St. George's Bulletin, Spring 2015 by aldeia

ST. GEORGE S T H E B U L L E T I N O F S T . G E O R G E ’ S S C H O O L // S P R I N G 2 0 1 5

Sweet Music Jay Sweet ’88 producer of the Newport Folk Festival

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WINTER 2015

ST. GEORGE S SPRING 2015

T HE B U L L E T I N OF ST. G E OR G E ’ S SC H OOL

F E AT U R E S

D E PA R T M E N T S

18 Sweet Music

02 Letter from the Editor

Jay Sweet ’88 combines a respect for tradition with a forward-thinking music sensibility to put the Newport Folk Festival back on top

26 Pain … then Payoff New to the sport of rowing, Emily Kallfelz ’15 takes on an aggressive training regimen—and hits the college-recruitment jackpot

03 Campus News 14 Academic Dean 16 Singularly St. George’s 32 Alumni News 40 Class Notes 80 Student Essay

The St. George’s Bulletin is published bi-annually. It’s printed on 8pt Sterling Matte Cover and 70# Sterling Matte text by Lane Press, South Burlington, VT. Typefaces used are Antwerp, Brix Sans, and Brix Slab. Please send correspondence to bulletin_ editor@stgeorges.edu. © 2015 St. George’s School

OUR MISSION In 1896, the Rev. John Byron Diman, founder of St. George’s School, wrote in his “Purposes of the School” that: “the specific objectives of St. George’s are to give its students the opportunity of developing to the fullest extent possible the particular gifts that are theirs and to encourage in them the desire to do so. Their immediate job after leaving school is to handle successfully the demands of college; later it is hoped that their lives will be ones of constructive service to the world and to God.” As we begin the 21st century, we continue to teach young women and men the value of learning and achievement, service to others and respect for the individual. We believe that these goals can best be accomplished by exposing students to a wide range of ideas and choices in the context of a rigorous curriculum and a supportive residential community. Therefore, we welcome students and teachers of various talents and backgrounds, and we encourage their dedication to a multiplicity of pursuits—intellectual, spiritual and physical—that will enable them to succeed in and contribute to a complex, changing world.

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ON THE COVER

Jay Sweet ’88 backstage at the 2014 Newport Folk Festival. PHOTO BY RYAN MASTRO

The Bulletin of ST. GEORGE’S SCHOOL Robert Weston Associate Head of School for External Affairs Cindy Martin Associate Director of Advancement Quentin Warren Advancement Editor Bill Douglas Director of Alumni Relations Suzanne McGrady Director of Communications & Marketing Jeremy Moreau Web Manager Dianne Reed Communications Associate Lilly Pereira Art Director

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// SPRING 2015 Cover of the very first Bulletin

Look for this symbol throughout the magazine for bonus web extras

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

BY SUZANNE MCGRADY

Change and Renewal St. George’s stands at a remarkable moment in its history. All over the campus there are signs of vitality, adaptation and forward thinking: spirited new faculty members with new ideas and new passions, early drafts of a revamped curriculum we’ll be rolling out over the next few years, construction of a green-minded academic center. It seems the appropriate time to introduce a new look for the Bulletin, which will celebrate its centennial next February.

With the results of a comprehensive review of communications in hand, we set about last year building a new website, crafting a new admission viewbook—and now, as you see in your hands, redesigning the alumni magazine. If you haven’t already, I know most of you will turn quickly to the Class Notes. As it has been throughout our history, connections (and curiosity, in all its forms) are key to the success of St. George’s. Moreover, we know that to be the best we can be, we need our alumni to care about their school—their classmates, their former teachers, their memories. For that reason we’ve brought a number of features focused on alumni to the front of the magazine. One hundred years ago this June, the very first Alumni Association of St. George’s was formed “to unite more closely the old boys and to stimulate their interest in the school.” St. George’s was getting ready to celebrate its 20th anniversary the following year, and the push was on for nearly two decades of alumni to “renew their allegiance” to the school. In less than a year, the very first St. George’s Bulletin was published, in the late winter of 1916. “We want to see you again and find out what you have been doing, and we want you to see us and find out what we have been doing since you left us,” wrote the editor, Herbert F. Preston, who served on the faculty from 1910 to 1947 as

teacher of Latin, German and history, and who has come to be known as the beloved founder of the Christmas Festival. As we head into Alumni Weekend this May— open to all Dragons—Mr. Preston’s words still resound. Preston would go on to serve the Alumni Association as secretary and treasurer for 30 years and the Bulletin was at the core of his efforts to celebrate the news of St. George’s, thereby instilling in the members of the community a shared feeling of loyalty, pride and gratitude for this life-changing Hilltop. He even took it upon himself to supplement those efforts by serving on the board of the Red & White as alumni editor, in effect becoming St. George’s first class correspondent. We now have dozens of devoted alums in that role whose work to keep their classes bound together through news, photos and updates remain at the heart of every Bulletin. We thank them for their time—and for making their columns shine with detail, humor and poignancy. Today once again we ask our alumni to renew their allegiance to the school and for parents, faculty, friends and all members of our community to stay engaged and bless us with their gifts of talent, time and treasure. When Mr. Preston died on the last day of 1955, he left behind a legacy of Dragon pride that remains a model for us. I imagine he would be proud that we are growing and adjusting his Bulletin to continue to celebrate the news of today’s St. George’s.

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Campus News

IN 04 06 10 13

THIS SECTION Academic Center News From Campus Parents Weekend Athletics

E A rendering created by Studio AMD in Providence, R.I., shows the interior of the new St. George’s Academic Center, opening this fall.

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CAMPUS NEWS

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New Academic Center

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Opening a world of possibilities NEW SPACES equal new opportunities, and the SG Academic Center, now under construction, has math and science teachers—the whole community for that matter— in creative-thinking mode. For math and science teachers in particular, the new space will be about broadening

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the curriculum in ways we never could have imagined in the old duPont rooms. With an eye toward expanding both departmental and interdisciplinary offerings, teachers hope to incorporate more engineering and statistics into their program, according to Chair of the Math Department Linda Evans. Coursework in biostatistics could bring together science and math, while socio-statistics could bring together history and math, she said. Courses such as Manufacturing Engineering and Engineering Design could develop from science, math and art collaborations. Even the building itself will be a teaching tool, according to Chair of the Science Department Holly Williams. A so-called “green screen” will display real-time data monitoring the building’s systems and energy efficiency levels—and that data can be used by students in their lessons. When the center is completed in January 2016, math, technology and other interdisciplinary courses will be held in

the renovated duPont building. Science courses will take place in a new laboratory wing—an addition to the old duPont building—beginning this September. A central commons area in the Academic Center—a natural lightfilled atrium connecting the two wings— is being viewed as an extension of the teaching spaces. It will serve as a prime area for special events, like our Brown Bag Lunch Lecture Series, which periodically brings alumni For a timelapse video of construcand parents with science tion please go to expertise back to campus to stgeorges.edu/ AcademicCenter speak with students, faculty and staff. The atrium, which will have 80-inch flat-panel displays at each end, will be able to hold more than 100 people. For students, the expanded space afforded by the center will also provide new areas for studying—as well as collaborating with classmates and friends. Who knows what new ideas will be born there.

CAMPUS NEWS

Outside the Classroom

A BUILDING FOR A NEW ERA OF TEACHING + S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

Students get lessons in architecture, physics and sustainability—right in our own backyard

Because of sensors in each room, lights in the building will turn off automatically or be lowered if it’s bright outside. The solar hot water and high-efficiency heating and cooling systems in the new SG Academic Center will use 30 percent less energy than an average system. The building’s photovoltaic system (solar panels on the roof) at its peak could power 7 percent of the building’s lighting systems, or the lighting in two of the teaching labs for over a year. In moderate weather the geothermal system will be able to heat and cool the second-floor greenhouse. Rainwater that falls on the roof will be gathered, filtered and stored in a containment vessel. When needed the reclaimed water will be pumped up to the restrooms and used for flushing. Source: EYP Architecture & Engineering, Boston

R E N D E R I N G C O U RT E S Y O F S T U D I O A M D

A wind turbine on the roof

Efficiency light sensors throughout

Solar panels on the roof

30%

less energy will be used by the new heating and cooling systems

Reclaimed water will be used for the restrooms

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Teachers will be able to use a number of building attributes in academic lessons. For instance: A wind turbine on the roof has been designed to utilize the increased air velocity as it travels over the parapet walls. A “green screen” will display real-time data monitoring the building’s systems and energy efficiency levels.

Students will be attending classes in seven state-of-the-art laboratory classrooms this fall—and expanding into a newly renovated duPont Science building by January 2016. But until then, teachers and students alike are using construction of the new St. George’s Academic Center as an educational opportunity in and of itself. Tech-minded students are getting lessons in construction as steel beams and structural framing gets put into place. Meanwhile those with a bent for sustainability are getting an inside look at LEED-certified construction as the building—and all its green bells and whistles—comes together with an eye toward limiting our carbon footprint. Even the members of architecture class have a life-size model just outside their window. As preparations got underway for the new center last summer, plans were put into place to move science classes into rooms in the Drury/Grosvenor Art Center. Dr. Bob Wein’s physics class has taken up comfortably in an expansive room that sometimes houses a Visual Foundations class—and biology teachers Dr. Kim Bullock and Science Department Head Holly Williams are meeting with students in a glass-enclosed room on the ground floor. A fish tank and terrarium moved with them. But it seems the reconfiguration of classroom space to accommodate construction may have had some unexpected upsides. Both science and art teachers are weaving construction topics into their curriculum, taking advantage of the working classroom that is a vibrant work site right in the center of campus. And the folks from Shawmut Design & Construction are eager to help out. Shawmut Project Manager Bill Sweeney led the architecture class on a tour of the site, giving students a behind-the-scenes peek at his crew working on framing a shaft for utilities in the ground beneath what will be the new lab wing. Donning hard hats and standing in what will eventually be a two-story atrium for students to study, meet and collaborate in small or large groups, the class got a lesson from Sweeney in materials strength and testing, along with green building techniques. Teacher Lisa Hansel said the “field trip” was enlightening for both the architecture students and for her. “We study how a building goes together on paper, but to see it firsthand is a hugely valuable learning opportunity,” she said. After the “field trip,” the architecture students returned to their work designing “earth-sheltered” houses, which also incorporate green building techniques—with a whole new appreciation for the building process. “The class and I look forward to another field visit later in the year,” Hansel said.

