Lincoln Magazine, Fall 2022

FALL 2022

LINCOLN FALL 2022

On

Ramona Boyd ’23

Leading Kathleen R. Scanlan ’84

A snapshot of an alumna at the top of her game Page 6

Contents Features

Student Spotlight

Olivia Sniffin ’23

Meet Lincoln’s soccer team captain Page 8

Hands On Noelle Walters

A look at Lincoln’s signature approach to active learning Page 12

Letter from the Head

We are back – and thriving. Lincoln School opened its doors in September with our full academic program in place, our Global Programs back on schedule, and traditions like the Rhode Island Festival of Children’s Books and Authors returning in person after a two-year hiatus.

Gratitude and optimism are palpable in the halls. In an unprecedented act of generosity, the Hibbitt/Rockwell family has donated $5 million to Lincoln to enrich teaching and learning over a 10-year period. We are rolling out an ambitious strategic plan to strengthen our rich curriculum, exceptional faculty, and dynamic community partnerships. And we have redesigned our annual magazine, which you are holding. Our goal is to deliver a more frequent and accessible source of news, one that reflects our unique embrace of innovation and tradition.

Character, curiosity, connection, and courage are the hallmarks of a Lincoln education. We held tight to these principles through the COVID crisis and emerged out of its grip stronger for our struggles. The school has stayed steadfast in its mission through not one, but two pandemics, two world wars, more than a dozen recessions, and one Great Depression.

I have the privilege to lead Lincoln and I can attest to the power and strength of this community. My deepest thanks to Lincoln faculty, students, parents, and alumnae for your grit and your grace. You all inspire me.

Onward together, Sophie Glenn Lau ’88, Head of School

Isla Corey ’27 and Andrea Navarro ’27

Butler Avenue Bulletin

ACCOLADES

Accolades have arrived for Anona Joshi ’23, a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist –one of only 42 Rhode Island students to be honored this year. Meanwhile, Head Tennis Coach Holly Kindl earned the Coach of the Year award from the National Federation of High Schools and the Rhode Island Interscholastic League for the 2021–22 girls’ tennis season. And did you hear? The Lincoln tennis team finished its season undefeated… after moving up a division.

EVENTS

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Zoomed into our Rhode Island Festival of Children’s Books and Authors held on campus October 15. The first woman of color to serve on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor is an independent school graduate, earning her degree from Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx before going on to Princeton and Yale. She told students: “I am not just a Latina justice. I am me, Sonia Sotomayor, and I am a lot of things in addition to being a Latina. The point is that every one of us is not just one thing. We’re all the things that make us.”

LEADERSHIP

Lincoln landed another star leader with the hire of Ianthe Hensman Hershberger ’02 P’36 as the Lower School director. A joyful and accomplished math teacher, Providence native, and Lincoln alum, Hershberger says of her new role: “Being back at Lincoln as an administrator is a dream come true and would not have been possible without the confidence and passion for education that I gained as a student here.”

TRAVEL

Lincoln girls travel to Morocco and Puerto Rico this school year as our Global Programs return. In partnership with World Leadership School, the programs offer meticulously organized, credit-bearing classes and transformational, immersive experiences. Economics, geopolitics, and cultural studies await in cities like Marrakesh, while environmental policy will be the focus for students flying to San Juan

Leading

Kathleen R. Scanlan ’84

A snapshot of a Lincoln alumna at the top of her game

In August of last year, Sutter Health and affiliates of the California-based hospital system agreed to a $90 million settlement in a Medicare fraud case initiated by a whistleblower. The whistleblower alleged that Sutter was massively over-billing the Medicare Advantage program, and the settlement is a major victory for the U.S. Department of Justice.

It is also a victory for taxpayers. Watchdogs are uncovering large-scale fraud in the Medicare Advantage program, with insurers and health systems inserting unsupported diagnoses into the medical records of patients enrolled in the government program – false claims that bump up per-patient payments by hundreds or thousands of dollars. A recent investigation by The New York Times estimates that these additional diagnoses

resulted in $12 billion in Medicare Advantage overpayments in 2020 alone, a staggering sum of public money lost each year.

