he d een n o the ee l e er n e he d e un re d n t teen er t NMH, he told tudent dur n t to m u n A r l o ton d, nd The Voice was a window into a world here hed , r e Now he wants to restore The Voice to what he sees as its r ht ul l e n Amer n ourn l m t n m n h tor l ne er, ut t l o onderul ourn l t r nd, he nt to t e t or rd, h le l o re tur n ome o t old e t e t the ol t l o e, the tron de en e o rt nd ulture nt t to do more th n u t tell eo le, He , here re t ho oon ter r e ou ht The Voice l t to er, the ll me n rom u ne re orter , not u t tho e n Ne or ut l o rom ome n M l n nd ondon t he rten n to re l e, o , eo le re ll do re out The Voice t l e on tree th t een ult ted o er m n e r , nd t h lot o me n n to lot o eo le, he n nu r , r e rou ht ormer Voice ed tor n h e ll ourne 3 the re l ed the r NMH onne t on dur n the o nter e , nd hor n u the u ne end o the er He on n ed h on o r nt nd d t l u l t on n u eed n med orld dom n ted ent t e u h u eed nd er here re t o m n u l h n tod , r e ne th t ontent n , th t ood r t n ood r t n he other l m th t the d t l re olut on ore er lter n the l nd e o thou ht, th t e er th n ot to e e hundred ord or le nd d t le to n lo e te hnolo , nd m n e rl do ter, ut mo t o ll, l e ood r t n l e l e here eo le re tt n round re ll ntere t n de th n u l t on like The Voice h e role to l [NMH]

PH O TO : G L E N N M I N S H A L L

spring 2016 I 15

IN THE CLASSROOM

Racism. Sexism. Ageism. Classism. Fighting prejudice, building awareness. by TARA JACKSON

When Iiyannaa Graham Siphanoum ’17 took Northfield Mount Hermon’s Diversity and Social Justice course last year, she was “amazed that all of these different ‘isms’ were being acknowledged.” She says, “The class gave me the tools to describe some of the social injustices I’ve seen all my life, but it also opened my eyes to the ones I overlook every day.” That’s the idea. James Greenwood, director of multicultural affairs, who developed the course with other NMH faculty, says its primary goals are that “our students are exposed to new information, that they leave with a greater vocabulary to talk about issues of diversity and social justice, and a greater understanding of their own identity as well as the perspective of others.” The course, which is three years old and required for sophomores, is organized around the “big eight” social identifiers: age, ability, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status/class. NMH faculty teach the class in pairs. Greenwood helped assemble a repository of lesson plans and multimedia resources for DSJ teachers, but there is also flexibility for teachers to “create lessons to respond to the group of kids they actually have in front of them,” Greenwood says. Earlier this year, the group in front of co-teachers Jennifer Keator and Joel Lowsky dived in with a topic raised by one of the students: a boycott of the Academy Awards to protest the lack of diversity among Oscar nominees. Each class session begins this way, with a student presenting a current event to talk about — the previous week it was David Bowie and the ways he challenged gender norms. Next, Keator got the class talking about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, as an example of environmental racism. Keator, who has taught the DSJ class seven times, says, “hearing from different voices on important and relevant topics” is what she likes most about it. It’s no accident that Keator, a religious studies and philosophy teacher, and Lowsky, NMH’s director of academic technology, are working together. Greenwood says it’s important to have DSJ co-teachers modeling conversations across lines of differences. Ideally, he would like to have faculty from every department creating as diverse a teaching pool as possible for the course — to mirror the students who show up for class every term. They are, Lowsky says,

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“like Chex Mix: You never get the same handful; it’s a diﬀerent experience each time.” When Gratia Sullivan ’16 arrived at NMH as a new sophomore, she was among the first to take DSJ. “I came from a very homogeneous town, so being catapulted into an extremely diverse class to discuss issues of identity and multiculturalism was a new experience for me,” she says. “It’s had a lasting impact.” This is one of the reasons why sophomore year is an ideal time for students to take the course, Greenwood says. “It’s a joining activity. It becomes a common experience that leaves students with some common language.” But why require the course? Before DSJ, diversity education at NMH was limited; it was optional, oﬀered primarily in residential life settings. “Institutionally, you demonstrate what is important by what you require and what you devote time and resources to,” Greenwood says. Graham Siphanoum says she feels safer at a school where diversity and social justice are priorities. “It’s empowering.” Surveys are conducted at the end of each DSJ class, and Greenwood says the results are “overwhelmingly

“It used to be rare

to see students on campus openly talking about issues of race, sexuality, or socioeconomic class. Now it’s more common.”

I LLUSTRATION : LAU R EN SC O T T C O R W IN

positive.” Sullivan says DSJ led her to become a member of the Student Diversity Committee and leader of the Gender Sexuality Alliance. Graham Forrester ’16, who also took the class in its first year, sees a change among many of his peers: “Prior to this course, it was rare to see students on campus openly talking about issues of race, sexuality, or socioeconomic class. [Now] it is more common than not to sit down at a lunch table and hear students discussing and debating these issues.”

Greenwood recalls that when he taught the class and was discussing ableism, he asked his students to imagine going through their normal day without the ability to walk, see, or hear. One student came up to him after class and said he had never considered how diﬃcult having a disability would be. “That greater awareness and empathy for the experience of others is huge, and that’s what we hope for in this course. That’s what we hope for education in general,” says Greenwood. [NMH]

spring 2016 I 17

PAST PRESENT

A Portrait to Remember Photographing Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin during World War II. by PETER WEIS ’78, P’13

On Feb. 9, 1945, during the final year of World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Yalta to discuss military strategy and postwar international relations. The “big three,” as the men were called, sat for a group photograph that would become famous around the world, but the U.S. Army photographer who took the shot remained unknown and uncelebrated. Until now.

Photographer Robert Hopkins ’40 (left) with his father Harry, a confidant of FDR.

He was Robert Hopkins ’40, who also photographed Roosevelt’s wartime meetings with General Charles de Gaulle in Casablanca, Chiang Kai-shek in Cairo, and Stalin in Tehran as well as Yalta. In Hopkins’s World War II memoir, Witness to History, he recalled the Yalta photo shoot: “I sensed a kind of euphoria among the principals and members of all three delegations … their faces reflected relief from the strain

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of negotiations and there was a good deal of laughter and good-natured banter among them.” Not even a decade earlier, Hopkins had enrolled at Mount Hermon just as the school year began in 1937, having moved to Northfield with his brother Stephen ’43 and his divorced mother. In school, his path did not follow the academic straight and narrow. Interested in photography

and the dramatic arts, he hoped for admission to the theater program at Yale, but his grades failed to match these aspirations, and his desultory study habits frustrated more than one of his Mount Hermon teachers. Yet a letter his father wrote to him upon his graduation from Mount Hermon suggested other aspects of his character that would serve any man well: “courage, strength, and clean spirit.” Hopkins’s father, Harry, had experience in judging such matters: He was one of the architects of the New Deal, and a member of President Roosevelt’s inner circle. During his first year in college at the University of North Carolina, young Robert watched as the United States was drawn closer into the vortex of war. Deciding to choose rather than be chosen, he left the university and enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army in October 1941. Hopkins had held a summer job with the newsreel company that produced the “March of Time” series, familiar to moviegoers of that era, who watched the news rather than previews of coming attractions, before a feature film. After he completed his Army basic training, Hopkins shipped out for Europe carrying a camera instead of a rifle. His status as Harry Hopkins’s son did not prevent him from documenting combat in North Africa, as well