In the New Academic Center:

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GOING GREEN

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// SPRING 2015 Jack Hornor ’73 (right), shown here with his husband, Ron Skinn, established an endowment fund in 2014 that will award two $10,000 grants— one to a faculty member and one to a staff member— for recreational travel, no strings attached.

CAMPUS NEWS

Go West, Young Man! Jack Hornor ’73 endows a generous travel grant program to recognize and reward faculty and staff

IT ROLLS off the tongue like a triplet: students, faculty and staff, the essential building blocks of any school, the three legs of the stool, the magic ingredients that, combined, make up the academic engine that powers the learning and growing process. Of course every engine is a symphony of moving parts, and the better adjusted they are, the better the engine runs. The idea in a good school is to give all those parts the positive attention they deserve—students, faculty and staff. Jack Hornor was a student at St. George’s, a member of the class of 1973. He maintains that “virtually every important part of me was shaped and formed at St. George’s.” He also maintains that “it was the faculty who were most important in helping me grow.” He cites his advisor, the Rev. Robert Hansel, father of current Head of the Art Department, Mike Hansel ’76, for the quiet support he provided; Ted Hersey for teaching him to put one’s personal best above competitive achievement; and Doc Hoyt for the wisdom he imparted as advisor to The Lance when Jack was its managing editor. Following college, Jack joined the staff of Proctor Academy as director of public information, then moved onto the faculty as a teacher himself. Ultimately he found himself teaching English at Berkshire School for eight years. He learned firsthand how hard faculty members work. He also came to realize how hard the staff worked, something he hadn’t considered before. “They lined the athletic fields, cleaned the classrooms and dorms, maintained and repaired the buildings, cooked and served the food, made sure the administrative offices were sensibly and efficiently run and much, much more,” he said. When Jack was at Berkshire, a family close to the school established a travel grant program as a way of thanking the faculty and staff for their service. The idea was to provide vacation funds for time away from the school for the recipient and any attending family. That was 30 years ago. Said Jack, “I wondered if the time might come when I could make a similar thank you to the faculty and staff of St. George’s.” The time did come and that is exactly what Jack has done. In September he came to St. George’s and addressed the current faculty and staff in Madeira Hall, unveiling for them a travel grant program that he has established generously on their behalf. In a heartfelt presentation, he drew on his appreciation for the teachers and school staff he has learned from and worked with over the years, and he made it clear that it is the fulfillment of a

long-held wish that he set in perpetuity a fitting reward for those members of the school community whose service he so values. The Hornor Travel Grant Endowment will provide two grants in the amount of $10,000 each to be awarded to one faculty member and one staff member annually. The purpose of the grants is to provide the recipients the opportunity to travel, purely for themselves, with no professional agenda attached— simply leaving one place and going to another, in Jack’s words.

Now it is Jack’s turn to extend that gesture to the people at St. George’s whose predecessors made his experience on the Hilltop so meaningful and memorable. Anchoring the fund is a notable dedication, namely that it be given in loving memory of Jack’s parents, Edith and DeWitt Hornor. “In sending me to St. George’s they shaped my life,” he said. Now it is Jack’s turn to extend that gesture to the people at St. George’s whose predecessors made his experience on the Hilltop so meaningful and memorable. This year the grants are awarded to math teacher Doug Lewis and his wife, third-form dean and math teacher, Melanie, who have worked at St. George’s—mentoring hundreds of students—since 1995; and to Jeannie Morris, assistant to the director of operations, who has worked in a variety of administrative roles since her arrival at SG in 1992.

Amazing work from our A.P. art students

Other experiences supported by the Mandor Fund in 2014: Cheryl Larson traveled to Greece to explore the history of math. Art Department faculty took a ceramics class. Sugi Min, Teaching Fellow in Science, traveled to Seoul, Korea, to pursue a five-week Korean language program at Yonsei University’s Korean Language Institute, and Art teacher Lisa Hansel pursued advanced yoga-teacher training.

The fund—thanks to the generosity of the Mandors, parents of Nick Mandor ’14—also allowed two faculty members to travel to the Philippines to explore the possibility of a future student/faculty service trip there. Geronimo Captain Mike Dawson said his trip was to explore the programmatic suitability of several locations, possible partnerships

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More than a dozen St. George’s teachers had enriching professional development experiences supported by the school last summer, a few of which took them on international trips courtesy of the Elizabeth and Robert Mandor Educational Enrichment Fund. The fund, which supports “experiences or academic projects that will enrich teaching, will keep faculty current in their fields, and/or will contribute to the enrichment of the entire community,” last year, for instance, allowed the captain of Geronimo to travel to Greece and Turkey to investigate new opportunities for the student crew as the boat sails to the Mediterranean for the first time this summer.

with sea turtle conservation organizations and potential shipyards and marinas for maintenance periods in the region. Meanwhile math teacher Melanie Lewis (top right) and Director of Community Service Margaret Connor visited local schools on Jao Island in the Philippines to donate supplies and consult with local teachers. The two then flew to a temporary birthing center in Dulag, Leyte—the area most hardhit by Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) last November— to deliver more than 80 months of prenatal vitamins which had been donated by Dr. Mary Ann Millar P’13, ’15, and the faculty and staff at SGS. Other professional development opportunities for teachers are supported by grants through our Merck-Horton Center for Teaching and Learning, along with other funds that help teachers pursue advanced degrees.

ANGEL YANG ’18

Making Professional Development a Priority

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PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST(S)

#TBT #FormalDance LAURIE GERMAIN ’15

For more throwback photos follow St. George’s on facebook

AUDREY LIN ’16

Looking a little nervous, John E. Zimmermann III ‘62 sits next to some of the girls invited to a formal event at SG in 1961. ... Awww, go ahead, ask one to dance!

A R C H I VA L P H OTO C O U RT E S Y O F G I L B E RT Y. TAV E R N E R A R C H I V E S S P E C I A L C O L L E C T I O N S .

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P I E R AC E Rigby Knox ’16 was the first place finisher in the always-fun and spirited annual Pie Race Nov. 11 with a time of 6 minutes and 35 seconds, just a few yards ahead of twins Andrew Braff ’17 and William Braff ’17. Race organizer and math teacher Doug Lewis handed out a number of other awards/pies—including those to Angel Yang ’18, who finished seventh while riding a bicycle; Will Bemis ’15, for being the fastest sixth-former; Nick Ambrozic ’16, for being the first Canadian to finish the race; and C.J. Holcombe ’16, who ran the entire race in a full-length bear suit. The race enters its 57th year in November 2015.

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CAMPUS NEWS

Campus Highlights Traditions both new and old are always highlights of our events calendar. Here are a few recent occasions that were memorymaking for our current Dragons: A Service of Nine Lessons & Carols and the Christmas Festival—had everyone in a festive mood. Nothing like a candlelit chapel to set hearts aglow. Friday Night Lights games have gathered momentum here like a viral video. Between the fall varsity boys’ soccer team defeat of Barrington High Sept. 12 and a heart-pounding victory by the girls’ varsity hockey team over Governor’s in a “Pink the Rink” event Jan. 23, we’ve perfected the “hometeam advantage” environment with face-painted fans and a unified Dragon roar. This fall’s Middlesex Weekend games were also played at home after the traditional pep rally. The day, Nov. 7, was marked by stunning wins by the girls’ varsity soccer team (2–0) and the boys’ varsity soccer team (3–2).

By the Book Periodically the MerckHorton Center for Teaching & Learning sponsors a series of discussions among faculty members who have all read a common book. Following are the most recent books teachers talked about:

21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times by Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

by Carol S. Dweck

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

by Peter C. Brown

Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education

by David Perkins

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BECKY HOWE ’15 / To view videos of all Chapel Talks in their entirety please go to stgeorges.edu/ChapelTalks

“So if you are ever looking for something to do that will make you truly happy, whether you are 13, 18, 40 or 60 do what the 4-year-old you would have done—because no one does it better than them.”

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F R O M C H A P E L TA L K S

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// SPRING 2015 For more photos and videos of Parents Weekend, visit our flickr and youtube pages

CAMPUS NEWS

Parents Weekend Performing with a host of musicians from the orchestra and various SG ensembles, Toni Woods Maignan ’16 absolutely rocked the house with her lead vocals on “Ain’t it Fun” by Paramore the Friday night of Parents Weekend 2014—just another show of the extraordinary talent that happens here on the Hilltop. And what about Jack-Henry Day ’15 and Cookie Guevara ’15 on “Chasing Pavements” by Adele? Goosebumps. From the first notes of “The Swingin’ Shepherd Blues” by the Jazz Ensemble to the final notes of the Super Group to wrap up the evening, Oct. 17 was our all-in-one night of outstanding St. George’s performance skill. A big Dragon shout-out to all our performers and a special high-five to the other soloists who, after weeks of practices, put it all out there under the spotlights: From the Jazz Ensemble: Beth Larcom ’16, trombone; Bessie Yan ’16, xylophone; Jon Wang ’16, alto sax; Harrison Paige ’15, guitar; Erick Lu ’15, alto sax; Jiwoo Seo ’16, trumpet; Alex Cannell ’15, bass; and Nurzhan Jandosov ’17, piano. From the Snapdragons a cappella group: Jessica Park ’15, Toni Woods Maignan ’16, Lauren Ceres ’18, Amanda Warren ’15, Laurie Germain ’15, Sydney Jarrett ’16, Sarah Rezendes ’15, Beste Engin ’18 and Svenja Nanfelt ’17; and From the Hilltoppers a cappella group: Jaewoo Kang ’15 and Wyatt Dodd ’16.

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CAMPUS NEWS

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A highlight of Parents Weekend? THE FOOD! “Even though we would like to change things a little, popular demand has prevailed,” says SG Director of Food Services Len Jackson of the menu for Parents Weekend. “Probably the single ‘must have’ is the braised short rib. We actually had new faculty members, prior to Parents Weekend, mention the dish. Our philosophy for putting together a menu of this size and for such a large group, is to offer something that you typically would not make at home and that presents a balance of flavors and textures that will have a broad appeal.”

