Loomis Chaffee Magazine Summer 2019

Summer 2019 VOLUME 81 |

NO. 3

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Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

WALK THIS WAY Students stroll through Rockefeller Quadrangle on their way to class in May.

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ON THE COVER: Celebrating their 35th Reunion, Mitch Garcia ’84 and Arnold "Marty" Martin ’84 join in the Reunion Weekend Parade of Classes. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

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With their plans displayed on tables that flip up to convert to whiteboards, students in the new Innovation Trimester explain their projects to Trustees in the Pearse Hub for Innovation.

Loomis Chaffee Magazine Summer 2019

Contents S um me r 2019

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Volume 81

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No. 3 EDITORIAL & DESIGN TEAM

F E AT U R E S

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Lynn A. Petrillo ’86 Director of Strategic Communications & Marketing

Four Stories from the Class of 2019

Becky Purdy Managing Editor

Jessica Ravenelle

Meet four members of the graduating class who embrace the quest for their best selves as a journey, not a destination.

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A Deep Dive into Design Thinking

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Collected Wisdom

Amidst a bustling Pearse Hub for Innovation, the new Innovation Trimester took an all-in approach to learning and problem-solving this spring.

Christine Coyle

Christine Coyle Timothy Struthers ’85 Melissa Rion Sophomore Stephanie Zhang Senior Cheryl Zheng John Cunningham Lisa Salinetti Ross Heidi E.V. McCann ’93 Deidre Swords Paige Abrams Karen Parsons SUBMISSIONS/STORIES & NEWS

Faculty Desks

Occupied by an army of whimsical toys and gadgets, the desk of Director of Studies Timothy Lawrence is anything but staid.

From the Head Island News Faculty & Staff News Pelican Sports Object Lesson

Class Notes Editor

CONTRIBUTORS

D E PA R T M E N T S

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Melissa Rion

Obituaries Editor

Three longtime teachers retired this summer but first shared insights from their decades of teaching, coaching, and mentoring.

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Graphic Designer

62 Class Notes 70 LC Gatherings 72 Obituaries 80 Reflections

WEB EXTRAS

Look for this notation throughout the magazine for links to online extras, from podcasts and videos to photo galleries and expanded news coverage.

Alumni may contribute items of interest to: Loomis Chaffee Editors The Loomis Chaffee School 4 Batchelder Road Windsor, CT 06095 860.687.6811 magazine@loomis.org

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Visit Loomis Chaffee online at www.loomischaffee.org for the latest school news, sports scores, and galleries of recent photos. You also will find direct links to all of our social networking communities.

For an online version of the magazine, go to www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

Printed at Lane Press, Burlington, VT Printed on 70# Sterling Matte, an SFI Sheet, Sustainable Forestry Initiative

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Fr om t he Head

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Enrollment Decisions

By Sheila Culbert

s the Loomis Chaffee student body the right size? This is, of course, a vital, and even existential, question.

Too many students and the quality of the educational experience could be threatened by overcrowding and the wear and tear on facilities; too few students, and the school faces a different kind of jeopardy as we fail to meet our budgetary needs. Not surprisingly, at Loomis we spend significant time contemplating both this question and the concomitant question of what should be our ratio of boarding to day students.

The academic year of 2019–20 will see an enrollment of approximately 735 students with a boarding-to-day ratio of 73:27. A brief history of the school’s enrollment helps us understand both the factors that influence school size and how we arrived to where we are currently. It’s a good story— one of enrollment and construction moving hand in hand (mostly!) over the decades.

In 1914, when the school opened, 39 boys and 13 girls enrolled. By 1917, the boys’ division had reached 104 students, 240 by 1930, 350 by the 1950s, and 475 by 1970. Each expansion in the number of boarding students came with a corresponding expansion of the physical plant.

In 1914, the school opened with two dedicated dormitories (Taylor and Mason, now Howe, halls) along with Founders and Loomis Hall, the gymnasium, the Head’s House, and the Power Plant. Additional dormitories soon followed. Warham Hall opened in 1923, Batchelder Hall in 1930, Palmer Hall in 1938, and Flagg and Ammidon halls completed the Grubbs Quadrangle in 1965.

While the Loomis Institute flourished early on, the school failed to attract as many girls as hoped, and in 1923, the Trustees voted to close the girls’ division. Following a legal challenge by the citizens of Windsor, The Loomis Institute established The Chaffee School for girls in 1927 with 36

students. As the reputation of The Chaffee School spread like that of the boys’ school, so its enrollment grew. By the 1940s, Chaffee had between 60 and 70 day girls with very strong demand. Consequently, the Trustees decided to increase enrollment, doubling the entering class from 15 to 30 beginning in 1956. When both schools began to explore the idea of reunification in the 1960s, The Chaffee School had reached an enrollment of approximately 200 and was the girls’ school of choice in Greater Hartford. The Loomis School had an enrollment of 200 day students and 275 boarding students. Along with the decision to reunify the schools, the Board also decided to expand enrollment still further to increase the percentage of boarding students. As a result, the newly unified Loomis Chaffee School added three more dormitories: Carter Hall in 1987, Kravis Hall in 1997, and Harman Hall in 1998.

When I became head of school in 2008, the school’s enrollment stood at around 740 with a 50:50 boarding-to-day ratio. At that point, demand from the day market had decreased and flattened out compared to the past two decades. With a growing national and international market, the Trustees decided to shift to at least 70 percent boarding to protect the school’s position as being highly selective in a very competitive market. As a result of this new strategic priority, we built two new dormitories, Richmond Hall in 2014 and Cutler Hall in 2016, and converted Longman Studio into a small dormitory of 10 students. We also significantly enhanced and expanded the student center and dining facilities with the Scanlan Campus Center and the Alexander Bookstore that opened this past year. During my tenure, enrollment has varied from a high of 735 to a low of 650 and then back up to around 700 with no plans for any further expansion—until this past year.

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Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

Isl a nd Ne ws

Diploma in hand, newly minted alumnus Jalen Desravines gets a high five from a classmate at Commencement.

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Celebrating

2019

TH E CL A S S O F

“When you leave here, your lives

will take unexpected turns. … Some

will be more momentous than others, and some will be so serendipitously joyous that you never will have thought them possible.”

— Commencement Speaker James Widdoes ’72

ABOVE: Class Speaker Shlok Sharma steps forward to deliver his address. BELOW: Commencement Speaker Jamie Widdoes ’72 shares his thoughts on life beyond the Island. Photos: Jessica Ravenelle

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“You will surprise yourself by both what you can achieve and … your ability to deal with what might not go as planned. But through it all, your Loomis Chaffee experience … will be with you,” Commencement Speaker James Widdoes ’72 told the Class of 2019 at the May 26 ceremony, the school’s 103rd Commencement.