P H O T O S : C O U R T E S Y O F G E O R G E T O W N U N I V E R S I T Y L I B R A RY S P E C I A L C O L L E C T I O N S R E S E A R C H C E N T E R , R O B E R T H OPKINS

as the Italian campaign, the invasion of Normandy, and the liberation of Paris. But his family name had its perquisites. When President Roosevelt needed a photographer to document his conferences with Churchill and other world leaders, Robert Hopkins got the call. His photographs remain iconic images of World War II. Hopkins married an Englishwoman in the summer of 1944, between combat photography assignments, and after the war, he worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter at 20th Century Fox, as a radio producer for the Marshall Plan in Paris, and as a writer of Fodor’s Guide to France. In the 1950s, he began a long career with the CIA as an agent stationed in Europe and South America, retiring in 1980. But

he would require the courage, strength, and clean spirit that his father had once observed in him to face the final chapter of his life. His son, Sean, was born in 1964. As a young gay man, Sean was caught in the web of HIV and AIDS in the mid1980s, and died in 1990. Robert Hopkins shared the experience of losing his son to AIDS in his 1996 book Sean’s Legacy: An AIDS Awakening, A Father Remembers His Only Son, which historian Doris Kearns Goodwin called “profoundly moving and terrifyingly honest.” It was, at the time, “an awakening to the plight of homosexuals in the scourge of AIDS,” Kearns Goodwin wrote. Robert Hopkins died in 2007. [NMH]

Yalta, February 1945: Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin sat for a wartime portrait by Hopkins.

“Their faces reflected relief from the strain of negotiations and there was a good deal of laughter and good-natured banter among them.”

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IN JANUARY, FOUR AMERICANS WERE RELEASED FROM PRISON IN IRAN AFTER A LONG, SECRET GOVERNMENT NEGOTIATION. IRAN ALSO RELEASED ANOTHER MAN: MATT TREVITHICK ’04. ALMOST NO ONE KNEW HE HAD GONE MISSING.

THE FIFTH AMERICAN Matt Trevithick in Turkey in June 2015

PHOTO: © ERIN TRIEB/CORBIS

BY CALEB DANILOFF ’88

spring 2016 I 21

MATT TREVITHICK,

30, walked into a Boston coffee shop towing a roller suitcase. He was as tall as I remembered — six-foot-four — but less stocky, less of the collegiate oarsman apparent in his physique. Same quick smile, same gleam in his blue eyes, though a cloud of seriousness hovered about his face, and his hair was shorter, thinner.

The last time I’d seen him was two and a half years earlier, when I wrote about his efforts to launch national rowing programs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since then, Trevithick had reported from the Korengal Valley in northeastern Afghanistan — one of the deadliest patches of Taliban territory — for the online magazine The Daily Beast, ghost-written a memoir for the first post-Taliban minister of higher education in Afghanistan, settled in Turkey, and co-founded an independent research group devoted to humanitarian crises in the region. He smiled when he recognized me. I pulled my hand from my pocket. But knowing he’d just spent 41 days in Iran’s most notorious prison, I gave him a hug instead.

Trevithick reunites with his mother, Amelia Newcomb, at Logan International Airport in Boston in January 2016.

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Trevithick was running late, so we didn’t have time to catch up over coffee. His train for New York City was scheduled to leave Boston’s South Station in 35 minutes. He was on his way to “break his silence” in a series of national interviews, starting with Anderson Cooper on CNN. Trevithick’s release from Evin Prison in Tehran 10 days earlier was big news. He’d been freed along with four Iranian-Americans, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who had been held for more than 500 days. When I saw Trevithick’s name among the released, I was shocked. Almost no one had even known he was in prison. His family and the U.S. State Department had kept his detention under wraps while diplomatic channels were being worked. A few days after the story broke, a picture appeared in the Boston Globe showing Trevithick and his mother rushing out of Logan airport on their way to the family’s home in Hingham, Massachusetts. News trucks gathered outside the house, waiting for something, anything. More than one report described Trevithick as “in seclusion,” and I wondered if he’d suffered some sort of trauma while behind bars. We stepped outside and grabbed a taxi, settling in the back as the cabbie steered us into the morning traffic. The tan computer bag on Trevithick’s lap was the same one he’d been carrying the day of his arrest and the only item he left Iran with, aside from the clothes he was wearing. Trevithick had been studying Farsi at Tehran University. It was his second trip to Iran; the first was

PHOTO: © ARAM BOGHOSIAN/EPA/CORBIS

as a tourist several years earlier. He’d been applying to the university’s language program for five years before he finally received a government invitation. “I was ecstatic,” he recalled. “I get to spend three months in this country that’s such a mystery and an anathema. I wasn’t super-nervous about my safety. I pegged the chances of something happening, some kind of odd behavior from the authorities, at 10 percent. Pull me over and question me, maybe. I accepted that. I have nothing to hide. If it was just a few days in jail and some questioning and ‘We’re going to deport you,’ I would have accepted that. But then everything got political and I didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear and my time in jail kept getting longer and longer.”

IT ALL STARTED ON DEC. 7, 2015. The political atmosphere in Tehran had been making Trevithick nervous. The United States and Iran had signed a nuclear agreement a few months earlier, but the hard-line politicians, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were making their displeasure known, denouncing America in the newspapers at increasingly hostile volumes. The surveillance of Western students had become more widespread, more obvious. Trevithick had even been questioned for several hours the previous month. He decided it was time to pack things up. On his way to buy a plane ticket home, a Hyundai Sonata pulled up beside him and three large men got out. “Are you Matthew?” As soon as he answered, Trevithick was shoved into the back seat. Within 20 minutes, the car was pulling into a hangar at Evin Prison, where he was blindfolded and led into a small, cold room, his cellphone and computer taken away, then his clothes. “They gave me a pair of pants, a long-sleeve button-down, and flip-flop sandals, which were dirty and worn down. I wondered how many other pairs of feet had put them on.” After fingerprints, mug shots, and intake paperwork, the blindfold went back on and Trevithick was steered up to the second floor, to a six-by-seven-foot cell. “I could touch three walls at any given time. No bed, just a thin fabric covering the floor. They gave me a wool blanket and I used my towel for a pillow.” The interrogations started immediately. To his jailers’ surprise, Trevithick answered most of their questions in Farsi. “I was accused of personally trying to overthrow the government. Of having access to bank accounts with millions

PHOTO: EHSAN IRAN/WIKIMEDIA

TREVITHICK WAS SHOVED INTO THE BACK SEAT OF A HYUNDAI SONATA, AND WITHIN 20 MINUTES, THE CAR WAS PULLING INTO A HANGAR AT EVIN PRISON.