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575 Number of pounds of braised short ribs prepared for our Parents Weekend dinner, attended by approx. 800 guests

MENU Arugula Salad w/ Roasted Pears, Gorgonzola Cheese, & Toasted Pumpkin Seeds w/ Brown Butter Toasted Rice Wine Vinaigrette Roasted Asparagus w/ Shaved Parmesan & Truffle Aioli Braised Short Rib of Beef au Jus w/ Pickled Mustard Seeds Baked Native Swordfish w/ Lobster Bouillabaisse Sauce Sauteed Wild Mushrooms in Vol Au Vent w/ Sherry & Sweet Cream Butter Smoked Gouda & Scallion Mashed Potatoes Roasted Butternut Squash w/ Onion Marmalade Chocolate Truffle Cupcakes w/ Vanilla Buttercream

move G ET R E A DY TO

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For more photos of the dance performance visit our flickr page

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DA N C E C O N C E R T / With a mix of modern, classical and Broadway-inspired numbers, members of the SG Dance Troupe— Lauren Ceres ’18, Sydney Jarrett ’16, Krysten Palmer ’18, Bessie Yan ’16 and Angel Yang ’18 (along with Zoe Schorsch ’18 and Catherine Farmer ’15, not pictured)—showed off their talents at dance concerts on Oct. 24 and 25, as well as at Parent Weekend.

National Signing Day NATIONAL SIGNING DAY in early February is a milestone day in the world of college sports— and St. George’s was proud to have three talented sixth-form athletes recruited to Division 1 schools who helped us celebrate. On Feb. 4, Sarah Boule signed a Letter of Intent to play soccer at Elon University in the fall; fellow soccer standout Conor Ingari will be playing at Boston University; and Jonathan Lumley, whose prowess on the gridiron caught the attention of recruiters, will play football for the Fordham University Rams. All three have won high praise from their SG coaches. Varsity girls’ soccer coach Ray Woishek ’89 called Boule, who earned ISL all-league awards in 2013 and 2014, “an intense competitor.” “She was always the strongest, toughest player on the field while playing with great sportsmanship. Her ability to control the center of the field was very important to the team,” Woishek added. As a freshman at Elon, Woishek said Boule’s challenge will be “to make a positive impression with her strong defensive play.”

Ingari, the varsity boys’ soccer team’s high scorer, was a central midfielder for the Dragons who often controlled the flow of the game for the team, according to coach Ed McGinnis. “He was an excellent shot, distributing the ball accurately and always winning tackles,” he said. At St. George’s Ingari played midfield in order to get as many touches on the ball as he could, but at BU, McGinnis predicts, Ingari “could become a more offensive player.” Athletic Director and Varsity football coach John Mackay called Lumley “one of the most athletic players” he has ever coached. “His skills—running, jumping—combined with his instincts and great hands will make him a tremendous asset for Fordham’s offense.” Mackay said the fact that Lumley, who suffered a broken wrist last fall, was able to secure a Division I scholarship without being able to play for most of his senior year “is a testament to his ability.” “He’s been a pleasure to coach and I know he’ll be successful at the next level,” Mackay said. “He’s got both the skills and confidence needed to achieve.”

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SLOANE BUHSE ’15 / To view videos of all Chapel Talks in their entirety please go to stgeorges.edu/ChapelTalks

NEW WEBSITE! Have you checked out the brand new stgeorges.edu?

“I think many of us get caught up in our own lives and we forget the feelings of others and do not understand the gravity of our words. I realize that appreciation of parents is rare in teenagers, but I want to try and correct that …”

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F R O M C H A P E L TA L K S

FROM THE DEAN OF ACADEMICS

BY C H R I STO P H E R S H AW

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Faith and Knowledge He posed a reasonable question. Nevertheless, it caught me unprepared on that daylong interview last April. The Rev. Jeff Lewis, school chaplain and head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, asked kindly, yet firmly, of this would-be dean, “How would you make sense of an Episcopal school that welcomes people of all faiths?”

The setting? Lunchtime, the Hamblet Campus Center conference room. An untouched Caesar wrap in front of me, with another six department heads leaning in to listen, I responded: “That is certainly a paradox.” [Pause.] “The truth is, I don’t know.” [OK…go with that.] “From my experience in schools, I do know that teenagers actively seek meaning and spirituality. St. George’s might, in fact, be ahead of the curve in considering faith and academic knowledge not diametrically opposed, but deeply integrated. [Not bad…] “It is in economics, actually, that I have explored this idea with students most directly. Amartya Sen, a Nobel Laureate and native of India who held tenure in the departments of both economics and philosophy at Harvard, has extended the conversation of economics into the mushy arenas of race, class and access. His theory of entitlements applied the most rigorous statistical analysis to the question of distribution of scarce resources. Who gets what? Why? Does fairness play a role? What is ‘fair’ trade anyway? Is that even possible morally? Spiritually? “We have spent the last 600 years erecting a wall between the objective empiricism of intellectuals and the ‘blind’ subjective faith of the religious. I actually believe [as I spoke, I realized just how deeply…] that the 21st

century, led by scholars like Sen, not to mention those of Islam—which has always viewed scientific inquiry as completely integral to the worship of a single God—that the 21st century will broker a re-joining of these two broad strands of human experience. Rather than see the Chapel [that magnificent structure stood, calmly, framed in the conference room window] as anachronistic in a contemporary school, why shouldn’t St. George’s set the example for the re-integration of faith and knowledge?” Fast-forward five months: Having moved to Middletown, I gratefully counted Jeff Lewis as both friend and colleague. On the sunny morning of Oct. 9, standing in the nave of the chapel, I listened to Jeff’s sermon unfold. His title: “False Choices.” He noted that Oct. 9 marked the Feast Day of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, British statesman, philosopher and physicist, born 1168, died 1253: “A man of science, who postulated the origin of the universe as surprisingly close to ‘The Big Bang,’ and yet a man of faith; a son of privilege, yet a brother to the poor. “How could he be both?” Lewis challenged us. His point, in the end, proved that he and I agreed, long before we met, on a foundational value that renders St. George’s School unique. The more we embrace false choices, see life as Us versus Them, or worship Mammon over God (the day’s Gospel), the more we elude the real and complex truth of existence. Our task is to teach young people both the structure and the wonder of the universe. There can be no greater calling. What a privilege it is to join such a community.

Chad Ziadie ’15, Sylvia Zobel de Ayala ’17 and Izzy Knott ’17

“Our task is to teach young people both the structure and the wonder of the universe. There can be no greater calling.”

Maximum Geronimo Crew Size

improve their skills & achieve their goals.

FULL-TIME FACULTY

St. George’s is committed to helping our

Geronimo is a voyage of self-discovery. Through excursions that range from one week to six, students discover the joys and challenges of life aboard a cutter as they sail from the Northeast Atlantic to ports throughout the Bahamas and Caribbean. As they live, learn and explore together, classmates discover what it truly means to be a crew.

THE GERONIMO PROGRAM

A place where teachers want to teach.

St. George’s teachers are more than teachers. They are also dedicated advisors, dorm parents and coaches. Moreover, they are students themselves—taking advantage of professional development opportunities and the MerckHorton Center for Teaching and Learning to grow as educators. That growth benefits them and enriches the student experience.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

1st

$188,000+

CURRICULAR I N N O VAT I O N

We’ll LAUNCH a completely revamped curriculum in the fall of 2015—and move to a annually to teachers seeking advanced trimester system. Notable degrees in their professional area of study, and to supporting them in their efforts to is how we went about the enhance their instruction skills. PROCESS of devising the new curriculum: We held what we called a “BLITZ PLANNING” session with faculty last summer using the STANFORD UNIVERSITY “DESIGN THINKING” model to REIMAGINE our academic program.

The school devotes more than

Partnerships with Top Universities

St. George’s partnered with HARVARD UNIVERSITY to create the first school-based research program allowing Harvard graduate students a real life study experience and St. George’s access to the best research on teaching and learning available.

ST. GEORGE S

Singularly

Enriching Experiences

Our Global Cultural Initiatives Program (GCIP) is a summer program that combines a homestay and cultural immersion component with an internship at a local business or research institute. Some of our partners: The world renown medical research labs at the Curie Institute in Paris, J.P. Morgan in London and The Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales applied research laboratory in Madrid.

Thinking globally is part of the St. George’s culture. Whether a student participates in an exchange program with one of our partner schools in Iceland or China, a choir trip to Rome, or a Global Studies trip to places like Senegal, the Dominican Republic or Romania, they’ll return to the Hilltop changed forever.

IMMERSIVE LEARNING

Navigating the World

Geronimo, our 69’ U.S. Coast Guard-certified Sailing School Vessel, was designed for a SMALL NUMBER OF STUDENTS (up to 8), allowing for a high-quality, full hands-on experience.

Global Studies class destinations since the program started in 2008: Uganda Panama Poland Senegal Iceland Urban Asia Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong Dominican Republic Romania

students had a school-sponsored or supported international travel experience last year.

THE MERCK-HORTON CENTER

college admission deans and independent school college counselors attend our annual Clambake Institute each summer for an enriching professional development opportunity on the Hilltop.

100+

Fifth-Form Parents Weekend includes one-on-one meetings between college counselors and students’ parents. In group-sessions, parents have the opportunity to interact with admission professionals, financial-aid representatives and alumni parents.

Working Together

college visitors to meet with our sixth-formers.

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This past fall, we brought in

in faculty grants allowing teachers to advance and create new teaching methods. These grants have supported a whole new era of collaborative instruction, with teachers in departments like science and music teaming up on course units; along with new student-centered learning models, like one in which French students learn at their own pace with the support of faculty and peer tutors.

$223,645

Since 2009, Merck-Horton has awarded

Our teachers aren’t just passionate about teaching. They’re passionate about learning. With the Merck-Horton Center for Teaching and Learning, St. George’s supports the exploration of research-based and innovative strategies for the 21st century.

FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

Since St. George’s college counselors are teachers, dorm parents and coaches, students have a built-in relationship of trust well before the formal college search process begins.

THE COLLEGE PROCESS

TURTLES have been tagged since the program’s inception in 1974.

3,000+

While on a Geronimo voyage, students catch, tag, and release sea turtles. The data collected is used by scientists to study turtles' migratory rates and habits.

The Geronimo program has long been associated with the University of Florida‘s Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research and provides the largest active source of sea turtle research in the United States.

e Jay Sweet ’88, backstage at the 2014 Newport Folk Festival

Jay Sweet ’88 is kicking back on the deck of his family’s summer cottage in South Dartmouth, Mass., watching his children tumble back up from the shore carrying sea glass and shells. It’s Aug. 14, 2014, and Sweet’s winding down from a major adrenaline rush. Just three weeks prior, in a haze of excitement and insomnia, he was at the helm of the Newport Folk Festival, the three-day mega music event he’s been producing since 2009. As he recounts this year’s festival showstoppers and talks nearly without a breath about his latest favorite bands, he appears to have come only halfway down from the euphoria. For Sweet, the music never really stops.