Gathered under the shady trees between the Head’s House and the Loomis Homestead, the 200 graduating seniors listened to words of wisdom, celebrated each other, and proudly received their diplomas while an audience of faculty, families, and friends looked on and cheered.

Jamie, a renowned director in television comedy and a vice chairman of the Loomis Chaffee Board of Trustees, assured the seniors that their education and their work toward becoming their best selves would help guide and sustain them in their lives beyond the Island. “When you leave here, your lives will take unexpected turns,” said Jamie, whose early career was launched by his role as fraternity president Robert Hoover in the iconic 1978 film National Lampoon’s Animal House. “Some will be more momentous and difficult than others, and some will be so serendipitously joyous that you never will have thought them possible.”

Director of the CBS series Mom, now in its seventh season, Jamie acknowledged the faculty, coaches, friends, and others in the Loomis community who helped guide and encourage him while he was a student.

The challenges were not unlike those faced by students today: figuring out areas of interest and a course of study to pursue, outgrowing clothes, struggling through math class, and navigating the college application process.

Class Speaker Shlok Sharma also reflected on the challenges — some humorous, some philosophical — of high school and adolescence. “Every person has a choice of what kind of person they want to become,” he observed. “Figuring out [that] person is a challenge.” But, he told his classmates, “I can’t help but feel excited about what’s ahead.”

The reflections and thoughts shared by Shlok and Jamie, as well as remarks by Head of School Sheila Culbert and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Duncan A.L. MacLean ’90, conveyed the sentiment that there is strength in community and reflected the school’s mission of encouraging in students a commitment to the best self and the common good.

“You will make a difference in the world, and the choice will be yours as to whether that difference is positive or not,” Sheila said as she congratulated the graduates and encouraged them to face life boldly and courageously, but with kindness.

Duncan evoked the legacy of the Founders and their ancestors who settled in Windsor. “Through their unwavering spirit and generosity, the Loomis family has endowed us not only with the richness of their land, but also the character of their spirit,” he said.

Several Trustees assisted Sheila in the presentation of Commencement prizes, which beginning this year are no longer gender-specific.

Commencement culminated with the granting of diplomas. In keeping with tradition, the seniors handed the head of school tokens as they accepted their diplomas. This year the seniors gave Sheila pieces of a puzzle created in the Pearse Hub for Innovation, which opened in October.

Suzanne Nolan ’69, recently retired director of spiritual care at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, gave the benediction. “May you be blessed with the capacity to seek and nurture experiences which open your mind to wonder and to critical and creative thinking, your eyes to beauty, and your heart to the place and people of our world in need of healing,” she said.

To watch videos of Jamie’s and Shlok’s addresses and to see more photos, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

ABOVE: The Class of 2019 gathers with Head of School Sheila Culbert for the traditional Commencement photograph in Grubbs Quadrangle before the ceremony. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle BELOW: Prize-winners and dignitaries assemble in front of Warham Hall after Commencement: (front) Sharon Zhou, Beatrice Dang, Daniel Cecere, Becca Mucheru, Head of School Sheila Culbert, Jacqueline Cleary, Stacy Park, Maalik McPherson, Molly Henderson, and Mark Valadez; and (back) Commencement Speaker and Trustee Jamie Widdoes ’72; Director of Studies Timothy Lawrence; Trustees John Bussel ’87, Jonathan Kelly ’81, Pauline Chen ’82, Reginald Paige Sr., Jason Karp ’94, Douglas Lyons ’82, Erik Cliette ’84, and James Walker ’91; Dean of Faculty Andrew Matlack; Suzanne Nolan ’69; and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Duncan MacLean ’90.

Photo: John Groo

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Reunion 2019: Reconnecting on the Island Sunshine and warm breezes greeted alumni and their families on campus for Reunion Weekend 2019.

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ore than 650 Pelicans and guests flocked to the Island June 14–16 as classes ending in 4s and 9s celebrated their reunions under sunny skies and starry nights. Alumni of all ages reconnected with each other and with school community members during the weekend of gatherings, presentations, learning, and enjoyment for all.

The festivities kicked off on Friday morning with a golf outing at Keney Park Golf Course in Hartford; “Speaking with Hands: Photographs from the Buhl Collection,” an exhibition in the Sue and Eugene Mercy Jr. Gallery in the Richmond Art Center; and student-led tours of the new Scanlan Campus Center. Former faculty member and former Trustee Al Freihofer ’69 and current faculty member Scott MacClintic ’82 introduced Loomis 50th Reunion celebrants to the Pearse Hub for Innovation (PHI) in the campus center, where they participated in hands-on activities.

On Friday evening, Head of School Sheila Culbert hosted a 50th Reunion reception at the Head’s House, and the Scanlan Campus Center was the setting for dinners for the Loomis Class of 1964 and the Chaffee Class of 1969. Other alumni arriving on campus Friday evening enjoyed an all-class dinner accompanied by a jazz trio under the big tent in Grubbs Quadrangle, followed by music and dancing, a coffee house in Harman Hall, and late-night “Burgers with Bruno” (longtime faculty member and coach Chuck “Bruno” Vernon) in the quad.

On Saturday morning, CNN political analyst and reporter Chris Cillizza ’94 spoke to a large crowd in Founders Chapel about the upcoming presidential election and engaged in a spirited question-and-answer session with fellow alumni about party nominations, key state elections,

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1 CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza ’94 spoke to Reunion-goers in Founders Chapel about the upcoming presidential election.

Photo: Jessica Ravenelle 2 Franci Vinal Farnsworth ’69, Katrina Vernlund Hill ’69, and Anne Baker Lewis ’69 enjoy the 50th Reunion reception in the Head's House garden. Photo: Nicole Bushey 3 Donald Hooper ’64 catches up with his classmates. Photo: Nicole Bushey 4 Andrew Kurian ’87 and his son, rising freshman Sam, participate in the Reunion golf outing on Friday. Photo: Fred Kuo 5 Head of School Sheila Culbert updates alumni on the school. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle 6 John Patrick ’14, Michael Jiang ’14, faculty member Aimee MacGillivray, Emilio Arellano ’14, Jaewon Kim ’14, and faculty member Don MacGillivray reunite under the tent. Photo: Nicole Bushey

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interpretation of poll data, the rise of global nationalism, and his experiences working in the media.

Fol low ing Chris’s discussion, Sheila presented her State of the School address in the chapel. She thanked the alumni for their generous contributions to Our Time Is Now: The Campaign for Loomis Chaffee, which raised $131 million dollars, and for their continued support of financial aid. Noting that the admissions yield exceeded expectations for the 2019–20 school year, Sheila explained that the school will add temporary modular residences to accommodate the greater numbers of boarding students. The school also will embark on much-needed renovations to the Grubbs Quadrangle dorms in the coming year.