The Sutter settlement is also a huge win for Kate Scanlan, ’84, a Bristol native and 30-year resident of San Francisco. Scanlan spent seven years working on the case, which was brought by whistleblower Kathy Ormsby, a former Sutter employee who discovered the overbilling –only to have her discovery met with inaction by Sutter executives. Ormsby filed suit in 2015 and Scanlan served as her attorney, spending thousands of hours aiding the government in its investigation and fending off Sutter’s efforts to knock the case out. Lawsuits are always labor intensive, but whistleblower work is done largely in isolation. Cases are under seal by the courts – often for years – to allow the government time to evaluate the whistleblower’s complaint. During that time Scanlan cannot discuss even the existence of her cases with colleagues, family, or friends.

“It can be very challenging,” she says. “But I have built an incredibly supportive network among other lawyers, especially other women lawyers, who do this kind of work. We all know the rules about what we can disclose. We still find ways to support each other, and we are there for each other to celebrate the victories and mourn the losses. These cases don’t always have a clear path – and you don’t always win.”

Discretion, and determination, are critical to success in this type of legal work. Being a whistleblower attorney has rewards, including the satisfaction of serving the public and delivering justice for courageous people trying to do the right thing. But leading in this particular area of the law requires hard work that sometimes can take years until it reaches the light of day, let alone fruition.

Scanlan recalls one of her mom’s maxims: “With every choice there comes a consequence. But

the difficulty is that, when you make that choice, you aren’t sure what that consequence will be.”

Scanlan says some consequences are good, like successful resolutions to cases that return taxpayer money. The bad kind: long hours spent researching an industry, documenting how a fraud happens, then exposing it often means less time spent with the people she loves.

Then there are consequences you don’t expect. In March 2020, on the same day that San Francisco’s COVID lockdown started, the court issued an order in Ormsby’s favor that set the case on the path to settlement. Over the next year and a half, Scanlan worked to resolve the case. But she did it mostly from Bristol while caring for her parents together with her sister Margaret (Lincoln Class of ’76) and their brothers.

“I made the choice to go back to Rhode Island knowing it was a professional risk,” she said. “But the consequence I expected never happened. Everyone I worked with was incredibly supportive. We were all juggling family issues during COVID and being open about what I was doing made both working and caregiving a little bit easier.”

When the Sutter settlement was finally announced last August, Scanlan was able to celebrate the victory with her parents – and finally tell them what she’d been working on all that time.

“With every choice there comes a consequence. But the difficulty is that, when you make that choice, you aren’t sure what that consequence will be.”

Meet

Lincoln’s

soccer team captain STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Sport: Soccer Position: Midfield Motivation:

It’s two things –being outside and the team. I love running outside in the fresh air. I also love working with so many people on the field, everyone working as one unit.

Sports and academics: Soccer lets me get to know my classmates in a different way. I get to see a new version of everyone out there playing this game. When I’m on the field, working as a team, I’ve learned the communication skills you need to work in class as a group.

Sports and social life: Soccer has definitely expanded my friend group. As a senior, you don’t normally get to spend time with freshmen or anyone outside your class, but soccer allows you to socialize with everyone.

Biggest thrill on the field: Sprinting, for sure. There’s something about beating someone to a ball or just dribbling down the field as fast as you can. It’s excitement. It’s instinct.

Loves Lincoln because: Community. Lincoln is so comfortable and welcoming and nice. I’ve never once felt uncomfortable in high school – and high school is tough. But the whole school is tight-knit. It feels like family.