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S T O R Y B Y S U Z A N N E M C G R A D Y // B W P H O T O S B Y R YA N M A S T R O // C O L O R P H O T O S B Y R I C H G A S T W I R T

JAY SWEET ’88 COMBINES A RESPECT FOR TRADITION WITH A FORWARD-THINKING MUSIC SENSIBILITY TO PUT THE NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL BACK ON TOP

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Sweet Music

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WEET LANDED the Newport gig six years ago, when he took the reins from the world-renowned music impresario George Wein. At the time, the folk festival was celebrating its 50th anniversary, but barely holding on. Wein, who co-founded the event with the late folk singer and social activist Pete Seeger in 1959, had seen its heyday come and go. He’d already tried selling his company, Festival Productions Inc., to another company. But things hadn’t gone well and Wein decided to take it back. He wasn’t, he said, going to let a business decision be the end of his festival. “I don’t treat the festivals as money,” insisted the 89-year-old Wein, who has produced hundreds of music events across the U.S., including the Newport Jazz Festival, since 1954. “For me, it’s a love of the music … and 60 years of my life that I’ve put into them.”

Still, he knew the folk festival had seen better days. Attendance had dropped; moreover, playing Newport as a musician no longer had the caché it once had when singer-songwriter types like James Taylor, Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell played there back in the 60s. When, Wein said nostalgically, musicians barely got paid to play Newport. “I don’t care whether it was Johnny Cash or Bob Dylan,” he said. “We have a letter that my wife [Joyce] sent to Bob Dylan—it’s now in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame—advising him that he was going to get $50 plus expenses for his appearance. “That was a little bit of utopia for eight or nine years. … [The musicians] all came in one way or another to that festival and they were proud to be involved.” Now in the age of mega-festivals like Bonaroo and South-bySouthwest, the times, to crib Dylan, were a-changin’.

SWEET’S CAREER in the music industry had taken several twists before he met Wein in 2008, but what’s clear is that tunes have always been at the center of his universe. He traces the beginning of his infatuation back to 1982, when he was 10. One day he opened a letter from his mother and found a $10 bill. “But I was at a camp in the middle of nowhere Maine,” he said. “The $10 was better used lighting it to start a fire to cook s’mores! It had no relevance.” That is, he added, until a camp counselor—with a license to drive to a liquor store in town—saw it. “He could use the money,” Sweet said, “So he sold me three Grateful Dead tapes for $10. “I thought it was the deal of the century … and, now, looking back at it—it was.”

By the time he entered St. George’s at age 13 in 1984, Sweet, who had already convinced his mother to let him go see the Grateful Dead play at the Worcester Centrum the year before, was well on his way to becoming a music aficionado. “I was the nerd at the Grateful Dead concert. I didn’t go in in a tiedye. I would go in my little monogrammed shirt and take notes, like you’re doing,” he said. “Those reporter notebooks. I have 50 of those from age 13–18 all with set lists and notes that say things like, ‘There’s a 33 percent chance they’re going to play ‘The Other One’ coming out of ‘Space.’ … ‘I bet you Jerry is going to play these three songs tonight’ … All I did was write about music.”

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Sweet walks off stage at the Newport Folk Festival just after introducing the North Carolina-based Avett Brothers in 2013.

At St. George’s, he said, he became friends with some upper formers who shared his passion. “From day one I found a bunch of the older people, who instead of thinking of me as a lowly freshman, saw me as a fellow lover of music,” he said, “which gave me the confidence to be such a music geek.” Anyone who knew Sweet at that time, though, would recall a kid who didn’t always play by the rules. His standardized test scores were super high, but the rules interfered with his preferred lifestyle: staying up late, making mix tapes for friends, and going to see live music, whenever and however he could. “I got in a lot of trouble,” Sweet admitted. “At

SG, you know how they say, ‘hold your applause until all the people get their diploma’? Well there were some teachers who spontaneously applauded when they read my name because they were still in disbelief that I actually made it.” One was then Dean of Students Steve Leslie. “In my own cartoon, Mr. Leslie was always the guy grabbing me by the scruff of the neck or the ear and just being like … ‘Sweet!’ He was my perceived nemesis.” When Sweet went on to study creative writing at the University of Colorado, where he graduated in 1993, music was still a focus. Beside taking every free moment to see live music, even if it meant traveling

from Boulder to San Francisco or Los Angeles “six or seven times a semester,” Sweet started his professional music writing career at the now defunct magazine, The Environmental Journal, which published his interview with Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead, about the band’s attempts to help save the rainforest. “Yes, I realize the irony in my first paying writing gig revolving around that particular band; however, let’s just say that financially I’m still in the red when it comes to my overall relationship with them.” It was shortly after college when Sweet had a serendipitous meeting on a ferry heading to Nantucket. Bobby Farrelly was also on the boat

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Sweet thanks the crowd for their support at an after-party show at the Jane Pickens Theater following the 2013 Newport Folk Festival.

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“The folk music definition has changed in this fast music world and musical styles are blending really quickly. It is forward-thinking and open-minded of the Newport festival to embrace different styles.” T R E Y A N A S TA S I O, P H I S H

and the two chatted. As it turned out, Sweet later took a job working as a locations scout for Bobby and his brother Pete, the Farrelly Brothers, the Rhode Island-born producers of blockbuster movies like “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary.” One day during a scouting expedition, Sweet was driving over the Newport Bridge, with Pete Farrelly and the actors Jim Carrey and Renée Zellweger in the back of the car, checking out locations to film “Me, Myself and Irene.”

“I was driving, not really talking much, but there was a lull in the conversation so I turned on the car stereo and started playing one of my mixes,” Sweet said. “They were like, ‘Who is this?’ And I was like, ‘This is Wilco, and the other artist was Son Volt and they used to both be in this band called Uncle Tupelo… “I wouldn’t shut up. And they all kind of looked at me funny. I was telling them, ‘If you like this, then you’ll love this …’ Then I finally realized I’d been blabbing on and on, so I said,

‘You know what, let me just make you all some mixes.’” Off handedly the actors told Sweet what he really should be was a music supervisor, the one who consults producers on what music to use, so he went out and formed his own consulting business with a partner called Sweet & Doggett. Times were a little rough in the beginning. The two started out helping place music in cat food commercials—but then began landing ads for Nike and New Balance. “You know, cooler things,” Sweet said. After an AT&T commercial featuring Snoop Dog, Sweet consulted on music for the X Games, and then things really started to take off. “I was getting to hang with my favorite bands in these amazing locations on someone else’s dime,” he said. “It was pretty fun.” Soon enough, one of Sweet’s clients became Festival Network, which was buying up rights to produce music festivals across the country. At the time they were investigating the possible purchase of Newport Folk and they asked Sweet to consult. “I wrote this 18-page position paper,” Sweet recalled. “It basically said if this company were to buy the festival, here is what they would need to do to revive it.” The company eventually signed the contract with Wein and with Sweet as an associate, ran the 2008 festival. With Sweet’s recommendations, the line-up that year broke all kinds of folk genre barriers. Gone was the top-to-bottom line-up of classic, soft-strumming folkies. Rock band the Black Crowes and Trey Anastasio, frontman for the jam band Phish, headlined, while other artists on the bill included Stephen and Damian Marley, sons of reggae icon Bob Marley. “The folk music definition has changed in this fast music world and musical styles are blending really quickly,” Anastasio told an NBC reporter at the time. “It is forward-thinking and open-minded

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“Oh, what is my life right now?” he says, smiling as he looks out onto a sea of dancing fans. “What is this?!” In Sweet’s mind, that’s what Newport’s about. “They play in front of 5,000 people and the first 1,500 people toward the front are singing every word to their song,” Sweet’s own voice cracks. “So you understand why they start crying on stage? “How does that happen? Now you know why I get passionate about it and why it’s not about me. I’m not the one that tells the audience to go and learn about the band.” If you want to know what the lineup for the festival is, you have to keep an eye on their own social media, that’s where the constant conversation between what Sweet calls the “folk family” is happening. And these days, really, which artists will get tapped for the folk fest is anyone’s guess. Beck, one of the great alternative rock heroes of the 1990s, with best-selling songs like “Loser,” headlined the festival in 2013. Seventy-five-year-old rhythm and blues maven Mavis Staples performed “The Weight” at the 2014 festival alongside members of Dawes, Trampled By Turtles and even Norah Jones, known mostly for her jazz vocals. These are the types of moments at the folk fest that have Sweet often overcome with emotion. “Jay cries six to seven times throughout the weekend. I mean blubbering,” said his wife, Margaret. “And then he emotionally crashes for the whole week after. He really does give almost everything to this festival.” Sweet also relishes the number of SG connections with the festival. Every year former Director of Technology Charles Thompson runs the stage crew, which is comprised mainly of former St. George’s students. “We do a whole ‘Go Dragons!’ cheer, me and the team,” Sweet said. “And all these famous musicians are like, ‘What the hell is going on?! What the hell is a Dragon?!’”

THESE DAYS the Newport Folk Festival isn’t something Jay Sweet just runs, it’s a precious something he holds tenderly in his hands. You get the feeling he’s still afraid of dropping it. “I honestly wake up and say I can’t believe this is my job,” he said. “I just don’t take it lightly at all and in general it freaks me out.” He’s become good friends with Wein and the two talk weekly by phone. “He needs somebody to unload on if he’s got a problem and I’m his, shall we say, his worry bird,” Wein said. “He talks to me when he needs a little bolstering.” Sweet resists central-figure status, but the bottom line is that when you buy a ticket for Newport Folk these days, you’re essentially betting on Sweet’s ability to reel in legendary artists, his ear for newcomers—and his ability to read a crowd. The festival issues no press releases to mainstream media and doesn’t announce the line-up before tickets go on sale. “We like to consider ourselves a festival that’s very curatorial,” Sweet said. “The skill set comes not in recognizing talent, but in recognizing how our audience will react to an artist.” Take, for instance, a band Sweet saw play in Austin, Texas, in 2012. “They were playing to a room of about 100 people,” Sweet recalled. “They only had two EPs out at the time, but watching the audience react to every nuance that was happening on stage with such excitement and fervor … It was just so physically palpable, I started to laugh —and no one outside of Texas had really heard of them.” The artist was the brother-sister duo called the Oh-Hellos: one of the biggest success stories of the 2014 Newport Folk Festival, according to Sweet. The group didn’t even have a real album out, but it didn’t stop ticket holders from signing on as fans. Watch a clip of their performance of their song “Trees” on YouTube and you’ll see lead singer Tyler Heath get emotional at the crowd appreciation.