On Saturday afternoon, faculty emeritus James “Grim” Wilson presented “The State of the Union: A Nation Divided” to a large and engaged crowd in the Hubbard Performance Hall. Jim spoke about the deep divisions among Americans and the social, economic, and political changes and resulting upheaval that, he argued, were historically predictable and both political parties have failed to address. After his talk, Jim moderated a panel discussion with business leaders and former Trustees Sandy Cutler ’69 and Jason Karp ’94 about possible ways to avert a crisis and point the country toward a more secure future.

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The day’s activities also included a breakfast for Chaffee alumnae at the Sill House, a lunchtime food truck fair on Grubbs Quadrangle, an afternoon tea with Sheila for the Chaffee Class of 1969, a PRISM reception, an alumni lacrosse game, roundrobin tennis matches, and a memorial service, officiated by Richard Morgan ’59 and Suzanne Nolan ’69 in Founders Chapel. Children’s activities included robotics and Father’s Day gift-making projects in the PHI, mini golf and other games on Grubbs Quad, and swimming in Hedges Pool. Childcare on Friday and Saturday evenings enabled parents to enjoy their classmates while the kids were entertained as well.

The culmination of Reunion events took place on Saturday night with class dinners followed by an all-class dessert and dancing under the tent in Grubbs Quad. Alumni bid each other farewell until next time at breakfast on Sunday morning.

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14 7 The Chaffee Class of 1969 emerges from Founders Hall during the Alumni Parade of Classes. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle 8 The Class of 1984 parades in Grubbs Quadrangle. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle 9 Alumni relax on the quad on Saturday during the lunchtime Food Truck Fair. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle 10 The Loomis Class of 1969 enjoy a Reunion luncheon on Ratté Quad. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle 11 Family activities included mini golf.

Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

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12 Food Truck Fair on Grubbs Quad.

Photo: Jessica Ravenelle 13 Bruce Talmadge ’49 and his wife, Susan, attend the Reunion Leadership Reception on Saturday evening. Photo: John Groo

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14 Former faculty member James Wilson leads a panel discussion, "The State of the Union: A Nation Divided." Photo: Jessica Ravenelle 15 Evening light filters in on the 50th-Plus Reception in the Hubbard Music Center.

Photo: Catherine Johanna Dunlavey ’13 16 Class of 2009 alumni take a break from dancing on Saturday night: Nick Togneri, Brooke Fernandez, Tucker Williams, Liz McGuinn, Ned Scadden, Hannah Cashmon Dent, Jacob Zachs, Greg Babbitt, Jeff Endo, and Gabby Salvatore.

Photo: Catherine Johanna Dunlavey ’13

To see a full gallery of photos from Reunion 2019, visit www. loomischaffee.org/magazine.

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Students Explore

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Iceland and Peru

laciers, turf houses, and sustainable living in Iceland. High-altitude treks, cultural marvels, and grassroots economics in Peru. These were among the highlights that two groups of Loomis Chaffee students and faculty experienced in immersive educational trips in June.

The journeys, organized by Loomis’ Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies, both departed on June 8 and returned on June 19, with the travelers energized by what they had learned and discovered.

Fourteen students and science teachers Jeffrey Dyreson and Betsy Conger traveled to Iceland to explore the country’s unique geological insights, breathtaking natural wonders, and deep commitment to environmental sustainability.

Lodging for much of the trip at the Solheimar Eco-Village, the group learned from local farmers and conservationists, participated in organic forestry and greenhouse work, toured a geothermal energy plant, visited and learned about

Icelandic turf houses, and hiked through scenery that the travelers grasped for words to describe as they took in vistas encompassing glaciers, volcanoes, geysers, hot springs, bucolic valleys, and vast expanses of open space.

“At first, sitting mindlessly on the cliff, staring at the thousands of feet of ice above me, I was astounded by the view: the most incredible view I have ever seen,” wrote rising junior Jake Lotreck in a blog entry about the group’s hike up the mountain Valahnúkur. “When, in the U.S., would I ever have a magnificent experience like this? I realized that there is nothing stopping me from seeing more of the huge world that I know so little about. But I also felt scared. Scared of what we are doing to these glaciers and our world. … If we do not take preventative measures and continue to destroy these natural beauties, we will be left with nothing.”

At the conclusion of their stay in Iceland, each of the students created a personal action plan for living more sustainably back at home.

To view more photos from the trips, visit www.loomischaffee.org/ magazine.

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At Moray, the student travelers learn about the terraced ruins, believed to be an Incan agricultural experiment, and take in the panoramic view.

BELOW: A weaver in Chincheros demonstrates a natural dyeing process for wool. BOTTOM: The students ready to explore Macchu Picchu.

Fields of purple lupines stretch before the travelers on a hike from Solheimar ecovillage in southwestern Iceland.

TOP LEFT: The group pulls out the school banner for a photograph at the summit near Solheimar.

MIDDLE LEFT: Icelandic horses greet the group on a stop in Stokkseyri on the shores of the North Atlantic. BOTTOM LEFT:The students help to deconstruct a traditional turf house so that it can be restored and preserved.

On the trip to Peru, 13 students, math teacher Allison Beason, and language teacher Maribel Blas-Rangel immersed themselves in the country’s culture and history while learning about efforts to grow local businesses, farm cooperatives, and artisan collectives in ways that respect and preserve cultural heritage and create sustainable economic opportunities. The group also visited communities of traditional Inca weavers, where they learned about the ancient processes the artisans still use to dye natural materials and weave them into intricately-patterned textiles.

A three-day trek in the high altitude of the Andes mountains took the travelers through beautiful terrain, where they camped, soaked in their natural surroundings, challenged themselves physically, and grew closer as a group.

“These past three days have been a learning experience for me physically and mentally,” wrote rising junior Ryan Rodriguez on the group’s blog after the trek. “As this was my first time hiking in high altitudes, I found myself falling in love with the beautiful view, the animals around us, and the determination to reach our end goal. As a team, we worked really well with each other as we pushed ourselves every step of the way.”

“Walking up the monstrous mountain allowed my brain to open up,” wrote rising sophomore Pilar Wingle. “I had such deep and personal conversations with myself that no other experience could have done.”

The group also visited Machu Picchu, where they learned about the history of this 15th-century Incan estate, its sophisticated construction methods, and its enduring mysteries.