Evin Prison in Tehran, where Trevithick was held for 41 days.

of dollars, and weapons caches. The first question they asked was, ‘Do you know who Jason Rezaian is?’ I said, ‘Of course, the whole world knows that name.’ ‘Well, he’s never getting out of here and neither are you.’” The cab pulled up to a red light. The driver turned his head. “I’m being nosy, sorry. But what the hell happened to you, man? You mentioned Farsi. What country is that?” “Iran,” Trevithick said with a smile. “You didn’t make the headline news, did you?” “Yeah, I’m one of those guys. I’m number five. The fifth American.” “I gotta ask, did it go to the extreme when it came to interrogating you?” “No, it was all mental games,” Trevithick said. “There was dried blood and smashed tiles on the floor of the interrogation room. They’d say, ‘We’ve been treating you extremely well so far, with the gloves on. You’re never going to leave unless you tell us what we want to hear. The situation’s going

spring 2016 I 23

to become much worse.’ Their goal was to get me to confess on national TV.” On the third day, Trevithick was forced to call his mom and lie that he would be without cellphone service for several days. Amelia Newcomb and her son had agreed to be in daily contact, so Newcomb, who happens to be the foreign editor at the Christian Science Monitor and had sent plenty of reporters to the Middle East, had already alerted the State Department. “He sounded so normal that I was thrown oﬀ at first,” Newcomb would later tell me. “When he said, ‘I’m going to the mountains, on vacation,’ then I got it.” Back in his cell, the light was always on, so Trevithick slept in his blindfold. He knew when the guards were approaching by the smell of their cologne. Breakfast was a packet of honey, a frozen pat of butter, or a piece of bread. Soon, time started to blur and lose meaning, so Trevithick pulled out the small amount of money he had been allowed to keep and used it as a calendar, flipping a bill upon waking each morning. He created a sundial by marking the sun’s movement across his yellow cement cell wall with a spoon. “I spent an entire day watching the sun move across my cell. It’s fun the first time. Then it gets really trying.” As a former rower, he began exercising to kill time. “I turned every day into a really long workout session.” By the end of his time in solitary, Trevithick was doing more than 1,000 sit-ups and hundreds of push-ups a day. Every four days, Trevithick was allowed 10 minutes of outdoor time and a shower. In the bathroom, other inmates had carved notes into the wall: “Don’t give in.” “Nobody stays forever.” He scratched out his own name in the concrete, but the maddening uncertainty of his future was taking its toll. Scared his grip on reality might start slipping, he turned to a thought exercise. “I decided to recall my entire life, starting with my very first memory: identify it, describe it, think about it, live in it. Then move on to the next one.” This included his years at NMH. “I walked straight through my time in Wilson Hall, Tracy Student Center, the library. And the music building. I spent so much time in there. I was in a bunch of bands. Vocals and bass. I went through our entire catalog in my head. How did we write the songs? What was song number three? I thought about rowing on the Connecticut River, beyond the fields at the bottom of the hill. Then running up that hill after practice.” On the 10th day, Trevithick was rushed to a five-star hotel, where he was told the Iranian intelligence minister would review his case. It was there he got his first look in a

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“I WAS ACCUSED OF TRYING TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT. THEY ASKED, ‘DO YOU KNOW WHO JASON REZAIAN IS?’ I SAID, ‘OF COURSE, THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS THAT NAME.’ ‘WELL, HE’S NEVER GETTING OUT OF HERE AND NEITHER ARE YOU.’” mirror. Wan skin, unkempt beard, weary eyes. Again, he was put before a camera and told to admit his role in trying to topple the regime. When he refused, he was driven back to Evin, back to solitary. Ten days later, his head was shaved, not a good sign. He listened to the sound of another inmate trying to hang himself in a nearby cell. The cabbie jumped back in. “That’s crazy, man. Why do you think they were doing this to you?” “It was the purest strain of paranoia I’ve ever come across,” Trevithick said, shaking his head. “I was asked, totally straight-faced, ‘Why did Obama tell ISIS to attack Paris?’ I was told that America has a machine to create earthquakes. I laughed then and they did not like that. They’re convinced Obama has an earthquake lever in the White House — to create the pretext of humanitarian intervention, but it’s really a front for intelligence work. They think we’re way more powerful than we really are.” According to the clock on the monitor in the back of the cab, Trevithick had a mere nine minutes to catch his train, but he seemed entirely unfazed. “After 29 days, I was finally moved out of solitary,” he continued. “That was a great day. I was put in a cell with two other inmates, including the man who had tried to kill himself. He’d been in solitary for 13 months.” Trevithick said he now heard foreign languages, other international prisoners. He found himself surrounded by dissidents, artists, academics, many on their second, third, and fourth incarcerations. He recalled how the prison was nicknamed Evin University because of the number of intellectuals jailed there. On day 41, after nearly six weeks behind bars, Trevithick was again blindfolded, this time hustled to a dark basement. His interrogator sat behind a white sheet while another man

Trevithick at the Golestan Palace in Tehran, before he was jailed in Evin Prison.

in a surgical mask trained a video camera on him. Trevithick was told this was his last chance to tell the truth. When he said he had nothing more to say, his interrogator replied, “You’ve made a very bad decision.” Trevithick was rushed back to his cell and told to collect his things. A few minutes later, the guards were pushing him down a hallway, through a door, and into another building. There, his blindfold was removed. His clothes, wallet, cellphone, and computer bag were shoved at him. It was over. A Swiss diplomat was waiting outside to take him to the airport. Two days later, he was back in Massachusetts. “Let me ask you something,” the cabbie said, pulling over in front of South Station. “Are you going back after what’s happened to you?” “Yeah, I’ll be heading back to Turkey soon.”

PHOTO: COURTESY OF MATT TREVITHICK

With two minutes to spare, Trevithick strolled down the platform toward his train, completely relaxed. I wondered if his sense of time, his valuation of time, had been forever altered by his experience in Evin Prison. Maybe he was simply luxuriating in being able to buy a ticket, go where he wanted, to have choices, agency, free will. “I’ll be in touch when I get back,” Trevithick told me, as he showed the conductor his ticket and stepped onto the train. “We’ll get together.” [NMH] [NMH] Caleb Daniloﬀ is a contributing editor for Runner’s World and the author of Running Ransom Road: Confronting the Past, One Marathon at a Time and November Project: Inside the Free Grassroots Fitness Movement That’s Taking Over the World. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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THE Y E A R OF

Working Secretly What happens when two married artists collaborate? BY JENNIFER SUTTON