Olivia Sniffin ’23

Now & Later

Olivia Vincent ’24 and Kathleen McNally Saville ’74

Lincoln students and alumnae with a shared purpose or passion

Sailor Olivia Vincent and rower Kathleen Saville feel alive on boats in the ocean, working the wind and waves. Vincent was a member of the Lincoln team that completed the Newport Bermuda race this year – the race’s first all-female youth team. Saville is a Guinness World Record holder; the first woman to row two oceans. Both love the technical, intellectual, and emotional challenges of ocean boating and its singular payoffs, from bioluminescence to big blue horizons.

Olivia

was 7 years old, learning in dinghies at the Saunderstown Yacht Club. She later moved to the Edgewood Yacht Club for lessons. Her parents sailed and wanted her to experience the sport. She didn’t love it right away. Then something clicked. She started to enjoy being alone in a boat. There was a feeling of calm command. Sailing requires intense focus – to be present to read the wind and water and to swiftly and smartly respond to both.

“It’s the best thing to clear your head,” she says. “Whether you’re out there for an hour, or four days, there is no phone. No homework. You’re just there on the water. Sailing is a mental game. It’s so much about intelligence – assessing a situation and reacting. It’s also about being intuitive, of paying attention to the water, to the waves, to other boats.”

Teamwork is a joy of the sport. Vincent is a member of Lincoln’s sailing team and trained for the race with six classmates. From March

to June, they piled into a car on weekends and drove to Long Island to train on a Farr 40 named Blue, provided by Oakcliff Sailing Center. Team Bitter End would spend the weekends cold and hustling, but the rides were warm and easy, singing to someone’s playlist and eating Chipotle.

The camaraderie paid off. On June 17, the start day of the Newport Bermuda race, a storm kicked up thunder, lightning, and rain that meant the team had to don full foulie sets. Many racers dropped out. Team Bitter End pressed on, sailing 635 miles over four days. Each girl sailed for four hours, spent the next two hours on deck, then slept for two hours – then did it all over again. They ate candy from the “morale bag” and replaced a broken pin connecting the boom sail to the mast – a MacGuyver-style fix that kept them in the race. They finished 27th out of 200 teams. Little girls greeted them on the docks, cheering.

“I feel like a different person,” Vincent says. “I feel I have potential. I can aim high if I want to. I can achieve big things.”

Vincent ’24 started sailing when she

Kathleen McNally Saville ’74 spent three years at Lincoln, graduating in 1974. She was different than other girls in her grade – shy, watchful, middle class. But attending an all-girls school with small classes had impact. All around her, Saville saw examples that you could be yourself, think for yourself, share your opinions. Lincoln helped her become the woman she is.

That woman broke records – five Guinness World Records, all for ocean rowing.

Saville and her husband, the late Curt Saville, built a 25-foot custom row boat in a ramshackle barn in Touisett Point and rowed that boat, the Excaliber, 83 days across the Atlantic in 1981, from Morocco to Antigua, then 392 days across the Pacific, from Peru to Australia in 1984 and 1985. These crossings were dotted with shooting stars, roiling storms, circling sharks, menacing reefs, ham radio chatter, exotic ports stays, daydreaming, exhaustion, seasickness and schools of yellowfin tuna shining in the moonlight. The Savilles were nearly run over by a ferry in the Atlantic and capsized in the Pacific, losing the sextant they used for navigation. For more than two months, they navigated with the stars

and by sunrises and sunsets. At the end of the Pacific crossing, Saville was five months pregnant with her son, Christopher.

“Rowing long distance requires mental endurance as well as physical endurance,” she says. “It requires teamwork. I learned a lot about working together, dealing with isolation, and taking responsibility for your decisions.”

Saville jokes that she majored in rowing at the University of Rhode Island, and, after graduation, decided not buy a house and raise a family – the typical American life of security and success. Instead, she has traveled from Tunisia to Thailand, and lived the last 25 years in Egypt, where she leads the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University of Cairo. In 2019, Saville taught in the Semester at Sea program, visiting 13 cities in 12 countries. When Saville retires in a couple of years, she will live in Vermont, near Christopher, and sail her 26-foot boat in North Carolina.