At the end of the trip, the group gathered to reflect on their experiences and discuss what they had learned about themselves and how the trip had widened their perspectives on the world. “We are so grateful to have had this incredible experience in Peru with 13 curious, funny, and thoughtful students,” Allison and Maribel wrote in the group’s final blog entry. loomischaffee.org

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LEADERS

Pictured are (back): faculty member Lillian Corman, sophomore Olivia Zoga, sophomore Krishnapriya Rajaram, sophomore Isabelle Fonseca, sophomore Elizabeth Chapman, Trustee Pauline Chen ’82, sophomore Joy Liu, Trustee Kristen Storrs DeLaMater, sophomore Margot Korites, and faculty member Mimi Donegan; and (front): Trustee Rachel Kort ’98, Trustee Cynthia Citrone, sophomore Ava Greenbaum, sophomore Sophie Rodner, junior Kavya Kolli, sophomore Hannah Holdaway, and sophomore Lily Potter. Photo: Catherine Johanna Dunlavey ’13

Several women on the Loomis Chaffee Board of Trustees connected on campus in May with students and faculty who participate in the Longman Leadership Institute, a residential learning community with programming dedicated to leadership skills development and empowerment of young women at Loomis Chaffee and beyond.

Changes on the Board of Trustees This spring two long-serving Trustees retired, and the Board elected two new Trustees.

The retiring Trustees were Jason H. Karp ’94 and Joel B. Alvord ’56. Jason, a vice chairman, had served for 13 years. During his tenure, he was a member of the Committee on Mission & Program, the Audit Committee, and the Development Committee, and, most significantly, he served as the co-chair of the Investment Committee. He has been an enthusiastic host for the school in New York City and a generous supporter of the school, including his establishment of the endowed Cathy and Geoffrey Karp Scholarship Fund in honor of his parents.

Joel served for a total of 20 years: eight years from 1980 to 1987 and 12 years from 2007 to 2019. During his most recent tenure, he served on the Committee on Trustees and on the Finance and Investment committees.

Most importantly, he chaired the Campaign Executive Committee and was a co-chair of Our Time Is Now: The Centennial Campaign for Loomis Chaffee, the $131 million outcome of which was the most successful fundraising effort in the school’s history. In addition to hosting events for the school in the Boston area, he has generously supported the school, including his establishment of the Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies in 2008.

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The two new Trustees elected this spring were Courtney A. Ackeifi ’06 and Katherine H. Ballard. Courtney was a four-year student from East Granby, Connecticut.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and music at Wellesley College, and in 2018 she earned her Ph.D. in biophysics and systems pharmacology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, where she is a postdoctoral fellow. Courtney has served as a class agent, as a reunion volunteer, as a reception co-host, and as a member of the Head’s Council. Her sister, Bridget Ackeifi, is a member of the Class of 2007.

Katherine served as a Loomis Chaffee faculty member for 27 years from 1991 until 2018. She taught French, served as a dorm faculty resident, coached, headed the Modern and Classical Languages Department, worked as a major gifts officer, and served as associate dean of faculty and eventually as dean of faculty from 2014 until 2018. She is a 1985 graduate of Northfield Mount Hermon and earned her bachelor’s degree in French at Georgetown University in 1989. In addition, she holds a master’s degree in French literature from Middlebury College. Her children, Noah ’13, Charlotte ’14, and Nathaniel ’17, are graduates of the school, as is her husband, R. Revell Horsey ’79, who also served the school as a Trustee from 2000 until 2008.

Courtney A. Ackeifi ’06

Katherine H. Ballard

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English Colloquium Features AwardWinning Poet Clint Smith's poetry collection Counting Descent won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

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oet Clint Smith offered a behind-thescenes look at his writing process during an April 15 visit to campus as the English Colloquium speaker.

In an all-school address, discussions with groups of students and English teachers, and an evening talk and book-signing, Mr. Smith shared his poetry and the thinking that has gone into his poems. He also pointed to ways that his writing and his perspective on the world have changed since he started pursuing poetry at the age of 19. Poems, he said, can be like time capsules, preserving a writer’s thoughts from an earlier time and place.

Mr. Smith’s award-winning 2016 poetry collection, Counting Descent, has been described by reviewers as a coming-of-age story. The narrative unfolds in lyrical form from the author’s perspective as a black man from New Orleans growing up in America. The collection won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award.

Reading aloud from his work during his colloquium address to the school, Mr. Smith touched on subjects that play large roles in his poetry and his life: family, historical racial injustice, immigration, and fatherhood.

After reading a poem about an undocumented immigrant girl who graduates from high school, Mr. Smith said his thinking about immigration has shifted since he wrote the poem

Poems, he said, can be like time capsules, preserving a writer’s thoughts from an earlier time and place. in 2012. The girl in the poem is a straight-A student, and that detail reflects a popular narrative when he wrote the poem — that certain immigrants “deserve” to stay in this country more than others because of what they can contribute to American society. But he said he realizes now that immigration “is not a transactional relationship.” If he wrote the poem today, he said, he would leave out the part about the student having a 4.0 GPA. The poet’s subject matter also has evolved as he has grown older. “Dad poems are my new jam,” he said. The father of two young children, Mr. Smith shared a tender and humorous poem about his toddler son’s antics in his crib, from the perspective of Mr. Smith and his wife, who watched on the baby monitor in another room.

In addition to his poetry collection, Mr. Smith’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and the Harvard Educational Review, among other publications, and he has received fellowships from the Art for Justice Fund, Cave Canem, the Callaloo

Creative Writing Workshop, and the National Science Foundation. He was named to the 2018 Forbes “30 Under 30” list as well as Ebony Magazine’s 2017 “Power 100” list. His TED Talks, “The Danger of Silence” and “How to Raise a Black Son in America,” have been viewed more than six million times. Mr. Smith, who is pursuing a doctorate at Harvard University, is a weekly contributor to the podcast “Pod Save the People” and is co-host of the podcast “Justice in America.”

Mr. Smith’s visit to campus for the English Colloquium was made possible with support from the Hubbard Speakers Series, a gift of Robert P. Hubbard ’47; and from the Ralph M. Shulansky ’45 Lecture Fund.

For more information on Mr. Smith, visit www.loomischaffee.org/ magazine.

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Julianna Lee, Drive Rojrachsombat, and Adam Guillemette. Photo: Christine Coyle

Students’ In-Depth Research Aims to Reduce Waste on Campus

Guided research in several fields has gained traction as a course option at Loomis Chaffee, with students pursuing intensive research projects alongside faculty in molecular biology, the humanities, and environmental studies in the last few years.

Among the mentored research this year, three seniors embarked on year-long Guided Research Projects in Environmental Sustainability using the school’s campus as a location of study and action. Julianna Lee, Adam Guillemette, and Drive Rojrachsombat each investigated an on-campus environmental concern — plastics use and recycling, food waste, and drinking water — and then created and carried out an action plan to address the concern. Science teacher Jeffrey Dyreson, director of environmental/sustainability initiatives and associate director of the Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies, guided them through their independent investigations.

Julianna’s project aimed to curtail the amount of post-consumer food waste at Loomis. She conducted a food waste audit for two weeks at the dining hall, collecting and weighing the waste after each meal. Math Department Head Joseph Cleary helped Julianna analyze the collected data to estimate the school’s actual output.