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fit together. And now that Philip and Evans are presenteila Philip ’79 lives on a hilly dirt ing the book at poetry readings and exhibitions, they road in northern Connecticut, surrounded have found that the story of how they worked — or by woods and wetlands. She teaches writdidn’t work — together is as appealing to people as the ing at the College of the Holy Cross in poems and the watercolors themselves. Worcester, Massachusetts, and has published nonfic“It began so simply,” Philip says. “All we did was ask tion books and essays that chronicle her experience in a question: What shall we do and how shall we do it?” specific places: the Hudson Valley farm that her family has operated since 1732, a Japanese village where she apprenticed to a master potter, the Colorado River, Northfield Mount Hermon. Her writing is a rich fusion hilip grew up in Manhattan. But her of memoir, biography, history, even art criticism, layered grandparents, and then her parents, ran with details and side-trip stories. the family farm and orchard in the In contrast, Philip’s latest book, Water Rising, Hudson Valley, so at 16, she felt as compublished by New Rivers Press, is spare. Instead of fortable riding a tractor as she did the prose, she wrote poems, some only a handful of lines subway. She arrived at NMH in the mid-’70s, from long. Accompanying the poems are abstract watercolors the chaos of a New York public school. “I remember by her husband, artist Garth Evans. walking into the classroom at NMH and think“I’d been looking for a new challenge, and I wanted ing, ‘Nobody’s talking behind the teacher’s back. to stretch myself creatively,” Philip says. So when Evans Everybody’s listening.’ It was incredible.” emerged from his basement studio one weekend and She was among a small group of students that helped suggested they do a project together, she immediately revive the school’s farm program under the direction agreed. They’d been married for 20 years, raised a son, of Richard Odman. They acquired a single cow, which and always shared their work in progress with each they milked by hand. They tended a pair of goats, other. But they’d never collaborated. made maple syrup, even launched a honeybee operaInspired by the creative and tion. Philip recalls being summoned personal partnership between modbetween classes one day to pick up ern dance choreographer Merce a shipment of bees that had arrived Cunningham and avant-garde comfrom Georgia. The alarmed mail poser John Cage, Philip and Evans center staﬀ could hear them buzzing. decided on a few ground rules for “Somehow it made sense to study their experiment. They would both AP English and then go milk a cow step outside their usual genres: Philip or take care of bees,” Philip says. would write poems and Evans, who “It was a good break for the mind.” works mostly as a sculptor, would Philip also edited The Bridge at paint. And they would work secretly; NMH, and experienced firsthand Leila Philip ’79 (right) with they wouldn’t show each other anythe power of storytelling. One her husband Garth Evans thing for a whole year. Philip didn’t evening, while assembling an issue want to make poems that commented on the waterof the newspaper, she was confronted by a group of colors, and Evans didn’t want to make watercolors that students from Iran who had heard she was preparing illustrated the poems. a story about the shah and the political unrest in their The result is a “stunning and original collaboration,” country. They begged her not to run the story, for fear declared a review in the online magazine Artcritical. that their families at home could be targeted. Philip The journal River Teeth called Water Rising “a tribute to consulted with Bill Batty, the advisor to The Bridge, a shared creative life.” Both Philip’s poems and Evans’s but he gave her the freedom to decide what to do. At watercolors are meditations on the natural world — first, Philip dug in her heels, citing freedom of speech, how diﬀerent pieces of the environment and humanity but in the end, she pulled the story. “It was not a game

PHOTO: ARIANA RANDOLPH

spring 2016 I 27

The couple decided on a ground rule for their experiment: They wouldn’t show each other any work for a whole year.

changer for NMH, and the case these students were making for consequences at home was real,” Philip says. “But what I remember most was being faced with a dilemma and having to make a judgment call — having to rise to that kind of occasion.” After NMH, Philip spent a year working as a reporter at a small newspaper, then enrolled at Princeton, where she studied with the creative nonfiction writer John McPhee. She worked as a journalist after graduation, earned an M.F.A. from Columbia, and taught at numerous colleges and universities before settling down as a professor at Holy Cross. When she found herself missing the “ongoing learning” that journalists do each time they tackle an unfamiliar story topic, she looked for faculty members in other departments at Holy Cross to collaborate with. She developed interdisciplinary courses combining science, religious studies, art, and creative writing. “That border, that crossing over — I really like that,” she says.

he year of working secretly began

for Philip and Evans in the fall of 2012. They commuted to their day jobs during the week (Evans ran the sculpture program at the New York Studio School), went to their son’s soccer games and took him on college visits, and in their free moments, they’d go their separate ways to write and paint. Philip hadn’t written much poetry since Princeton. “There was a feeling that we were beginners again,” she says. “It was fun and scary to explore something without a predetermined idea. I had been losing touch with that willingness to take a chance.” After a year, it was time for the big reveal. “I was nervous,” Philip says. “What if it wasn’t any good?” She and Evans laid everything they’d been working on out on the floor. The poems and watercolors “spoke to one another in a way that was interesting and strange,” Evans says. The paintings were steeped in the color of the trees surrounding their house: curving shapes in green, rust, purple, and gold. The poems were rooted in real objects and scenarios but also explored less tangible ideas: a

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poem about a beaver assembling its lodge became a reflection on youth and middle age; another described a beautiful stone found on a beach but morphed into the story of a mother watching her son grow into a man. Since both Philip and Evans had turned to the landscapes around them for inspiration, they decided to turn their work into an art book with an environmental mission. They would donate all profits from the sale of Water Rising to nonprofit environmental organizations such as the Connecticut Audubon Society and Wave Hill, a public garden and cultural center in New York City. “It sounds simple, but change is only going to happen if everybody does what they can, wherever they can,” Philip says. “This is what we can do.”

he small collaboration conceived at a

Connecticut kitchen table has now grown into a multimedia installation finding audiences across the country and the world. A music professor at Holy Cross read Philip’s poems and oﬀered to compose music around them. The watercolors are being turned into giant digital projections. Grants from the Connecticut Oﬃce of the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts will allow Philip and Evans to take their project on the road this fall: to the local Quinebaug Valley Community College; to the Wave Hill performance center; to several colleges in Oregon; and, Philip hopes, to Donegal, Ireland, where she and Evans would collaborate with Gaelic artists. At each event, proceeds from book sales will benefit local conservation groups. Philip and Evans have two goals for their nascent Water Rising book tour: to bring attention to environmental stewardship and to talk about their artistic collaboration and the idea of taking risks. “When people hear the story about how the project came to be, it somehow gives them permission to think about what they might do themselves if they just said, ‘Let’s start,’” Philip says. “There is so much pressure to produce in our world, to know what we’re doing before we get there. It’s important, especially for young people, to remember that creative work begins with exploration. It’s like driving in the dark with your headlights on. The road reveals itself as you go.” [NMH] To learn more about the environmental mission of Water Rising, go to www.water-rising.com.

NIG HT TRAIN And if I found the way would you could you, could we follow those tracks, back down along the river, whistle in the dark while the silver train cuts through night tides surging, the great memory of water returning, returning to the sea. Sit my love, the candle flickers and the moon is full, listen the crickets are at it again punching holes in the great ticket of the night their great hunger swelling again, again.