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of the Newport festival to embrace different styles.” The Jay Sweet formula had started to take shape. It was a short success, however, for Sweet’s bosses, who took it on the chin in the 2008 economic downturn. “I came to work one day and there was a chain on the door—literally,” Sweet said. “I was out of job after a decade of making very good money and living my dream.” That’s when George Wein somehow got a hold of that 18-page paper. At first, Wein said, Jay Sweet was “just a guy who talked a lot.” But Wein was able to look past Sweet’s harsh criticism of his festival contained in the paper. Moreover, after the successful 2008 event, which got good press and a noticeable uptick in ticket sales, “I said there’s something about this man, Jay Sweet, that intrigues me. He knows what he’s talking about as far as contemporary folk music is concerned. And so I spoke to him and I said, ‘I’m going to say you’ve got it. I’m going to give you a chance to prove yourself.’” Sweet would be in charge of booking the 2009 festival. Eventually the numbers would speak for themselves: In 2011, the two-day event sold out Saturday. In 2012, both Saturday and Sunday sold out. In 2013, the event became a three-day extravaganza, with organizers adding a Friday, and both Saturday and Sunday sold out and Friday almost sold out. And in 2014, the Newport Folk Festival sold out all three days months in advance. “So we sold out 30,000-plus tickets months before the festival and before we announced the vast majority of the line-up,” Sweet said. “So, yeah, George was pretty happy.” And with National Pubic Radio broadcasting the festival each year, there’s a possible added audience of 2.2 million. Sweet, Wein said, has proven himself. “He’s done the most fantastic job for me imaginable.”

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“We do a whole ‘Go Dragons!’ cheer, me and the team. And all these famous musicians are like, ‘What the hell is going on?! What the hell is a Dragon?!’” IT’S AFTER MIDNIGHT in July 2010 and Jim James, the lead singer and songwriter for the Kentuckybased band My Morning Jacket, wants to go for a nighttime swim. He’s in Newport, having been one of the headliners at the Newport Folk Festival, and he, Sweet and a few other musicians are in afterparty mode. At first James says he’s going to cross the lawn of one of the mansions on Bellevue, but Sweet implores him not to and instead gets James’ driver to take the group toward First Beach. That’s when James spots the illuminated tower of the St. George’s Chapel in the night sky. “What is that?” James says, “the Rhode Island Cathedral? It looks like Hogwarts!” “Uh, no. It’s a high school,” Sweet replies hesitantly. “My high school.” “You’re kidding me, right? Well, we’re definitely going there. I have to see this thing up close,” James says. As the driver pulls the car up onto the lawn behind the Chapel “golf carts were coming from every direction,” Sweet recalled. Campus safety officers drill Sweet to make sure he is who he said he was, and then let the group come into the moonlit chapel. They keep the lights off. Sweet remembers the night like a good dream. James, he said, stood in the middle of the aisle and sang Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” a cappella. “You’d think [it] would be cheesy, a joke,” he said. “But in the Chapel,

with five people and all the lights being off and Jim being in the perfect center where you don’t need any amplification and singing that song the way he did … I mean we were mesmerized.” Sweet even gave a chapel talk. “One of my biggest regrets [about SG] was never doing a chapel talk,” he said. “And I gave one that night to those people. I said, ‘I never was brave enough to stand up and give my chapel talk,’ but here I am 20-plus years later with these amazing people, some of my favorite musicians on the planet, and I’m living my dream. It was strangely satisfying and obviously, completely surreal.” The late-night swim happened at Second Beach instead.

AS HE WOUND DOWN from the euphoria of the 2014 fest last August, Sweet had already invited the first artist to the 2015 festival. “I put in my first offer yesterday to a band that pretty much no one has heard of,” he said, insisting he wouldn’t name names. “But I have a feeling that will change by the time July 2015 comes around.” Sweet, who found the band in a tiny club in Providence, said that again it came down to his witnessing the audience reaction to the band. You get the feeling Sweet just feels music in his gut. Said Sweet unabashedly: “People who don’t understand the power of music aren’t my people.”

Last summer Sweet was in the midst of the thousands attending the folk festival at Fort Adams State Park—taking care of the musicians and running from stage to stage—when he was approached by a fan. “Literally an arm stopped me— and it was Mrs. Leslie,” said Sweet, remembering the encounter with now retired Associate Director of Admission Betsy Leslie, wife of Steve Leslie. “I said, ‘Mrs. Leslie!’ and she said, ‘I just wanted to let you know that not only am I proud of you, but Steve Leslie has probably never been more proud of a student than he is of you.’ “She was more polite, but basically the tenor of the thing was we thought you would end up in a ditch, and you didn’t, and now we’re at your festival. We actually paid money to come to see your festival!” Interviewed recently about Sweet, Steve Leslie said indeed, times had changed. Among his memories of serving as Dean of Students at St. George’s, he said, was supervising “Rock Pile,” a form of punishment that was created in part as a direct response to Sweet’s accumulating infractions. “I would gather a group of students who had cut too many classes, not completed homework assignments, cut chapel, or (heaven forbid), violated the dress code at 7 a.m.—and go down to pick up trash along the road by Second Beach. “Jay was somewhat of a regular on my squad.” Now that Leslie is happily retired and no longer “chasing down recalcitrant teens,” he said he looks forward every year to joining friends and family at the Newport Folk Festival. “And I am keenly aware that it has been Jay who stepped in, recognized the challenge of revitalizing the iconic festival, and has brought to it a resurgence that many of us never dreamed could happen. “And every summer, in late July,” he added, “my mantra is, ‘Jay Sweet is my hero!’”

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Sweet readies to introduce the Providence-based band Deer Tick at the 2013 Newport Folk Festival.

S T O R Y B Y S U Z A N N E M C G R A D Y // P H O T O S B Y D A N C O P E N H A V E R / D A N C O P E P H O T O . C O M

Pain … then Payoff NEW TO THE SPORT OF ROWING, EMILY KALLFELZ ’15 TAKES ON AN AGGRESSIVE TRAINING REGIMEN—AND HITS THE COLLEGE RECRUITMENT JACKPOT

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Born to a mother and father—Julie and Andrew Kallfelz—who both took up the sport for the first time and rowed competitively at Cornell University, it was probably inevitable that Emily, the eldest of two daughters (sister Eliza is a fourth-former), would try rowing herself one day. Both girls have witnessed their parents’ passion for the sport, watching from the Cambridge, Mass., shore each fall as the two participated in the Head of the Charles Regatta as part of Cornell’s alumni team. It wasn’t, however, until the 2013 Head of the Charles, when Andrew heard from a fellow rower about his own daughter’s experiences getting recruited to colleges strictly Emily and her team train based on her indoor rowing machine times that he at the GMS Rowing Center encouraged Emily to try the sport. At that point, he in New Milford, Conn., for the 2014 World Rowing said, “She reluctantly was interested.” Junior Championships. “She asked me, ‘Well, what will I have to do?’” The mission was pretty straightforward: pull a good time in a high-profile indoor rowing competition and you’ll get the attention of college coaches. The training could really pay off. To solidify the goal and give herself a target, in November 2013 Emily signed up for the premier indoor rowing event in New England, the 2014 Charles River All Star Has-Beens (C.R.A.S.H.-B.) Sprints World Indoor Rowing Championships. She had just three months to train; the event was to take place

in February. And it was a tall order. Having spent a good part of the summer in China, Emily—a varsity soccer player, swimmer and sailor—hadn’t recently been working out very much. To get in shape, Emily said, she would stagger up to the Kallfelzes’ Concept 2 rowing machine in their attic at 5:45 a.m. every morning and row for about an hour and a half—straight. It was, she said, “the most painful workout anyone could ever have.” It took some special backup. “My dad was kind of driving the whole thing,” she said. “He got me up in the morning when I didn’t want to, and he got me doing the workouts— because honestly, they were brutal.” At the time, the Kallfelzes also found a secret weapon in Xeno Müller, a 1996 Olympic gold medalist who coaches rowers around the world virtually from his post in California. The two have never met. Andrew videos Emily on the erg and sends it to Müller. Müller sends back tips and a training plan. “I figured out pretty early on that dad-as-coach probably wasn’t going to work so well,” Andrew said. “Having Xeno, I could be the reinforcement and he could be the one who says, ‘OK this is how you do it.’” Most days, Emily would also double up on her workouts, meeting with SG Varsity Swim Coach Keri Cunningham, who designed a strength and conditioning program to help her build her endurance. All the while Emily was maintaining high marks in three APs and two honors courses; fighting to stay awake to do homework. “Emily has a tremendous work ethic,” Cunningham said. “Her success did not happen by accident; she earned every bit of it.” Still, there were times when Emily thought she might break. “And that was probably a few times a week,” she admitted. (continue to pg. 28) E

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o onlookers, it was an enviable position to be in: Emily Kallfelz ’15 of Jamestown, R.I., was pondering admission offers from Harvard, Yale and Princeton. “Really,” she admitted, “I might just have to toss a coin.” That was back in the fall, a milestone moment in what by many accounts has been a veritable meteoric rise to proficiency in the sport of rowing. On the day she had to make her decision about where to go to college—Oct. 1, 2014—it was, in fact, less than a year from when Kallfelz had first folded herself onto the seat of an indoor rowing machine, a training ergometer, or “erg” for short.

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N A SNOWY FEBRUARY 16, 2014, Emily entered Boston University’s Agganis Arena to see an event floor strewn with dozens of rowing machines lined up in rows. When she found her place and got on her erg she looked up to find a video camera pointed at her. “I was terrified,” she said. Then the referee shouted, “Ready all … Attention … Row!” Fueled with adrenaline, Emily came out hard—and about halfway through, she said, “I was pretty much done.” “The last minute and 45 seconds … I don’t remember it, honestly. I just remember not being able to feel anything.” Still, she kept going, telling herself it was only two more minutes of her life; she could do it. When she finally got off the erg, she said, she fell over.