“Based on what we calculated, Loomis puts about 200,000 to 250,000 pounds of food waste in a 35-week school year into the trash, which seems kind of wasteful,” Julianna said. She estimated that food makes up about 25 percent of Loomis waste.

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Julianna then spearheaded a three-week pilot program that sent dining hall food waste to Blue Earth Compost, a local company that processes post-consumer waste into agricultural compost and raw material for other uses. During the pilot program, dining hall employees put food scraps into bins at the end of each meal, and Blue Earth picked up the collected scraps twice a week for processing. Julianna shared the results of the pilot program with the school’s administrative team for consideration of a longer-term partnership with Blue Earth.

Adam’s project measured amounts of plastic that the school community throws away and suggested ways of reducing Loomis’ contribution to the increasing global problem of pollution from plastic waste. With help from the Physical Plant staff and fellow student environmental proctors, Adam conducted a five-week trash audit on campus. Interpreting the data he collected, Adam determined that 21 percent of the school’s trash is plastic and the majority of that plastic waste is from food containers and disposable water bottles.

“Loomis Chaffee’s plastic waste percentage is higher than the national average,” compared to similarly-sized educational facilities, Adam said in his final presentation in May. “We should hold ourselves accountable.” Adam noted that the trash placed in Loomis recycling bins is often “contaminated” by the inclusion of plastic bags. Recycling facilities cannot recycle contaminated trash, or must add a step to the process.

Efforts to reduce plastic waste output, Adam suggested, could include raising awareness about the problem on campus and collecting empty plastic containers to process in the plastics shredder located in the Pearse Hub for Innovation (PHI). He explained that the shredded plastic can be melted and used to make other things, even signs warning people not to put plastic bags in the recycling bins.

Drive’s project sought to compare consumption of bottled water and tap water on campus to determine why people choose to drink bottled water instead of water from the tap or from filtrated water systems.

Through a lab analysis of water samples, Drive determined that there is no significant difference between the biological and chemical make-up of tap water and the two brands of bottled water (Fiji and Dasani) that he tested. All were safe to drink, according to Drive’s findings.

In a double-blind taste test, Drive found that the majority of the 50 community members tested could not tell the difference between tap and bottled water.

Since filtered tap water is free in locations across campus, is safe to drink, tastes as good as bottled water, and reduces waste from plastic bottles, Drive said, “Why not drink tap water instead of bottled water?”

Drive proposed additional ways to reduce the number of plastic water bottles thrown away on campus. He suggested promoting awareness on campus, using environmentally-friendly individually-sized “boxed” water for functions when containers of water are necessary, subsidizing free or reduced-cost reusable bottles at the Alexander Bookstore, and dispensing branded water (such as Vitamin Water) in the dining hall. A school policy change banning plastic water bottles could be effective in limiting their use, Drive said, but he thought the school community would not favor such a change.

With the common aim of reducing waste, the guided environmental research explorations showed how science could be applied to improve everyday life, Jeff said.

Ten Seniors Pursue Self-Designed Projects

Making Hometown Connections

With topics ranging from worm biology to teenage relationships, 10 seniors engaged in Senior Projects during their final two weeks of school this spring.

Five Norton Fellowships that were launched last summer varied in their specific aims — from sharing the stories of local military veterans to teaching self-defense tactics to girls in rural India — but contained the common thread of helping people in the students’ hometowns and having an impact on the Loomis Chaffee community.

The Senior Projects program each year engages a selected group of seniors in self-designed, independent learning exercises during the final fortnight of classes, with a goal of inspiring their creativity, innovation, passion, and self-discovery. This year five groups, ranging from one to three students, gained approval to pursue Senior Projects, and at the conclusion of the project period, they shared their work and reflected on what they had learned from the process.

Katie Begley and Jake Glezen researched the state of plastics use at Loomis Chaffee and created a handbook for using a plastic shredding machine in the Pearse Hub for Innovation (PHI).

Abby Huang and Stacy Park launched Snatch, an online platform for students to buy and sell used products within their school communities, and pitched the website to several schools in the area. They had gained 334 new users by the end of the two-week project period.

Molly Henderson and Melissa Scanlon conducted experiments on a type of one-millimeter worms, C. elegans. The two seniors investigated the impact of changing environments, attractants and repellents, toxicity of chemotherapy, alcohol, and cross breeding on the tiny worms.

Liam Scott interviewed individuals affected by genocide, either personally or in their family histories, and compiled these oral histories as part of the new course he designed, Genocide: Media, Remembrance, and the International Community.

Dzanghir Bayandarov, Rebecca Mucheru, and Ryan Natcharian produced “Present Tense,” a one-act play about teenage relationships, in the Norris Ely Orchard Theater. The production and rehearsal period included learning about the technical side of theater, in which none of the three had previously been involved.

Senior Projects have been an Island tradition for more than 20 years. Seniors in good academic standing may propose topics they wish to explore in-depth as Senior Projects with basic guidance from a faculty mentor. Students submit their proposals in the winter term, and a committee of faculty and students reviews and approves the projects. Upon approval, seniors are excused from classes while they immerse themselves in their projects.

(Read more about Stacy, Liam, and Becca in “Four Stories from the Class of 2019” beginning on page 30.)

With those endeavors completed or continuing independently, a new group of Norton Fellows began their equally ambitious projects this summer, and they have strong examples to follow.

The Norton Fellowship program, run by the Norton Family Center for the Common Good, empowers students to take active roles in their communities through self-directed engagement projects during the summer, with guidance from the Norton Center faculty. After completing the four- to six-week projects, the fellows share their results with the Loomis community, often spurring other students to get involved.

For the 2018–19 Norton Fellowships: Junior Steele Citrone channeled his concern for what he perceived as a lack of public information about organ donation’s societal benefits into an outreach project aimed at teenage drivers.

Junior Kavya Kolli drew on her experience as a karate black belt to give self-defense instruction to school girls living near her grandparents’ home in rural India.

Senior Beatrice Dang collected the personal stories of military service veterans living in her hometown of Bloomfield, Connecticut, and published a book to share the stories.

Junior Olivia Malcolmson developed RealTalkAdoption.com, an online resource and support community for adopted teens and young adults.

Senior Abby Huang expanded an interactive online English-learning program she had started that connects volunteer Loomis students and children at a school in rural China.

To read more about each of these projects and to learn about the five new Norton Fellows’ projects, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

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Spring

Stage

ON T H E

Sophomore Talia Mayo performs in the Spring Dance Revue.

Photo: Nicole Bushey

The annual Spring Dance Revue was presented in the Norris Ely Orchard Theater May 1–4, culminating the work of student choreographers and students in Loomis Chaffee’s dance companies, dance classes, and dance ensembles, as well as individual students.

Under the direction of dance teacher Kate Loughlin, 40 students and one faculty member presented a number of dance styles, including tap, jazz, ballet, contemporary, hip hop, and traditional Indian dance.