Look, summer stars brilliant as gems â&#x20AC;&#x201D; while we were busy, evening slipped a ring over the hand of day. Our candle flickers now alert to any shift, a blink or toss of eye that might turn diamonds into coal. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hold our breath and dive, or run, catch that train, silver arrow hurtling back twenty years, that night hand in ringed hand, we dashed to our car while rice flew like stars and the dark train sped fast along the river.

spring 2016 I 29

gETTInG THE WORD OUT THE

J. PETER DONALD â&#x20AC;&#x2122;05 HELPS SHAPE THE IMAGE OF

NYPD.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMY TOENSING / TEXT BY JENNIFER SUTTON

30 I NMH Magazine

“MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW what cops do or how they do it,” says J. Peter Donald ’05, who spends his days and many of his nights disseminating news about the New York Police Department. He’s the director of communications for the NYPD’s Deputy Commisoner o u l n orm t on o fi e, h red n une 015 omm sioner William Bratton to help reshape the image of the nation’s largest ol e or e he o l, on ld , to tell tor e out ol e o fi er n the most interesting, creative, thoughtful way possible.” on ld me to the N rom the Ne or o fi e o the , here he o e m n nd u l n orm t on o fi er At , he de de younger than most of his colleagues in the NYPD administration, a fact that eem to ntr ue e er one e e t on ld h m el t h no e e t on ho I do my job,” he says. A h m out h d l rout ne nd he l u h ometh n h en n the m ddle o the n ht ol e o fi er et hot, or there m or fire or dent he et the ll nd ho u t the ene n re ul r d , he says, by 6 am , he’s plowing through news and updates on Twitter, NPR, Politico, the Times, the Daily News; from the NYPD’s operations center, re o fi e, nd dete t e ure u nd rom t nd t te o ernment Then he gets in his car and drives to work. On the job, Donald is part old-school beat reporter, building connections nd rel t on h th o fi er n the t re n t o the ll eel om ortable telling him their experiences, which he can then share with the world. He’s also guiding the department’s social media presence, which he says h d een m n e e one th t e t our l t to tell our tor n real time.” Donald joined the NYPD at a time when police departments across the country are under intense scrutiny, accused of enforcing racist policies and unfairly targeting minorities. Yes, Donald says, the NYPD has work to do to continue building trust in the communities it polices. Roughly 60 percent of New Yorkers trust the NYPD, he says, according to polls by Quinnipiac University and Marist College, among other institutions. It’s his job to help n re e th t t t t th the A r n Amer n ommun t , the A n community, the Caribbean community, in Harlem, in the Bronx, in Lower Manhattan, in Brooklyn, in Bed-Stuy, and everywhere in between.” ut he dd th t n t me ometh n h en n here n Amer , t et l ed on NN nd o Ne nd h red on o l med e er here, and that affects the reputation of the NYPD, despite the fact that last year, e h d e er u e o or e o fi er n the h tor o the de rtment e had fewer summonses, fewer arrests, and crime was at an all-time low. That’s not the headline people are going to write, but that’s the story we need to tell.”

Donald finds a quiet spot behind the scenes of a press conference at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. “If I’m not busy telling stories every day, or lining up stories to be told in the days ahead, I’m not doing my job.”

spring 2016 I 31

01 Donald drives from his apartment on the Upper East Side to his office at 1 Police Plaza, downtown near City Hall. It’s a 5.9-mile trip, he says — “six minutes in the middle of the night.”

02 02 For Donald, multi-tasking — working the phone while monitoring multiple television news broadcasts at his office, for example — is like breathing. “I’m focused on finding new ways to get our story told on both social and traditional media.”

32 I NMH Magazine

Most people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what cops do or how they do it. My goal is to get that information out in the most interesting, creative, thoughtful way possible. 03 Donald confers with (from left) NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, and NYPD Deputy Commissioner Stephen Davis before a press conference.

04 Donald keeps a watchful eye on reporters during a press conference at NYPD headquarters, where Mayor de Blasio answers questions about a triple homicide in Staten Island.

spring 2016 I 33

06 05 Donald takes questions from New York Times reporter Joseph Goldstein (far left) and Jake Pearson, an Associated Press reporter, along with Deputy Chief Kerry Sweet of the NYPD’s legal bureau, about “StingRays,” the devices used to help locate fugitives in murder and kidnapping cases. 06 Donald plays a significant role in shaping the NYPD’s digital identity, so he’s constantly monitoring Twitter posts created by various police precincts and media outlets.

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We had fewer summonses, fewer arrests, and crime was at an alltime low. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not the headline people are going to write, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the story we need to tell.

07 Donald leaves City Hall with Deputy Commissioner John Miller after their weekly meeting with Mayor de Blasio, Commissioner Bratton, and Deputy Mayor Anthony Shores.

spring 2016 I 35

36 I NMH Magazine

NMH teachers and Penn graduate students, past and present: (from left) Lucy Stockdale, Shaakira Raheem, Lauren Spagnuolo, Anthony Mantegani, Jesse Pritchard, and Kara Walker.

Mastering the Classroom A groundbreaking collaboration with the University of Pennsylvaniaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Graduate School of Education is helping new NMH teachers get better faster.

B Y J E N N I F E R S U T T O N / P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y J O A N N A C H AT T M A N N

spring 2016 I 37

ENGLISH TEACHER Lucy Stockdale greets her students at the classroom door with a bowl of numbered PingPong balls. “Hi, how are you?” she asks, holding out the bowl. “Pick a ball, look at the seating chart on the board, and find your spot.” The Ping-Pong balls ensure that the 16 students in her American literature class don’t sit next to the same person every day. This is Stockdale’s first semester teaching on her own, and today she’s tackling Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” which her students read for homework the night before. “What did you guys think of this essay?” she asks. She has them free-write for 10 minutes about the reading, then launches them into small-group discussions. Bringing them back together as a class, she asks, “What were your favorite lines?” She points out one of her own: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” In pairs, the students scribble down three of Emerson’s lines that they liked. The pieces of paper get tacked up on the classroom walls, and the students circle the room, checking out everyone else’s choices and drawing stars next to their favorites. If you were to enter the classroom at this moment and take a quick look around, it would be diﬃcult to determine who the teacher is. At 23, in black jeans and a flowy blue shirt, Stockdale is only six years older than her students. Yet as she herds everyone back to their seats, looks over each student’s copy of “Self-Reliance” to make sure they annotated as they read, and explains the writing assignment due the next day, there’s no question who’s running the room.

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English teacher Lucy Stockdale is halfway through her Penn master’s degree.

Stockdale may be just starting her career, but she is one of a dozen novice teachers at Northfield Mount Hermon who are helping the school stay on the cutting edge of secondary education. In 2012, NMH joined eight other northeastern boarding schools and the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education to start the Penn Residency Master’s in Teaching (PRMT), a two-year program that allows its students — “Penn fellows” — to earn a master’s degree in education while working as boarding-school faculty members. Stockdale just finished her first year. Asking students to free-write oﬀ the top of their heads to reflect on a reading, to move around the classroom and engage with one another instead of just with the teacher — those are practices Stockdale learned through the Penn program. They’re not rocket science, but she wouldn’t have picked them up so quickly if she had started her teaching career at another private school, or at NMH six or seven years ago. Instead, she would have simply been handed a

“

class to teach, a sports team to coach, a group of students to advise, and a friendly “good luck” at the beginning of the school year. “Many new teachers used to have a ‘sink or swim’ experience,” says NMH Dean of Faculty Hugh Silbaugh. As a result, NMH lost enthusiastic, energetic young faculty members who had the potential to be great for the school but who found it “bruising to have such an abrupt entry into the job, with so little coaching and support, so little intellectual scaﬀolding for the work they were doing,” Silbaugh says. Today, all of NMH’s first-year teachers enroll in the Penn program. NMH pays most of their Penn tuition as well as a modest salary, and provides them with highly structured mentoring from veteran faculty. As the Penn fellows immerse themselves in boarding-school life — besides teaching American literature, Stockdale coaches girls’ volleyball and basketball and is advisor to four ninth-grade girls — they also gather with their Penn grad-school professors and mentor teachers for several concentrated academic weekends each year. In between, they engage in distance learning: readings, research papers, and online discussions with fellow grad students at Penn’s other partner boarding schools. It’s an intense two years. Silbaugh, who serves as Stockdale’s mentor, likens the program to medical school, with the boarding schools serving as the equivalent of teaching hospitals. “We’re ending up with young teachers who, after this program, have much of the same wisdom that a 10-year veteran has,” he says. “They don’t have the experience yet, but they have this thoughtfulness. It’s incredibly powerful.”