Perhaps not an elegant entrance into a ballroom, but Andrew calls it, “her coming out party.” Because she’d never entered her times into Concept 2’s worldwide database, she was a virtual unknown. Now, in a field of 239 rowers in the Junior Women’s Division, she placed eighth. The next day she spent two hours with the coach at Harvard and met the entire rowing team. Almost immediately her email box began to fill up with inquiries from college recruiters. “OK, so I’m done now, right?” That’s what Emily remembers thinking at that point. Visions of actually getting into a racing boat, pulling real oars through the water, wind in her face, were distant. “Look, I don’t care if you ever take another stroke before you show up here as an athlete,” the Harvard coach told her. “You don’t ever have to get in a boat as far as I’m concerned. You’ve done what you need to do to show us that we want you.” Andrew’s perspective was different. Getting on the water is the fun part, he said. Emily allowed herself a couple of weeks off, but decided to use part of her March Spring Break to attend a camp at the Florida Rowing Center in Wellington learning how to actually scull. She started out in a novice boat, a Zephyr by Peinert Boatworks out of Mattapoisett, Mass., wider and more stable than a racing shell Then she made a hard choice. “Sailing is still my favorite sport,” she told her dad, as she made the decision to step away from the SG sailing team and do a special athletic project last spring. She would continue to work with Cunningham on strength and training and drive up to the Narragansett Boat Club in Providence on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays to row under the direction of Coach Peter Wilhelm.

She put another goal on her training map: the Lowell (Mass.) Invitational, and with just three weeks before the regatta, she had to get into a racing single—a much narrower boat, 26 feet long and just 26 centimeters wide, she called “super tippy.” “I flipped the first time I was in that boat—and it was cold,” she said “You can’t right the boat by yourself because you have the oars, so the coach has to come over, drag you out of the water and into the motor boat, flip over the boat, put you back in— and then you row again.” Still a little unstable, and admitting to only pulling about 40 percent full effort because of it, Emily still placed second in the competition at Lowell. Rowing, indeed, had started to get fun. The next week, on the same course, Emily entered the US Rowing Northeast Championships, the regional qualifier for the US Youth National Championships. The top three finishers in each event would qualify for the National Championship regatta three weeks later in California.

“[Emily’s] success did not happen by accident; she earned every bit of it.” limiting factor,” she said. As a newcomer, she didn’t have everything down yet. After half of the race, she was catching up and ultimately came in third. “I didn’t mope, but I was definitely frustrated with myself,” she remembered. She told her dad, “I could’ve won that. That is so annoying.”

ment. “At the beginning of my training my dad encouraged me to get started and helped me over some bumps,” she recalled. “But then I started to really enjoy the sport.” Ten months after those first torturous workouts on the erg in her attic, she was heading to Hamburg, Germany, to represent the United States.

resilience and determination, they won, beating the Italians with a time of 7:23:49. “We were just so determined to prove ourselves to ourselves,” she said. “It was a confidence booster for us. It was very relieving.” The girls emerged from that race with the fastest time out of every female quad there that day,

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In Germany, as the temperature sizzled and rowers from all over the world competed for training space in Aussenalster Lake, Emily and the girls in her quad felt the rush of competition. “Seeing the course was awesome. It was so beautiful,” she remembers. It was like being in the Olympics, all the athletes walking around in their team uniforms with race credential I.D.s hanging around their necks. After a week of training, the racing began. There were heats and Emily and the three other girls in her quad took third behind China and Great Britain. Then came the semifinals. Emily remembers about 90 seconds of smooth sculling before things went horribly awry. “One of the girls in our boat caught a crab; she got her oar stuck in the water and our boat turned like 90 degrees and we couldn’t get it out of the water because it was stuck under the boat and backwards. We were sitting in the water for 25 seconds.” At first, she said, she remembers thinking “like a beginner,” like they could catch up, but her hopes were pretty soon dashed. Rather than going to the A final, they competed in the B final, where through sheer

She had reached the point where she felt she could actually win. Three days after getting home to Rhode Island Emily left for selection camp for the Junior National Team in New Milford, Conn., where she was vying for a spot in a quad—a four-person boat—with 40 other girls. It didn’t take long for her to nab one of the four seats: in a standard erg race, she placed first after weight adjustments, then she won two 1.5-kilometer time trials. She had secured a place in the quad as a stroke, the rower closest to the stern in charge of keeping the rowers’ stroke rate and calling out adjustments. Soon she knew the rest of the girls who’d be in the boat with her—and a whole new way to experience rowing. “You realize that the team dynamic is so much different than being by yourself,” she said. The girls camped out in a bug-infested, unfurnished house in town, sleeping on the floor. But what Emily remembers most is the bonding: training hard, really hard, but then going into town to get fro-yo and making pottery. Looking back now, she said, she’s glad she had her father’s reinforce-

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Andrew remembers standing on the shoreline of the Merrimack River in Lowell at about the 1,000meter mark on a pathway that ran along the length of the course. “I saw her come by and just started running,” he said. He saw her propel to the finish line. “She wins it, wins it,” he says, his voice breaking with emotion. “Yeah. It was just unbelievable. “As a parent spectating this, I’m just like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Next up, in May, were the Nationals in California, where in early time-trial heats at 8 a.m., despite nerves, Emily took second place to continue on in the competition. “I was really flustered. There’s a huge mental component to it,” she recalled. “My steering was off.” Afterwards, though, she remembers telling her dad, “That was so much fun!” On the fourth day of the event were the finals, and Emily paced around inside the boathouse. “I didn’t talk to anyone before the race,” she said. “I just tried to conserve energy.” It didn’t look good early on; she was dead last for the first 250 meters. “My technique was the

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“You realize that the team dynamic is so much different than being by yourself.”

// SPRING 2015

LATER THAT DAY in October, when she finally had to make her college choice, she chose the school with a focus on undergraduate programs and departments “dedicated to helping rowers specifically with balancing schoolwork and athletics and with finding jobs,” a “small and very tight-knit” rowing team that was friendly and welcoming, and coaches whom she believes are “the best in the country.” “I chose the school I would fit into best,” she said. Princeton had won the toss.

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loved the assistant coach there. It was just like, ‘She is the best!’ They were buddies. She was getting buddy emails from the coach at Princeton, ‘Hey, how did the soccer game go today?’ They knew what was going on in her life. They were friends. And the same thing was going on at Harvard with a couple of students. “And so when it came time to make a decision, it was incredibly personal because she knew she was going to have to let two sets of friends down and she didn’t want to let anyone down because she loved them all.” Ultimately, Emily admits, she had to be pragmatic. Rowing will enhance her life for the next four years. She’ll turn 18 in April knowing that she’s headed to the Ivy League—a heavily recruited top prospect who also will represent the United States for the second time at the World Rowing Junior Championships, which this summer will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the end, though, “there’s no professional rowing,” she said. “I’m not going to go row for the rest of my life, so I want to make sure I’m picking a school that’s a good fit academically and socially as well as athletically,” she said. “I can’t really go wrong with the schools I’m choosing from, which is a good problem to have.”

THESE DAYS as Emily heads into another season of training for her second World Junior rowing competition in August, she said, “It’s a nice position to be in, obviously, and I feel very lucky.” She attributes only part of her success to her own focus and determination. “A lot of it has not much to do with me,” she said. “My dad was a great coach. I got great coaching from Xeno in California. I had an amazing coach on the water. I had a training plan. It was pretty much the ideal circumstances to go into rowing.” For Müller, Kallfelz is the ultimate student: “driven” and “open to coaching.” “She also trusts her mom and dad, trusts my coaching and builds on what she learns,” he wrote. Emily also credits genetics. “My dad … he’s got a lot going for him and he’s passed some of it to me. “He is one of those people who can push himself to the limit, to the point of passing out, every single time. He’s very, very, very strongwilled, which has helped me a lot. His strong-mindedness kept me going, because I didn’t have that.” Then there’s the pure biology: Both Andrew and Emily score well on endurance physiology tests: blood lactate levels and the O2 max—how efficiently you can convert oxygen to energy. Still, Andrew sees Emily’s successes another way. “She’s always been a kid who is willing to work really hard. She was

also an athlete who would work really hard and put in incredible amounts of effort, but who was not always served with the same level of reward in terms of performance,” he said. “She worked very, very hard in the pool … but her success in the pool is probably not commensurate with the effort she’s put into it. “Seeing her rewarded for her training now,” he said, “is sweet. “In some ways,” he added, “rowing was the perfect sport for someone like Emily. One thing’s for sure: it’s a sport you don’t have to start when you’re 4. There’s some hopefulness for late bloomers in that. “Unlike, say, soccer or swimming, where to be considered an ‘elite’ player you have to start at 5, 6 or 7 and train nearly year-round, rowing allows more opportunities for older kids to excel. “They don’t make itty-bitty oars and itty-bitty boats for kids to row in; it’s really an adult-sized sport,” he said. Recalling last winter, Emily says, “Of course I wanted to give up at some points. … There were points when I was like ‘I am done. I don’t want to be doing this any longer.’ “But then once you hit the threshold of, ‘Wait, I may actually be decent at this; maybe I should keep trying it’ …” she pauses. “After that, it’s purely focus.” When the day came to decide which of the Ivy League colleges she would attend, Andrew says he was “shocked at how emotionally stressful” it was for Emily. “When you are a recruited athlete, these coaches and these programs are so good at the recruiting process that they turn you into friends,” he said. Within a couple of months of the C.R.A.S.H. Bs Emily had had really personal interactions with the coaches, the assistant coaches and the staff and the members of the rowing teams. “So she loved the coach at Yale. He was awesome. She

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including all six boats in the A finals (China won the event with a time of 7:26:48). Emily wrote her college essay about the event and bouncing back from adversity. “I learned a ton about my own mental and physical strength,” she said. “And I met teammates I will be friends with for years.”

I T ’ S M AY. I T ’ S N E W P O R T. I T ’ S A C E L E B R AT I O N ! st. george’s school

// SPRING 2015

ALUMNI REUNION WEEKEND The weekend isn’t just for reunion classes. If you’re an alum*, you’re invited—every year. F E E D YO U R I N N E R D R AG O N . C O M E B AC K TO T H E H I L LTO P.

MAY 8-10, 2015 Register at www.stgeorges.edu/AlumniWeekend

*at or past your fifth-reunion year. A special Prize Day Weekend Cookout for alums in the Classes 2010-2014 is planned for Sunday, May 24.

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Alumni News

E A story about Philippe Cousteau ’98 and his “Life-defining Quest” to preserve his family’s legacy appeared in the Aug. 4 edition of Conde Nast Traveler magazine. See class note on page 69 for more. PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL MULLER

IN 35 40 41 79

THIS SECTION Alumni in the News Class Notes Memorial List From the Archives

ALUMNI NEWS

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What fascinates you about the Asian culture? I think two things really fascinate me. One includes the depth and intricacies of Chinese. China has a long, rich history and culture, and this is manifested in the language. Second, being in China, it’s amazing to see how quickly the country has changed. Talking to Chinese friends and colleagues about their life experiences gives you a feel for the incredible amount of change Chinese society has undergone in the past few decades.