To browse a gallery of photos from the Spring Dance Revue, visit www. loomischaffee.org/magazine.

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Arabic teacher Ludmila Zamah shares a traditional Indian dance.

Photo: Nicole Bushey

Junior Steele Citrone, senior Ryan Natcharian, senior Dzhangir Bayandarov, and senior Melissa Scanlon enact a play during the IDEA Theater Festival. Photo: John Groo

Student playwrights, directors, and actors presented original one-act productions during the IDEA Theater Festival April 11–12 in the NEO. Each performance was required to meet certain parameters and focus either literally or figuratively on the festival theme of “Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access.” According to the guidelines, each play was approximately 10 minutes in length and incorporated a collective set piece as well as an individual prop, which was made in the Pearse Hub for Innovation by each ensemble. Additionally, all action took place entirely within the 8-foot-by-6-foot theatrical frame on stage. Each play began with the line, “I think you misunderstood,” and ended with, “I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen?”

Nearly two dozen talented student singers performed Broadway musical tunes in “Two Men Falling,” the student-run Musical Revue, on April 26–27 in the Hubbard Performance Hall.

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NPR Journalist Discusses Challenges of Covering War The former National Public Radio bureau chief in Baghdad and Kabul has covered violent conflicts around the world and now reports on the millions of U.S. veterans who served their country in those war zones.

“I’m trying to figure out, as I cover this beat, what it means that our country has been at war for such a long time.”

—Quil Lawrence

To learn more about Mr. Lawrence’s career and to find a link to his archived NPR stories, visit www. loomischaffee.org/magazine.

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National Public Radio journalist Quil Lawrence spoke to students and faculty on campus this spring about his experiences as a news correspondent in areas of conflict in the Arab world and Latin America and now as a reporter covering U.S. veterans affairs.

“I got into journalism really just by keeping a journal. I loved travel and I loved writing from the first time I got a taste of it,” Mr. Lawrence said to the audience gathered for the Bussel Family International Lecture on April 29. Traveling during a gap year between high school and college “punctured the myth” that there are places to which he shouldn’t or couldn’t go, he said, and led him to “a lot of improvised border crossings around the world.” Those experiences steered him toward becoming a war correspondent and pursuing a career in journalism.

Early in his career, Mr. Lawrence covered conflicts in the Middle East, the Arab world, Sudan, Pakistan, Israel, Cuba, and Colombia.

He covered Latin America for National Public

Radio (NPR), the BBC, and The Los Angeles Times. In 2000, on a Pew Fellowship of International Journalism, he traveled to the Middle East to report on tensions between Iraqi and Kurdish people living in northern Iraq.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Mr. Lawrence began a 12-year stretch of covering the U.S. military involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other parts of the Middle East and Asia. He served as NPR’s bureau chief in Baghdad and Kabul, covering the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the second battle of Fallujah in 2004 as well as politics and culture in the region.

Mr. Lawrence discussed some of the challenges he faced as a war correspondent. The complexity of modern warfare, with few set battles and with conflicts that don’t adhere to clear geopolitical boundaries, makes it difficult to report on armed conflicts in a way that listeners or readers can easily understand, he said. The prevalence of insurgent, guerilla-style warfare and rebellious uprisings further confounds clear explanation.

It also was hard to avoid bias and not to side with the soldiers with whom he was embedded, he said, a struggle that many war correspondents face. On the other hand, witnessing so much human suffering led him to become desensitized over time — something he regrets. In war, soldiers need to dehumanize people to be able to carry out orders, he said. A journalist’s job is to do exactly the opposite, seeking instead to convey the human realities of war to people back home.

“Now I report on the three million American people who served in these most recent wars and other conflicts,” Mr. Lawrence said. He hopes his reporting will help to erode stereotypes and bridge the societal divide between veterans and civilians without connections to the military.

“I’m trying to figure out, as I cover this beat, what it means that our country has been at war for such a long time,” he said.

Mr. Lawrence, whose brother is Loomis Chaffee Director of Studies Timothy Lawrence, said he shares his stories with audiences beyond his NPR listeners to combat the misconception that “you can’t understand something just because you haven’t been there.”

The Bussel Lecture was organized through Loomis Chaffee’s Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies.

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Photos: Catherine Johanna Dunlavey ’13

WORKSHOP OFFERINGS INCLUDED: •

Workshops for Well-Being

I

n keeping with the school-year theme of Well-Being, freshmen and sophomores took part in wellness and mindfulness workshops led by faculty and staff on campus on Saturday, May 11.

The workshops for underclassmen and information sessions for seniors about the transition to college marked the final Pelican Day for the 2018–19 school year. Juniors were given the Saturday morning to focus on their studies during this particularly busy stretch of their high school academic careers.

The wellness and mindfulness workshops introduced students to activities they could pursue to alleviate stress and promote personal well-being. Each student chose two workshops in which to participate.

To see more photos from the workshops, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

Symbolic and meditative Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala art.

Participants watched a short film and created a small sand painting as a group.

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Decorative wooden spoon carving using traditional hand tools.

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Creation of an artistic collage representing participants’ ideas about personal well-being.

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Exploration of human relationships to nature through the wisdom of a variety of faiths. The workshop included a nature stroll, a discussion of world religions, outdoor yoga, and calligraphy.

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Genealogy and family history searches. Students learned about the wealth of information available online for them to discover their own family stories.

Mindful running. Students learned how distance running helps to regulate breathing to control stress, encourages reflection, is meditative, and contributes to a person’s well-being.

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Capture the Flag on Pratt Field.

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“The Secrets of Life,” an exploration of the latest studies on health, longevity, and well-being as well as current brain research that reveals what it takes to live a long, healthy, happy life.

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An introduction to the classic tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.

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Creation of a life-sized human puppet from brown paper.

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An introduction to the basics of budgeting, saving, and making informed decisions for personal financial well-being.

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Board games as an engaging and fun way to hang out with friends.

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Artistic creation in the Richmond Art Center. Some students learned techniques for cutting, designing, and “slumping” glass in the glass studio, and others designed and created personalized sketchbooks from re-purposed paper.

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A Red Scarf knitting project for the Foster Care to Success program.

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An introduction to jazz music in America for better understanding and appreciation of the art form.

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Make-your-own botanical, flavored lip balm.

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Guided meditation, including breathing, listening, grounding oneself, and releasing tension.

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Lessons in tea, including tastings of several varieties of high-quality tea and discussion of the history, production, brewing, and holistic values of tea.

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Island Visitors

Students worked with several visiting artists and musicians during the spring term.