“I plan to do what makes me happy,” says the author of Rowing for My Life. “I will make books and hang out on the boat.”

“That woman broke records – five Guinness World Records, all for ocean rowing. ”

HANDS On with Noelle

Walters

In Noelle Walter’s Grade 6 Science, Technology, Engineering, Art/Architecture, Math (STEAM) class, girls are taking apart everyday objects – a fishing reel, a soda stream machine, a printer, an electric drill, a one-cup coffee maker, a computer keyboard. Then they catalogue the contents and rebuild the gears, wires, motors, and chips into something altogether different. It’s a lesson in demolition, demystification, and imagination, one that demands careful observation, creativity, and problem-solving skills.

The goal is to show students how things work, and, in the process, how to appreciate the minds of inventors, designers, and engineers.

As part of the lesson, Walters shows girls patent applications, detailed drawings that explain the novelty of an invention, and shares a variety of books in the vein of David

Macaulay – books that show what’s inside and how parts can work together as a system.

Delight is a delicious by-product.

“Surprise is a frequent reaction in class,” Walters said. “The girls see there is more beneath the surface of these objects. They can get inside and see all the parts – how they fit together and work together. It can be stunning – so many pieces, layers of them.”

Of course, deconstruction is a thrill. One girl could not wait to wield a hammer. But even bigger thrills came later, when the class took apart the items and arrayed every piece on a tray in order to photograph the contents and compare them to sketches of their original ideas of what was inside these devices. Girls

A look at Lincoln’s signature approach to active learning

then started designing something new from the parts. One group is turning a computer printer into a toy squirrel.

Walters is new to Lincoln this year, serving as the new lower and middle school STEAM teacher. With 16 years of experience teaching at independent schools, Walters is equally drawn to science and art – no surprise from a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Creating this Lincoln lesson allowed her to develop students’ STEAM skills, build their confidence in using tools, and share her own fascination with how things work.

“I recently found my grandfather’s watch and had it repaired and restored. It was amazing to see the insides,” Walters said. “The jeweler is in Riverside, and he’s a master

watchmaker. He might Zoom into the class.”

After a recent class, student Evalyn Coulombe ’29 stayed behind to clamp together two pieces of her new creation. She is part of the crew turning the printer into a squirrel and was making a desk for the squirrel’s “office.”

“I’m enjoying this,” Evalyn said. “It’s really fun.”

“Yeah, I think it’s fun, too,” Walters said. “Do you also feel like you’re learning something?”

“It’s fun taking things apart, but this is my favorite part – when you get to see inside. It’s cool.” Evalyn said. “It’s like when we were taking apart the printer and we kept getting down to different levels, and it was like a whole other world.”

More than 50 years, three generations, and two continents

Cathy Brown ’68 was a Lincoln lifer, a threesport athlete, and a member of the glee club. A tall exchange student from France, Christine Grimaud Koenig ’68, sang with her. Singing was as an act of courage for Christine – she had no training. But, like babysitting neighborhood children and attending dances, she joined in. In America, be American. Amusons-nous!

Cathy and Christine were not close at Lincoln. Cathy, however, is a devoted letter writer and they kept in touch. In 1988, they attended their 20th class reunion, and Christine stayed with Cathy. Sparks flew. They don’t remember exactly what they talked about that weekend, but they recall laughing – a lot.

Cathy Brown ’68 + Christine Grimaud Koenig ’68

And that reunion is when their friendship really began.

These two are still laughing – dancing under an apple tree in the French Alps, sporting witch hats in Salem, Massachusetts, riding down Alligator Alley on a road trip to Naples, Florida, counting the alligators as they drove. Cathy and Christine share a remarkable friendship that spans 55 years, three generations, and two continents. They text and talk on WhatsApp. They visit regularly. When Cathy goes to France, Christine makes her homemade yogurt and jams for breakfast. Cathy brings Christine candy corn for her birthday; it’s on Halloween.