One of the big ideas of the Penn program is studentcentered learning — asking the questions, What can students take in, and what can they do with what they take in?

After finishing her Penn degree, Kristine Nakada (right) continued to teach math at NMH for another year.

IT’S ALSO UNIQUE. Graduate degrees in education are typically geared toward public schools, and until the PRMT was established four years ago, no university oﬀered a master’s in education specifically designed for boarding-school teachers. The program has grown quickly: This year, there were 2,000 applicants vying for 27 positions at the nine partner boarding schools (Deerfield, Hotchkiss, Miss Porter’s, Lawrenceville, Taft, Loomis, Milton, and St. Paul’s in addition to NMH). “To me, that indicates a huge need,” says Lawrence Smith, the academic dean at St. Paul’s School, who conceived the PRMT six years ago with other boarding-school administrators, including Silbaugh.

“We were interested in giving these young teachers a more measured entry into the work, but also in reducing teacher attrition in the first five years, which is huge,” Silbaugh says — in part because the boarding-school world is more of a round-the-clock immersion than a job. Smith contacted a dozen universities, proposing that education professors join forces with a consortium of independent schools to develop a lowresidency master’s degree for boardingschool teachers. Penn “took a plunge,” Smith says. “They agreed to radically redo their program to fit a very small sector of secondary-school education.” The result: an education master’s that covers pedagogical theory and

spring 2016 I 39

cognitive science; the history, culture, and social context of U.S. boarding schools; and how to develop a reflective, flexible teaching practice. Penn professors co-teach the courses with deans or senior faculty from the partner boarding schools. Though Penn fellows typically start the program right after college, a few of NMH’s fellows have worked for a year at other schools, and one, Brandon Hew, spent a year playing professional hockey. One of NMH’s newest fellows, Shaakira Raheem, had worked abroad, teaching English as a second language in Morocco and working for an international-study program in Ghana. Two fellows — Stockdale and Raheem — are midway through the program, and of the remaining 10, seven were hired as permanent faculty members after earning their degrees. They say they chose NMH not only because they wanted Penn fellows-turned-faculty members: (from left) Sally Komarek, Brandon Hew, Kristine Nakada, and Alex Braile. to work with teenagers and spend less money on grad school, but also because NMH felt diﬀertalked with students,” Komarek says. who earned his master’s alongside ent to them than other schools they “You’re trying to figure out what good Nakada and now teaches economics. considered working at. “There are high teaching looks like.” “I was encouraged to speak up and expectations here, but it’s not cutIn the spring, Penn fellows contribute.” throat. NMH students are competing teach a class of their own. The second During their first fall at NMH, Penn with themselves, not with each other,” year they teach two classes each semesfellows assist in their mentor teacher’s says Kristine Nakada, who finished the ter. Meanwhile, they’re working on their classroom. History teacher Sally Penn program a year ago and was hired own grad-school projects and assignKomarek, another former Penn fellow, as a math teacher. “I never felt singled ments, which include collecting and worked with department chair Chris out as the new young guy who was analyzing data from their classrooms for Edler. “I watched everything she did — expected to sit quietly during departtheir thesis-like final research project. what she wrote on the board, how she ment meetings,” adds Tony Mantegani,

40 I NMH Magazine

“

Art teacher Alex Braile, who’s just finishing his Penn degree, researched resilience levels in his students over the course of several design and painting projects. “Every day, I was taking notes on what they were doing, what they were saying, how they were responding to what I was giving them,” he says. “I always told them when I was collecting data. For some of them, it was a little weird — teachers don’t usually set up a video camera in class. But they seemed to like knowing I was invested in them and in becoming a better teacher.” Math teacher Brandon Hew’s project focused on what happens to students’ problem-solving skills when he emphasized process over the end result in his algebra II class. “I was asking them to take a step back. I asked them, ‘What did you actually do? What steps did you take? What did you learn about yourself as a thinker?’ Because having that information is going to be way more helpful in five years than learning what the cosine of 135 degrees is.” “It was weird and uncomfortable at first,” reports Ellery Ketchum ’18, who took Hew’s class. “Everyone had always been taught that in math, the answer is what matters. But Brandon had us writing in journals. He wanted us to explain how we got from point A to point B, and how we felt when we tried to solve a problem and it didn’t work.” Hew’s approach actually helped, Ketchum says, especially when she got stuck. “When you’re able to detach from a problem and look at it more from the outside, it’s better than just staring at it and getting more and more upset because you don’t know what to do.” Even though Penn provides “a wealth of resources and strategies —

We’re ending up with young teachers who have much of the same wisdom that a 10-year veteran has. It’s incredibly powerful. a toolbox for teaching,” according to history teacher Komarek, the two years still end up being a lot to balance. “It’s ‘do I grade these 30 essays, or do I work on my own paper?’” Komarek says. “On one hand, we’re here to be teachers. On the other, all of us are very serious students, too, so of course we want to prioritize our Penn schoolwork. But the students at NMH come first.” Putting students first goes beyond day-to-day responsibilities like getting papers graded. It means adopting the philosophy that good teaching is more important than being a math genius or literature whiz. “Classroom skills trump content every day,” Silbaugh says. But that doesn’t equal putting on a wonderful show, he adds, despite what popular culture tells us (think Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society or Edward James Olmos in Stand and Deliver). “Schools have thrived for years on teacher-centered instruction — a performance delivered by a charismatic person,” Silbaugh says. “One of the big ideas of the Penn program is student-centered learning — asking the questions, What can students take in, and what can they do with what they take in?”

NEW TEACHERS such as Stockdale are answering those questions for themselves, little by little. The first lesson she ever taught by herself, back when she was still assisting in Silbaugh’s classroom, left a lot to be desired. She led the students in a

“fishbowl” discussion, in which onehalf of the class observes the other half having a discussion; then the groups switch. “I wouldn’t categorize it as bad. There was just a lot of awkward silence and clear apprehension on my part,” Stockdale recalls. “But Hugh was supportive. He promotes screwing up in order to learn from it.” There happened to be a number of athletes in that class, Stockdale says, so when she tried the exercise again, she talked to them like a coach. They should view the discussion as if they were two teams, she told them, and they needed to help their teammates. That tactic worked. Whether it’s the day-to-day mentoring that goes on between veteran and novice teachers, or the intensive “Penn weekends,” when all the fellows gather, the support network surrounding Stockdale and other Penn fellows is what makes the PRMT successful. It’s also bringing NMH unexpected benefits, Silbaugh says, beyond the fact that new young teachers are getting better faster. “It’s also what the mentors are learning, how that aﬀects their own teaching and their influence on their peers, how it filters up into department chair discussions, and how it informs our thinking about teacher evaluation,” he says. “Schools like NMH need to keep improving and transforming education in ways that will help us serve students better and make us worthwhile over the long haul,” Silbaugh says. “The PRMT is helping us do that.” [NMH]

spring 2016 I 41

ALUMNI HALL · T H E first A N N U A L ·

Founders’ Challenge NMH celebrates the birthday of D.L. Moody every February with the tradition known as Founder’s Day. This year, the celebration was expanded to include other “founders” who got their start at NMH, including Friendly’s Ice Cream magnate S. Prestley Blake ’34, whose age — 101 — was the theme of this year’s Founders’ Challenge. (See p. 97) And what’s a birthday party without a game? The school challenged the NMH community to make gifts to the NMH Fund over a 101-hour period. And you crushed it.