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What were those first Chinese classes at SG like for you? What do you remember about them? Do you have any advice for firstyears? My first Chinese classes at SG were a whirlwind. I distinctly remember Mr. Jaccaci rambling on in Chinese, and I was really impressed. A tip for first-years would be use a sharp pencil or thin pen—it makes writing characters a lot easier and neater! And, of course, make sure you devote lots of time to studying.

Reconnecting in Shanghai JULIA OAK ’10 graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in 2014 with degrees in sociology and Asian studies. This year she is in Shanghai working as an English teaching assistant at the YK Pao Secondary School, where her former SG Chinese teacher, TONY JACCACI, is now the head of school.

What made you decide to make the leap and to move to China after graduation? Was it always a goal? I studied abroad in Beijing in 2012 on an intensive language studyabroad program. After being in Beijing, I knew I’d come back after I graduated. Tell us about meeting your students for the first time. What are their concerns/hopes/ aspirations? Do you see big differences/similarities between Chinese and American teenagers? I think overall their goals, concerns, hopes and aspirations are much more focused on college and good academic grades than many students in the U.S. Not only is education very highly valued in Chinese culture, but many of our students hope to matriculate eventually into a U.S./U.K. college, so it is incredibly important for them and their

ALUMNI NEWS

How is your life most different living in China vs. the U.S.? Shanghai is a very foreigner-friendly city, so besides food and language, I’d have to say the most different thing about living here is the time difference. It’s hard when you have exciting or sad news and really want to talk to loved ones but it’s 3 a.m. in the United States. Have there been any times in the last months when you wished you could’ve been part of something that happened here in the U.S.—or wished for more news about current events back home? Social media and texting make it pretty easy to know what’s going on at home—but that has its pros and cons! I definitely get more homesick and feel like I’m missing out after Face timing or seeing photos of friends and family online.

Kelsey Crowther ’08 was recently appointed the new program director at Ida Lewis Yacht Club in Newport. Crowther, who grew up sailing at the Chatham Yacht Club on Cape Cod, was a four-year varsity sailor at SG and was a sixth-former when the Dragons won the Team Race Nationals in 2008. Michael Scott Hanrahan ’88 published his first novel—an environmental thriller “about animals and nature attacking humans when the latter’s domination threatens the Earth.” Hanrahan is an educator and filmmaker who teaches environmental media storytelling at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Carsey-Wolf Center for Film, TV, and New Media.

Christopher T.H. “Toby” Pell ’66, P’95, retired executive director of the Preservation Society of Newport County and a former partner at Barclay Investments in Providence from 1976-1991, was recognized at the University of Rhode Island’s Distinguished Achievement Awards celebration in October. Pell received a Deans’ Award for his service for many years on URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography Advisory Council, which he currently chairs. The Newport home of jewelry designer Cory Plumb ’92 and her husband, race car driver Matt Plumb ’92, is featured in “Living Newport: People, Houses, Style” by Bettie Bearden Pardee (Glitterati Inc., 2014).

After a 15-year career with Starbucks, most recently as vice president, Global Responsibility, Ben Packard ’85 is now at The Nature Conservancy as director of corporate engagements. The Rev. Christopher M. Agnew ’63 received the National Episcopal Historians and Archivists’ John W. Davis Award at NEHA’s annual meeting last June in Salt Lake City, Utah. The award recognizes “outstanding contributions by an NEHA member to the organization and/or Episcopal church history and archives.”

Patricia Barroll Sellman ’82 earned first place for her entry in The New Yorker magazine’s Jan. 15 cartoon caption contest.

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How does our pop culture translate? Well, I have a group of advisees and the other week they were watching a Taylor Swift music video and told me they’d heard that every American hated Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber even though they're popular here [in China]. I said that some people liked them and some did not—but not every single American.

Richard Painter ’80 was quoted in the Dec. 26 New York Times article, “A Bipartisan Push to Limit Lobbyists’ Sway Over Attorneys General.” The article reports on a bipartisan effort to change the way state attorneys general interact with lobbyists, campaign donors and other corporate representatives. Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who was the chief White House ethics lawyer during the Bush administration, is now a fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard.

Kevin Holden ’02 recently won a three-year post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard that will begin in June. The post is offered by the Harvard Society of Fellows, which notes that candidates are selected “for their resourcefulness, initiative, and intellectual curiosity, and because their work holds exceptional promise.” Holden is now in the process of completing his Ph.D. in comparative literature at Yale.

What do your students know about the United States? Many of our students are pretty familiar with many aspects of the U.S. and Western culture. That being said, I think many of our students enjoy learning about the U.S. through movies, music and books. I know several students who are reading and watching “House of Cards,” “Enders Game” and “Hunger Games.” Many of the TV shows that are popular at home are popular here as well.

A LUM N I I N T HE N E WS

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families to reach the goals needed to achieve this. In terms of similarities, there are still many similarities between teenagers across continents and cultures.

ALUMNI NEWS

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‘Mad Man’ Jack Shuttleworth ’49: Adventures in Advertising

// SPRING 2015

WHEN JACK SHUTTLEWORTH ’49 watches the AMC hit TV show “Mad Men,” which enters the second half of its final season April 15, the midcentury-modern office furniture and martini lunches look quite familiar. So do the machinations of the fictitious Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce advertising agency. That’s because Shuttleworth is one of two veteran account executives in the Class of 1949 who worked on Madison Avenue during the 1960s—the so-called “golden age of advertising” depicted on the show. The other was Bob Gleckler, who for years headed up the Oil of Olay campaign at Young & Rubicam, one of the world’s largest consumer ad agencies. Mr. Gleckler died last June. Shuttleworth said that aesthetically, at least, in many ways his and Gleckler’s days back on the avenue were much like those on the TV show—with at least one notable exception. “The office interiors are perfect,” he said. “That’s the way those agency rooms looked, the kind of furnishings they had,” he said. “But what’s way out of touch is the facial hair. This was ‘The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit,’” he added, referencing the 1955 best-selling novel by Sloan Wilson, later made into a movie starring Gregory Peck. “You had to dress well to work at an advertising agency. You had to be cleanshaven. If someone came through with stubble on their face, they wouldn’t get through the door.” It was a world that easily lent itself to drama, according to Shuttleworth. Because of the competitive, results-oriented nature of the business, personal lives took a toll. If a firm lost an account, account reps lost their jobs. “We called it ‘Pink-Slip Friday’ in those days,” he said. “Someone was always being let go.” It was a freewheeling atmosphere where ad reps didn’t have to punch a clock. “The three-martini lunch was standard operating procedure.” Shuttleworth said he was lucky to have gotten the opportunity to move up in the industry after he graduated from Bowdoin College and came home from serving as a troop commander at Fort Benning during the Korean War.

During the summer while he was in college he worked in the mailroom at Robert Orr and Associates on 59th Street in New York across from the Plaza Hotel. “They had the Pan American Coffee Bureau campaign: ‘Give yourself a coffee break,’” Shuttleworth said, which paved the way for unions to write a mid-morning break into their contracts. “That’s an example of advertising leading the way,” he said. His first full-time job was at the Kudner Agency from 1955–63, where he started out in market research. A common sight was the copywriters all sitting on the floor, jackets off, brainstorming for a pitch to make to a potential client. “Anyone could say anything,” he said.

ALUMNI NEWS

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A secretary would take notes. He remembers a fellow copywriter coming up with the line, “Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?” Shuttleworth hit the jackpot when he wrote an ad that ended up as a two-page color spread in Life magazine that read, “Time takes a holiday in the time-proof body by Buick.” “We took Buick to the No. 3 in national auto sales after Ford and Chevrolet, knocking out Plymouth,” he recalled. Like a commercial jingle that stands the test of time, Shuttleworth’s legacy in advertising has continued long since he left the business in the 1980s. His work is still evident in the coffee aisle at supermarkets.

After Kudner, Shuttleworth had a stint at the ad firm Atherton & Courier, then moved on to become the advertising manager for the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia. At the time the association was already spending millions to promote their product in print campaigns depicting a made-up character, a coffee grower named Juan Valdez. Shuttleworth bolstered their current print campaign with an ad saying, “Most Americans don’t know beans about Colombian coffee.” Then he brought the character of Juan Valdez to life through a series of television commercials. “I thought if we could show him working, rather than just somebody in a costume in a print ad, we’d have something,” he said. Shuttleworth, accompanied by the Cuban-born actor José F. Duval, started going to Colombia to shoot the commercials. Soon, he learned, Maxwell House, Folger’s and Chock full o’ Nuts were all getting letters from consumers wanting to know if their brand was Colombian coffee. And supermarkets like A&P started marketing their own brands as being “100 percent Colombian coffee.” The iconic Colombian Coffee logo, with a sketch of Valdez and his mule in front of the Andes Mountains, was born. Thirty years later, in 2005, consumers selected the logo in an Advertising Week contest as “the most recognized advertisement icon in the United States.” “It paved the way for coffee to be valued,” Shuttleworth said, “and for people to pay—without a lot of objection— more money for a good cup of coffee.” Now, as Shuttleworth and his wife, Clare, travel around the country, they often find themselves in other national grocery chains, like Publix and Winn-Dixie—and there, in the coffee aisle, they still see the 100 percent Colombian coffee seal on even the newest supermarketbrand coffee cans. “That knocks me out,” Shuttleworth said. “You don’t necessarily think you have a long-term image with advertising, but in this case, it’s just kept on going.” Now that’s a campaign Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce would covet.

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“It paved the way for coffee to be valued,and for people to pay—without a lot of objection—more money for a good cup of coffee.”