For more information about the Visiting Artists and Guest Musicians and links to their websites, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

VISITING ARTIST

VISITING ARTIST

GUEST MUSICIAN

Joan Harmon

Robert Knight

Haneef Nelson

Artist Joan Harmon, who works in ceramics, installation, sculpture, and drawing, spent a week in April in the Richmond Art Center as a Visiting Artist. Ms. Harmon teaches at the City University of New York and is an adjunct instructor and art director in mask-making and large-scale puppetry at New York University’s Florence, Italy, campus. She recently was awarded an artist residency near Naples, Italy, from Kultursciok Arts Collective and an honorarium from Black Rock Arts for her work at Burning Man, where she created three large-scale sound sculptures. In 2015 she received a six-week fellowship from the Creative Glass Center of America and has received numerous other international and national awards.

Ms. Harmon earned her bachelor’s degree from the California College of Art and a master’s degree in drawing and sculpture from Rutgers University. Her work has been shown at the Epperson Gallery of Ceramic Arts, the Loveland Museum Gallery, the Lewis Art Gallery, Millsaps College, and the Governors Island Art Fair, among others.

Robert Knight, an artist and art professor at Hamilton College, worked in and among the students and faculty of the Richmond Art Center as a Visiting Artist for a week in May. Mr. Knight worked in the print studio on an artistic project that combines photography and silk screen printing, and he shared his techniques with students in Mark Zunino’s Printmaking course. Mr. Knight’s photographic work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the Danforth Museum of Art in Massachusetts, the Jen Bekman Gallery and Light Work in New York, the LaGrange Museum in Georgia, and at festivals in Nantes, Le Mans, and Arles, France. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts; Light Work in Syracuse, New York; Center for Photography in Woodstock, New York; and numerous private collections.

Jazz trumpeter, composer, and music teacher Haneef Nelson performed with his band, the Haneef N. Nelson Quintet, as Guest Musicians on March 26. In addition to leading his quintet, Mr. Nelson is a member of the International Gospel Fellowship Church music ministry and the founder of Neeftet, the Hartford Legacy Jazz Orchestra, the Hartford Jazz Composers Collective, and the Paul Brown Legacy Ensemble. A long-standing member of ensembles in the local music scene, Mr. Nelson also has recorded music with a variety of gospel and jazz artists. He curates the Jazz Monday event at Black Eyed Sally’s in Hartford through his entertainment company, Neefjazz Entertainment. Mr. Nelson earned a bachelor’s degree in African-American music from the University of Hartford’s Hartt School of Music. In addition to teaching in his private music studio, Mr. Nelson has taught at The Artists Collective; served as the first director of jazz studies at the Community Music School of Springfield, Massachusetts; and was a teaching assistant for Big Band at the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz at Hartt School.

The Visiting Artists program is made possible with support from Adolf and Virginia Dehn. Mr. Nelson’s visit to Loomis Chaffee was made possible with support from the Joseph Stookins Guest Musician/Lecture Fund.

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Enrollment Decisions | Continued from page 4 Cutler and Richmond halls

Interest in Loomis has never been greater, thanks in large part to word-of-mouth from parents and alumni and the outstanding job of our admissions and marketing teams. This spring 50 percent of all applicants admitted to Loomis Chaffee chose to enroll, resulting in more than an 11 percent increase in yield compared to the past several years. As a result, we expect to open school with approximately 50 more boarding students than we enrolled this past year; 30 more students overall.

We are excited to welcome this talented group, and we want to ensure that the increase in enrollment does not compromise the excellent experience promised all new and returning students. Accordingly, we have hired more faculty to preserve small class sizes and have increased funding for student activities and dining services. To house the increase in boarding students, we will need to add some triples, as well as new rooms and bathroom facilities in some of the dormitories where that is possible, and we will add two 12-bed modular housing units—one to Harman Hall and the second to Palmer Hall. These units will attach to these buildings through their respective common rooms, effectively creating new wings in each of the dormitories.

We have also worked over the last few years on a plan to renovate our Grubbs Quadrangle dormitories. These dormitories need new plumbing and electrical systems as well as, in some cases, enhanced student common spaces and expanded faculty apartments. We will begin this process next January with the

construction of additions to Batchelder and Howe halls, followed by the summer renovation of the interiors of both dormitories for completion by the fall of 2020. The added beds created by these projects will allow us to remove the modular housing unit on Palmer Hall and to decompress elsewhere.

As the Grubbs work continues over the next few years, we will also remove the Harman addition.

School enrollment is a result of the school’s reputation, the strength of our financial aid program, and our admissions and marketing efforts. It also is influenced by broader demographic and economic trends over which we have little control. When the economy is good, more people tend to look to provide their children with a private education; when the economy shrinks, so too does the market for our kind of education. Financial aid is a critical factor in allowing us to meet our mission of enrolling the most talented students from all walks of life and from across the world. In our most recent comprehensive campaign, we were able to raise over $36 million for financial aid, primarily for endowment, and each year we distribute almost $11 million in financial aid through our operating budget.

We have no further plans to build any more dormitories or to expand the school’s enrollment. Indeed, we have concluded that long-term demographic trends suggest we should anticipate a school of around 700 students or fewer. The school-age population is predicted to decline over the next few decades

This spring 50 percent of all applicants admitted to Loomis Chaffee chose to enroll, resulting in more than an 11 percent increase in yield compared to the past several years.

as millennials marry later and have fewer children. The history of the school’s enrollment since 1914, however, suggests that this issue will remain an open question for future administrations and Trustees. But whatever size the school is now and into the future, I expect that we will always make enrollment decisions with the best student experience as our top priority.

Photos: Jessica Ravenelle

Grubbs Quadrangle

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THAT’S ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT! Nearly 25 Loomis Chaffee volunteers in the student-run Windsor Water Warriors gathered in Hedges Pool on Sunday afternoons during the fall and spring to welcome children from local elementary schools who were interested in learning to swim. The Pelican volunteers worked one-on-one with children between the ages of 4 and 8 to help them learn the basics of floating, kicking, and blowing bubbles while having fun.

Sophomore Hannah Adler won the senior division of the Connecticut American String Teachers Association Solo Competition this spring and will play a solo with a Connecticut orchestra in the fall.

Sophomore Prair Madden earned honors in several piano competitions this spring. In March she auditioned for the Hartt Honors Recital and was awarded the Evelyn Bonar Storrs Scholarship for the best performance in grades 9–11. In April she won first prize in the J.Y. Park Piano Competition at Western Connecticut State University and performed in the winners’ concert. And in June, she placed first in the young artist category at the Suzanne Culley Competition and performed at the competition’s Grand Prize Recital at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

The Science Bowl team placed eighth out of 36 teams in the 2019 Northeast Regional High School Science Bowl in March at the University of Connecticut. The team qualified for a double-elimination tournament later in the day, but lost just before the quarterfinal round in a nail-biter against Cheshire High School.

In the 2019 Connecticut Science & Engineering Fair in March, sophomore Aresh Pourkavoos received Second Honors as well as several other awards, and junior Tony Shen received Third Honors.