ALUMNI GIVING # of gifts by year

115

101 CHALLENGE GOALS

• HOURS of online fundraising • GIFTS per decade • GIFTS from parents, parents of alumni, grandparents • GIFTS from the campus community • GIFTS from the Class of 2016

157

2010s

G O A L : A T O TA L O F

1990s

228

187

164 1960s

1,010

gifts for the NMH Fund

2000s 1970s

191 Campus Community

199 Parents/ Grandparents

193

115 1980s 2016

233 The Grands (’30s, ’40s, ’50s)

GIFTS RECEIVED

1,782

TOTALING MORE THAN

$333,000 (including a $101,000 lead gift from Pres Blake ’34)

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Secure your future ... and the future of NMH

Edosomwan ’13 conceived the #HarvardBlackIs project as a college freshman.

Dispelling Stereotypes at Harvard Zena Edosomwan ’13 is a powerful force on Harvard University’s basketball team, but he’s also a budding social activist. Last fall, he published a multimedia storytelling project called #HarvardBlackIs featuring more than a dozen Harvard students of color. His goal was to “dispel stereotypes” and spread “a message of positivity” among African Americans at a time when they were being bombarded with negative images of themselves in the media. Edosomwan started the project during his freshman year at Harvard, soon after George Zimmerman was acquitted of shooting Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African American 17-year-old, in Florida. When the killings of two other unarmed black men, Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York, took over the headTo view lines, the project became even more relevant. “It seemed #HarvardBlackIs, important that people, especially people of color, rememgo to www. youtube.com/ ber to be positive and that being black doesn’t mean being watch?v=Z1HnZz1‘less than,’” Edosomwan says. “I wanted to invoke positivrpc and http:// ity rather than the white-versus-black dynamic that made harvardblackis. tumblr.com/ up a lot of what was on social media at the time.” After seeking advice from Harvard professors such as the African American studies scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., Edosomwan set up a camera and asked students to choose a single word to describe themselves and explain why. They chose words like “ambition,” “unique,” and “triumph.” Even though his Harvard peers “reflect a particular privilege,” Edosomwan says, “we all come from diﬀerent backgrounds, and the Harvard black community, diverse as it is, can act as a microcosm of what black is.” Two months ago, Edosomwan began planning a second project, tentatively titled #WeAreOne, which he hopes will appeal to a wider audience. “People are individuals — religious, transgender, gay, black, Asian — but the message, at the end of the day, is that despite your personal beliefs, your sexuality, height, class, race, we’re all human.”

PHOTO: MAD ELINE R. LEA R

A charitable gift annuity gives you: • • • • •

Fixed lifelong payments Favorable annuity rates A secure investment Tax benefits A gratifying legacy

Sample rates based on a single life CGA* Age 68 73 78 83 Rate 4.9% 5.5% 6.4% 7.4%

Visit nmhschool.org/plannedgiving or contact:

Jeff Leyden ’80, P’14

Director of Capital and Planned Giving 413-498-3299 jleyden@nmhschool.org

Sue Clough P’06, P’08 Senior Associate Director of Planned Giving 413-498-3084 sclough@nmhschool.org

*Rates displayed are for illustrative purposes only.

spring 2016 I 43

ALUMNI HALL

Four generations of Fosters (clockwise from bottom): Bud ’38, Randy ’59, Ethan ’18, and Shawn ’87.

“You know how much Mount Hermon wanted to charge me as a local kid? $100. I didn’t have $100. I told them, ‘I’ve got no money.’ They said, ‘Come anyway.’”

Going Way Back Since the 1930s, the Foster family has had a stake in NMH.

More than 80 years ago, Frank “Bud” Foster showed up at the Mount Hermon School for Boys. He was 15 years old, working in a grocery store in nearby Bernardston, Massachusetts, and his boss suggested he check out the school. “You know how much they wanted to charge me as a local kid, a day student? $100,” Foster says. “I didn’t have $100. I told them, ‘I’ve got no money.’ They said, ‘Come anyway, and work in the school store.’” So Foster worked oﬀ his tuition, graduated — and then bought the store. “We sold books, skis; we strung tennis racquets, installed ski bindings,” he says. “My wife pressed pants. My mother made apple turnovers and I sold those, too. During the

44 I NMH Magazine

war, the potato chip man stopped coming because we weren’t buying enough, so I went out and bought a popcorn machine, and sold popcorn to the kids. Paid for itself in three weeks.” Foster’s son Randy ’59 spent much of his childhood on campus — “because my dad owned the store,” he says. “I always thought Mount Hermon was my school. From the time I was 5 years old, it was my dream to go there.” Eventually, Bud Foster started Foster’s Supermarket in nearby Greenfield, Massachusetts, which became a local institution, as did Foster himself. Over the years, as he established himself as a businessman and community philanthropist, seven family members followed him to NMH: besides his son Randy, five of Foster’s 15 grandchildren have attended the school, including Randy’s son Shawn ’87; and three of Foster’s great-grandchildren, including Shawn’s children, Ethan ’18 and Natalie ’20. It’s a family legacy that goes back to the era of Elliott Speer, the Mount Hermon headmaster who was murdered in his study in 1934. Bud Foster was 16 then. After the murder, Maeve Whittle Moody, D.L. Moody’s daughter-in-law, advertised for a babysitter for her two grandchildren because she feared that whoever was involved with the murder might turn their attention to her family. Foster applied for the position and was invited for an interview. “I went over to her place in Northfield,” Foster recalls. She said, ‘How old are you?’ I said, ‘16.’ She said, ‘I want somebody 18 or 19.’ I said, ‘Ma’am, anything they can do, I can do better.’ She asked, ‘Can you sing?’ I belted out a song. She said, ‘You’ve got the job.’”

PH O TO : S H A R O N L A B E L L A - L I N D A L E

ALUMNI HALL

ALUMNI COUNCIL PROFILE

GAIL PA R E ’64

Hometown: Newington, New Hampshire Profession: Retired, District Executive for Boy Scouts of America Alumni Council position: Nominating Committee member, former member of the Awards Committee, Reunion Advisory Committee Why do you volunteer for NMH? As a long-time NMH volunteer in many capacities, I have made friends with alumni who represent classes spanning more than 80 years. All of them share similar core values and an NMH attitude that I have not experienced anyhere el e ou n t define t, but you know it when you see it. Serving on the Alumni Council is a way to help involve more alumni and to recognize their service. Plus, I enjoy returning to the beautiful campus and learning more about the current school.

NEW T RUST EES JOIN NMH BOARD From left: Tiffani Brown ’96, Matthew Glass P’15, Alex Levy ’00, Alex Lotocki de-Veligost ’70, P’15, Shannon Weinberger P’14, ’16, Ryan Vineyard ’98, and Warren Webster III ’92. Missing from photo: Maurice Coleman ’87.