ALUMNI NEWS

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Q+A

W I T H M I K E C A S E Y ’11

// SPRING 2015

A training injury in the summer of 2013 forced him to sit out the entire season, but Casey, who was elected a captain of the Division I University of Rhode Island men’s soccer team despite the misfortune, is once again making an impact It must have been an incredible feeling to get back out on the field after recovering from your injury last year. Can you tell me what it was like, both physically and emotionally, to sit out during the 2013 season? How did working through that adversity help you grow as a player? ‘An incredible feeling’ doesn’t quite sum up how great it was to be able to get back on the field and not only practice again, but be able to play in our first preseason game and score a goal in the first two minutes. Sitting out the 2013 season was pretty difficult because I have never been asked to sit out for an extended period of time like that, while the rest of my teammates were able to play. The worst part was showing up to practice every single day and not being able to do anything but help pick up balls and cones. Emotionally, it took a toll on me because I live with a bunch of my teammates, so I would have to hear about soccer and be around it all the time without being able to even think about playing. As I was coming back from the injury and starting to be able to bike and walk, I began to gain confidence. Minor setbacks felt like major setbacks, however, and I would constantly have to remind myself that I did not want to come back from this injury to just be able to practice, I wanted to start and make an impact on the team. … The 2013 season was pretty unsuccessful if you were to look at our team’s stats and results throughout the year, but it also acted as

a constant reminder to me that coming back from my injury and making an impact, whether it be big or small, was a golden opportunity. It is quite an honor to be selected as a team captain. What additional pressures and/or responsibilities come with assuming this role? Being selected as a team captain is a great honor that I have received for the past two years, however, it did not take its full effect until this current season. Being a captain who was injured and unable to play, I understood that there were more responsibilities off the field that I would have to manage, yet, I knew in the back of my mind that you need to be able to lead people on the field before you can fully earn their respect. I believe that in coming back from the injury and training throughout preseason this year, I really earned the respect of my teammates. The main reason I feel this way is because I would never ask something of my teammates that I did not believe I could do, or attempt to do. I know that I am not the most talented soccer player, but I like to think that with my hard work and the motivation of the more talented players around me, I can have a huge impact on URI soccer. After winning just two games in 2013, URI was picked second-to-last in the Atlantic 10 preseason poll for 2014, but the team managed to put together one of the most successful seasons

in recent history, winning the regular season title and advancing to the A-10 Championship game. In your opinion, what was it that made this team special and what were the keys that led to such an impressive turnaround? For many years now, we have underperformed and failed to meet the expectations of what URI soccer is known to be. To finally change that, feels incredible. I grew up watching URI soccer from a young age and always thought the world of the team, so it was great to do what we did this season—not only for ourselves, but to gain the respect of our alumni. We knew the whole year that we would prove everyone wrong for doubting us and our ability to win important games. But still, we kept our heads when we started winning until it just became natural. The biggest turnaround for us was probably the winning attitude that we developed early on. There were big moments during the season where we took care of the teams that we knew we could beat, and then fought like hell to win games that we knew we had only the slightest chance of winning. Coach Elliott drilled that winning attitude into our heads throughout the season, until we knew that losing was not an option for us. Scoring the two goals in the Atlantic 10 semifinal game was the best feeling I could have ever had because I had dreamed of that moment since I was injured. I would constantly push myself to work harder and come back stronger so that I could score a game-winning goal and have all of my teammates tackle me. The fact that it happened in overtime, in a win-or-go-home situation, made it even more special. What would you tell a fellow Dragon about playing sports at a high level in college? What are the sacrifices/ rewards? Dragons already know what it is to sacrifice, going to one of the best boarding schools in the country and having to give up the normal life a high school student lives. They have to play a sport in all three seasons, have to perform at an extremely high level academically and go to school

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“I remember my freshman year here at URI, hearing overwhelmed students complain about the amount of work they had. I would just think—they have no idea what students at SG have to handle.”

As far as my future goes, I know that nothing has quite prepared me for my career like playing college sports has. It has established a competitive nature in me that has me constantly striving to win and improve in every way possible.

You'll be returning to URI next fall for a fifth year of school, your fourth playing soccer. Any thoughts about approaching your final year of collegiate sports? Any other goals regarding the sport? Will soccer always be a part of your life? I had planned to finish playing collegiate soccer this year if we had won the Atlantic 10 championship. However, I could not let myself come so close to achieving a goal that I have always had, only to come up short and leave. So I am coming back for another year with the plan to win the Atlantic 10 championship and put 2015 in the record books. After college soccer ends, the memories will remain with me forever, as well as the people I have met and played with along the way. I’ll never forget the 2014 season and the gigantic run our team made against the odds, however, I’m hoping to make the best memory I will ever have in lifting the A-10 trophy in 2015.

Lastly, how do you think SG helped prepare you for your time at the URI and what do you miss most about SG? SG prepared me for life at the University of Rhode Island more than I ever could have imagined. It is almost as though during the first semester of college I thought to myself, ‘I have an incredible amount of time on my hands’… even though I was still adjusting to the demands of the rigorous schedule that comes with playing college soccer! St. George’s always kept us scheduling our time and even set a designated two hours of study hall each night where we had to be either in our rooms or at the library studying and doing schoolwork. I remember my freshman year here at URI, hearing overwhelmed students complain about the amount of work they had. I would just think—they have no idea what students at SG have to handle. What I miss most about SG is the full-on community experience. Everyone knows everyone at SG and if they don't know you, they make an effort to introduce themselves and start a conversation. Everyone always seems to be looking out for you, even after you graduate. I also miss the great days spent out on the varsity soccer field playing with guys like Valdair Lopes ’12, Graham Knisley ’10 and Carmen Boscia ’09. Memories of beating Middlesex on Middlesex Weekend alongside these guys will be with me forever.

You’re majoring in finance. Any plans/ career goals after graduation in 2016? After graduation this year, I am planning to return for my master’s degree. After hopefully graduating with my master’s, the plan is to get a job. But, if I get the chance before I enter the ‘real world,’ I want to make my way around the world— hopefully crashing at all of my teammates’ homes as many of them live around the globe.

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six days a week. Competing at the Division I level demands that same commitment. You must perform well academically, give up what is the stereotypical social life of a college student and work hard every single day because you train six days a week.

P H OTO C O U RT E S Y O F U R I

Class Notes

FROM THE ARCHIVES

To view the collection visit stgeorges.edu/archives

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Dragon fact: The title of the exhibit comes from the fourth verse of the School Hymn: Here let Thy love and Truth abound, Changeless as yonder changeless sea. And ever may these walls resound, With grateful voices praising Thee.

“Yonder Changeless Sea: SG’s Historical Connection to the Ocean,” a unique collection of images and materials that illustrate St. George’s longstanding close relationship with the sea, is now available on our website, www.stgeorges.edu. Curated by School Archivist Valerie Simpson, the slideshow includes images of Sakonnet vs. Sachuest club team whaleboat rowing races at Third Beach, the school boathouses over the years, assorted spring and autumn all-school holidays of the early 20th century, views from the Hilltop toward the water, and more recent programs at SG including sailing and Geronimo.

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c.1905

S T U D E N T E S S AY

BY J E S S I C A PA R K ’15

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Blank Canvas

// SPRING 2015

Our art teacher, Mr. Cui, spoke no English. He offered no criticisms of our paintings. Instead, he simply demonstrated the strokes, depicting each object simply on a plain white background. Instinctively, I filled in the blank space, adding natural patterns, when I felt Mr. Cui’s long gray beard on my shoulder. He reached down and took my painting away.

“No,” he said in Chinese. “You are finished.” Leaving class to get bubble tea with my friend, Tati, I mulled Mr. Cui’s words. I had come to Beijing to improve myself, learn Chinese, explore a developing global power. Instead, I was handing in unfinished pages. From behind in the cafe, a woman bumped into me, disturbing my contemplation. Ten minutes later, I realized she’d stolen my phone. “You are finished,” Mr. Cui had said. The next day in class I could barely concentrate, channeling every feeling of frustration into the cherry blossom forming at the tip of my brush. My phone had contained everything—from meal calendar to trip goals. Now, however, my trip suddenly felt like a blank canvas in the most frightening of ways. On the page, my blossoms wilted. Mr. Cui approached me. “Patience,” he hummed. “Patience.” I drifted out of class ruminating on his ridiculous admonition. How could I possibly be patient with so much to do? Outside the building, I saw Tati with a book in her hand. “Hey Jessica,” she called, “have you ever read ‘Kafka on the Shore’?” “I told you, I DON’T READ! There’s no time.” “Well, what are you doing now?” I reached for my phone to show her my busy schedule. Then I remembered. Blank. Now, my time is blank. I took the book. Whatever. Two weeks later, in class, I nearly died as Mr. Cui yelled out behind me, forcing me to stow the book under my desk. “Xia!” he screamed, gesturing at his painting. Shrimp. I considered the claws, a dark curve swiftly brushed against a background of nothingness. I left class with the painting folded in my back pocket and my nose in the book. I was looking for

the Paleozoological Museum a few blocks away, but within minutes I lost myself in the streets. I tapped my pocket and remembered—no phone. Normally, I’d freak out, but I took a breath and sat down on a bench. I read “Kafka on the Shore.” From my left, a Chinese man approached. “Skin-Card?” he asked, pointing at my book. “Excuse me?” “Card-Skin-Card?” I listened to the Chinese syllables—Ka-fu-ka…ooh. It took 10 minutes to explain that no, this wasn’t Kafka, but Murakami, and another 10 for him to recommend Mo-Yan, and the entire time I thought how much Kafka would love that his name meant “Skin Card” in Chinese. Our discussion took an hour. There were many pauses and much empty space. Walking home, I thought about how I had changed since I first came to America for high school. At the time, I’d meticulously planned every detail, slowly filling my life with experiences that seemed to “fit.” One by one I checked my list: sports, clubs, grades. So, when the opportunity came to go to China for a summer, it seemed like a perfect addition. International experience: Check! From moment one, however, China resisted my attempts to fold my experience neatly into the place I’d set aside for it. Yes, organizing and filling our time feels great. It’s important, however, not to lose the empty space that allows us to explore, meet new people and turn a “productive” trip into a life-changing experience. A journey that takes a phone and gives you back Mo-Yan. A voyage that takes your museum trips and gives you beauty on a park bench. At my last class, I tried to explain what I’d learned to Mr. Cui. I handed him a blank sheet of paper. “Good,” he said, and sang a song.

Jessica Park â&#x20AC;&#x2122;15 of Seoul, Korea, attended the School Year Abroad Program in China during her fifth-form year at St. Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. She heads to Cornell University in the fall.

ST. GEORGE’ S SCHOOL PO Box 1910 Newport, RI 02840–0190

Turtle Power During trips on board our 69-foot sailing school vessel Geronimo, students catch, tag and release sea turtles—providing the largest active source of research in the United States to the University of Florida’s Archie Carr Center. Scientists use the data collected to study turtles’ migratory rates and habits. Since the Geronimo program’s inception in 1974, students have tagged more than 3,000 turtles. This summer, Geronimo will make its first transatlantic trip to the Mediterranean—as the program’s focus turns from the Bahamas to Europe and a number of culture-rich ports of call there. The sea turtle research will continue. PHOTO: SCREEN CAPTURE FROM A GO-PRO VIDEO TAKEN BY BAILEY THRAN ’17

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