Like all long-time friends, Cathy and Christine have shared history, shared joy, shared pain. They know each other’s families and share friends. But for these two, the deep connection is one of spirit. They are exuberant. They host friends, plan trips, throw parties. They enjoy good food and fine wine, stories and songs, travel and music. Joie de vivre binds them.

“We’ve seen the world together,” Cathy says. “Christine is fun, and fascinating, and has a vast circle of friends. She is like a sister, and her friendship has enriched my life.”

“The miracle of Lincoln is its ability to bring many different people together,” Christine says. “Cathy and I are from different countries but we share so much. She is sunny and empathetic. And you can rely on Cathy, and you don’t find that very often.”

Cathy’s mother developed Alzheimer’s disease years ago, and eventually passed away. Now Christine’s mother has Alzheimer’s. They talk about it often. And they still laugh, so frequently, so loudly,

that during one visit to France, Christine’s husband just chuckled and left the room. The laughter is always bigger, louder, when they get together with Lincoln classmate Nancy Rego Moger and Genevieve Bos, another French exchange student from the Class of ’68.

“It is a lovely human experience to live so far away, and have so much in common, and keep writing, keep sharing,” Christine says. “The earth is becoming smaller and smaller. You do not have to live close to be close friends.”

Bookshelf

Occupation: Aspiring author, poet, photographer, illustrator, and social science researcher

Recommendation: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Why I like it: Invisible Man is my favorite book of all time. It teaches me so much about writing every time I read it – and it never loses impact.

Why Lincoln might like it: I would recommend this book for its harrowing and pertinent metaphors, vivid language, and unique inner dialogue. It is a crucial book for anybody to read, but especially for people who want to learn deeply about experiences different from their own, a central value at Lincoln.

Occupation: Novelist

Recommendation: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Why I like it: First of all, Kidd is a top-notch writer (I was so impressed by her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees). This novel is my favorite sort – an impeccable fictional version of a true story. Sarah Grimke, a young woman who despises slavery, develops a kind of understanding – true friendship would be impossible – with the slave Hetty, and along with her sister devotes her life to the abolitionist cause. Worth reading for the story alone, but the inner lives of the women in this book are truly beautifully rendered.

Why Lincoln might like it: Serendipitously, this novel delves deeply into Quakerism and what compelled two sisters to embrace that faith. I think the Lincoln community would appreciate this novel not only because of the connection to Quaker values, but also because of its examination of the strength of sisterhood and the terrible curse of slavery on our collective consciousness.

photo: Chris Loomis

We asked two writers, a student and an alumna, what they recommend to Lincoln readers

Laurel Davis Huber ’69

Ramona Boyd ’23

Rachel Briden ’16 spent so many years at Lincoln – 15 including preschool – that she accumulated a whole lot of kilts. The kilt was so ingrained in her life at Lincoln, and Lincoln was so key to her identity, that she stuffed a dozen in a duffle bag and took them to Regis College.

The kilts were the only real piece of home she brought, and she had no idea what she’d do with them. She quickly arrived at an idea: Turn them into a bed skirt. She spread out one, then buttoned it to another, and so on. It took about 10 kilts to create the skirt, which she tucked under her dorm mattress. Voila!

All that dorm room under-the-bed storage disappeared from sight. And the fabric of her life was back in her life.

“I think it was a safety thing,” Briden said. “I didn’t have a teddy bear or anything like that, but those kilts were like a teddy bear. They brought me comfort.”

Briden studied nursing at Regis and went on to become a family nurse practitioner. She works at Saint Anne’s Hospital in Fall River, caring for patients through COVID. She jokes that, with her scrubs, she still wears a uniform every day.

301 Butler Ave. Providence, RI 02906

A recent query

Quaker silent

from our

meeting: What does being present look, sound, and feel like?

Wendy Schwerin ’31 and Esmae Carey ’31