Dick Gregory, a Northfield Girl’s Muse Turn Me Loose, a new Off-Broadway play about the groundbreaking 1960s comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory, has distant origins at the Northfield hool or rl Playwright Gretchen Law ’70 was a sophomore t Northfield n 1 , eel n the n o the times and searching for ways to confront the danger and injustice swirling around all of us,” she says. Law listened to the cutting-edge comedy o re or one o the fir t l omed n to be embraced by white America in the 1960s — in Wilson Hall. He was “unedited and uncompromisingly funny,” Law says, but more important, “he articulated the pathology of racism without reserve.” Law, who is also a practicing psychotherapist, says Turn Me Loose, her fi th l , to l e u e t ddre e r m th the nten t nd humor of Gregory himself.” Produced by singer John Legend and starring Tony Award nominee and Emmy and NAACP Image Award winner Joe Morton (“Scandal”), the play opened this month at the Westside Theater in New York.

2015–16 ALUMNI COUNCIL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE What’s the most satisfying moment you’ve experienced on the Alumni Council? Helping create the Community Service Award to recognize alumni for their service to people beyond NMH. That award now allows the Alumni Association to recognize the greater good that an NMH education inspires in so many of us.

P HOTOS: GLEN N MIN SH AL L

www.nmhschool.org/alumni-get-involved Caroline Niederman ’78 President Dorrie Krakower Susser ’56 Vice-president Wendy Alderman Cohen ’67 Secretary Molly Goggins Talbot ’93 Executive Vice-president Ty Fox ’59 Nominating Committee chair

Stuart Paap ’93 Strategic Advisory Committee chair John McClintock ’56 Advancement Committee chair Dave Hickernell ’68 Awards Committee chair Stephen Green ’87 Reunion Advisory Committee chair

Heather Richard ’91 and Donnie Smith ’07 Diversity Committee co-chairs Kate Hayes ’06 Young Alumni Committee chair Marggie Slichter ’84, P’10, ’11, ’12 Director of NMH Alumni and Parent Giving and Programs

spring 2016 I 45

PARTING WORDS

Two-Way Street

A retired teacher considers life without teenagers. by JAMES C. BLOCK

I taught English, coached, advised, talked with, and lived with teenagers at Northfield Mount Hermon for 43 years. Now retired, I find my life away from those students in many ways less interesting, less rich than it was when I left NMH in 2014. Tell most adults you enjoy daily life with teenagers, and they’ll find you, at best, odd. Search the Internet for “life without teenagers,” and see how many hits you get. But those of the adult persuasion who doubt my sanity don’t know, really, what they are missing. Most boarding-school promotional material tries to persuade teenagers and their families of the great benefits students will experience on campus. Indeed, those advantages are considerable. But the publicity leaves out (rightly so) the benefits that boarding-school students bestow upon their teachers. In my last spring at NMH, at my dorm’s farewell gathering for the seniors, I said as much. I told them that the facultystudent relationship runs in both directions: that, of course, teachers do much for students, but that students benefit their teachers’ lives in ways the students may not realize or understand. Some of my most gratifying experiences came in taking students oﬀ campus to museums and to Pioneer Valley music and dance performances.

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At intermissions and on the drives back home, I listened to students’ comments, and I learned from them. One evening at the Springfield Symphony, some NMH Orchestra members, my wife, and I heard a well-known string trio perform Beethoven’s Triple Concerto. Though I am an avid Beethoven fan, I was uninspired by the performance, not lifted out of my seat as I often am by Beethoven. I wasn’t sure why. When the piece was over, the NMH cellist with us leaned toward me and expressed his own disappointment at what he’d heard. He found the performance flat and stiﬀ. He used words I had not the skill to articulate. Because of that one remark, I have become a more thoughtful listener. Academically, the distinct payoﬀ of teaching NMH students became clear to me when I twice returned from spending a year as an exchange teacher at competitive private schools in England and Turkey. Both times, when I came back, I saw that my NMH students wanted me to teach them something. Though the students overseas were quite capable, their need to prepare for the looming, all-important national exams likely kept their sights on something other than what I was trying to do. It put an unfamiliar distance between them and me. I missed the sense of responsibility that NMH students engendered in me. I’m not the only boarding-school teacher to believe students enrich their teachers’ lives. One day at a crosscountry invitational meet, a coach from

another school and I stood together at a point on the course where we could see our runners. He told me of a recent visit by his college-professor brother, who had a busy life and an impressive record of research, advising doctoral candidates, flying to conferences, and so forth. I thought I heard wistfulness in his voice — regret that he hadn’t had a similar life of engaging university work (which is also the life I wanted until I decided I liked teenagers). So I looked my buddy in the eye and asked him, “Who gets more reward when he goes to work every day?” Smiling, he knew my point exactly and agreed. Like the fish in the river who asked another fish what water is, I may not fully have understood what a rich life I was living, how good the water was where I was swimming. One semester at NMH, on walks up to lunch with an experienced teacher new to the school, I exchanged greetings often with students we encountered on the way. He later remarked upon them. I hadn’t been paying attention to the frequency of greetings; I was saying hello to people I knew. I now understand that that teacher wasn’t yet fully tuned into just how friendly NMH students are. Another teacher, this one a veteran known to me for her wit, remarked to the faculty who assembled at her retirement gathering, “I will miss most of you.” That’s sort of how I feel now about NMH students. I don’t miss all of them, just the ones I knew. They served me well. [NMH]

PHOTO: GLENN MINSHALL

GIVING BACK

FRIENDLY GUY PRES ’34 AND HELEN BLAKE At 101, S. Prestley Blake ’34 knows how far hard work can take a person. He and his brother, Curtis, co-founded the Friendly Ice Cream Corp. in 1935, borrowing $547 from their parents to purchase an ice-cream freezer. Over four decades, the brothers built the business from a single storefront selling 5-cent cones in Springfield, Massachusetts, to more than 500 restaurants across the eastern U.S. and the Midwest. So it’s no surprise that he cites Northfield Mount Hermon’s work program as one of the reasons he supports the school with such generosity and loyalty. Pres worked as a “house boy” in Overtoun and a waiter in the school’s kitchen, and believes that working outside the classroom is a crucial part of a great education. “Kids need to understand that they’ll have duties in life,” he says. NMH, adds his wife, Helen, “makes students more well-rounded and fit for the real world.” Other reasons that Pres and Helen have placed themselves among NMH’s top donors: Pres’s father and eight other family members are alumni; he finds the campus, especially the chapel, beautiful; and because he recalls with great fondness his English teacher Tommy Donovan. “He was very strict,” Pres says. “If a paper was due on Monday and you handed it in on Tuesday, he’d rip it up in front of you.” Pres and Helen helped build the Blake Student Center and a faculty home named Blake House; they also established a faculty fellowship in their names and a student scholarship fund. In February, they helped NMH launch a new philanthropic initiative called the Founders’ Challenge (see p. 42). Yet Pres is quick to point out his ordinary beginnings, which is why he supports NMH, he says. “I want to help other people who are looking for tools to do well in life.”

PHOTO: THOMAS WINTER

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Sunset at the farmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sugar house. P HOT O: GLE NN MIN SH ALL

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