Nine Loomis students participated in the 2019 Connecticut Valley Section Regional Chemistry Olympiad in March at the University of Connecticut. Senior Drive Rojrachsombat and sophomores Clara Chen and Matthew Weng scored in the top 20 percent for the first part of the exam, qualifying to move on to parts II and

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III. The remaining students participated in a quiz bowl-style competition and attended a lecture on the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table of the Elements.

Family Director of Loomis’ Norton Family Center for the Common Good, participated by reading names of the victims of the attack as part of the remembrance.

Three sophomores and three juniors on the debate team were invited to compete in the state finals of the Connecticut Debate Association’s Extemporaneous Policy Debate League for High Schools in March. Competitors at the tournament debated both sides of the resolution: “The U.S. Supreme Court Should Be Significantly Reformed.” Sophomore Aidan Gillies placed third in the varsity division, and the team of juniors Victoria Che and Clara Chen placed third in the novice division. Aidan also was the second-place impromptu speaker in the advanced division at the Northfield Mount Hermon Public Speaking Tournament in March.

Aidan’s speech was a five-minute reflection on the prompt, “The words of the prophet are written on the subway wall.”

A cadre of Loomis Chaffee students and faculty took part in Lead Like a Girl, a conference hosted by the National Center for Girls’ Leadership at Stuart Country Day School in Princeton, New Jersey, in April. Participants joined in conversations and workshops aimed at inspiring girls’ confidence and creativity in science, technology, engineering, and math (also known as STEM subjects); entrepreneurship; and leadership. Senior Molly Henderson presented a talk at the conference about a molecular biology guided research project she took part in at Loomis with science teacher Erica Gerace in collaboration with UConn Health and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.

More than a dozen Pelican volunteers joined the 36th annual Foodshare Walk Against Hunger this spring in Hartford and collected food and money donations for the Hartford-area food bank Foodshare and the Red Door of Grace Food Pantry in Windsor.

Students in the Pelican Service Organization and the Home of Hope Club organized a fun, rainbow-splattered Color Run on campus in May, raising money through T-shirt sales to support Home of Hope’s mission to improve the lives of at-risk girls in South Africa.

To see photographs from the Color Run, visit www.loomischaffee.org/ magazine.

Members of the Loomis Chaffee community gathered with local community members in Windsor Town Hall on a Sunday in March for a vigil in remembrance of the victims of the March 15 attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. The vigil was organized by the town of Windsor Human Relations Council, and speakers included Loomis Arabic teacher Ludmila Zamah and junior Oumieratou Sowe, among other local officials and residents. In his capacity as a Windsor Bridge Builder, Eric LaForest, Keller

Loomis Chaffee hosted dancers from 10 independent schools for the Fourth Annual New England Prep School Dance Festival in April.

More than 115 students took part in this year’s classes, workshops, and a final sharing performance in dance genres including tap, modern, ballet, contemporary, jazz, and hip hop.

To see photographs from the festival, visit www.loomischaffee. org/magazine.

Student panelists discussed immigration issues and answered questions from an audience of 100 students and faculty in the Nee Room in April during the community free period. The seven panelists and two moderators were students in the college-level history seminar American Mosaic: Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States.

The school celebrated Earth Week April 15–19 with a program of activities and events coordinated by Project Green, the student-led environmental organization, and students in Loomis’ environmental sustainability and agriculture programs. The celebration featured campus exhibitions; an open discussion about sustainable farming and mindful eating; the sale of succulent plants to support sustainability initiatives on campus; demonstration of a plastic recycling

Facult y & S taf f Ne w s

machine in the Pearse Hub for Innovation; a film festival of environmental documentaries; and the creation of re-usable shopping bags from recycled materials.

Thirty-six Loomis Chaffee students earned medals in the French National Exam this year.

Of the more than 70,000 students who took the exams, less than 25 percent received medals.

The second annual Katharine Brush Creative Writing Contest attracted 38 student submissions this year. The “flash fiction” stories had to begin with one of three titles found in novelist Katharine Brush’s journals, where she noted potential titles for her own works. Loomis Chaffee Writing Initiatives sponsored the competition, and the panel of judges included Dana Reinhardt ’89, author of young adult fiction books; Thomas Reed, professor emeritus at Dickinson College; and former faculty member Ronald Marchetti.

The Student Council, partnering with the American Red Cross, held a successful blood drive in Shimkus Gymnasium in April with nearly 50 donors.

Junior Anya Sastry this spring was appointed outreach director of the U.S. Youth Climate Strike, an organization aimed at mobilizing young people to work against global warming and climate change. Anya served as an Illinois state leader for the organization earlier in the year and helped coordinate a 500-strong walkout and rally in her hometown of Chicago as part of a global event organized by the U.S. and Global Youth Strike movements.

Nine Pelican student musicians performed at the Connecticut All-State High School Music Festival this spring. The festival, organized each year by the Connecticut Music Educators Association, features vocal and instrumental musicians from across the state who are selected by audition. Loomis Wind Ensemble Director David Winer was recognized at the festival for his service as Connecticut Music Educators Association Student Affairs Committee chair and Northern Region director.

Jeffrey Scanlon ’79, 2019 Teacher of the Year. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

The Student Council announced the selection of English teacher Jeffrey Scanlon ’79 as 2019 Teacher of the Year at the end-of-school Awards Assembly in May. In presenting the award to Jeff, senior Lucy Shao, Student Council president, read from the nominating essay, submitted by sophomore Victoria Che, who wrote that she was grateful for having Jeff as her English teacher because he helped her discover “the beauty of life through the lens of literature.”

A new departmental prize has been created in honor of retiring teacher Mark Williams. The Mark Williams Prize in History will be awarded each year to a student of history who exemplifies the characteristics of curiosity, investigation, independence of thought, and original, empathetic writing. The inaugural recipient of the prize was senior Ariel Kayton.

The Founders League awarded the M.D. Nadal Sportsmanship Award to longtime Loomis Chaffee coach and teacher Sally Knight at the league’s annual meeting of heads of school and athletic directors in April. The award is presented to students, faculty, staff, teams, and student bodies who “play by the rules, accept victory or defeat graciously, respect all who assemble and

participate.” Sally retired from teaching at the end of the school year but will coach cross country at Loomis for at least one more season this fall.

For the fourth year in a row, delegations of educators from China visited Loomis Chaffee this year to learn about the American approach to education.

Hosted by history teacher Mark Williams and Scott MacClintic ’82, director of the Pearse Hub for Innovation, the groups toured the school and visited classes with Chinese-speaking students as their guides. Afterwards, Scott and Mark gave presentations on the development of critical and creative thinking at Loomis.

This year the Chinese visitors came from schools in Guandong and Jilin provinces. In addition to Loomis, they visited

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several other private and public schools in the Northeast.

Over the summer break, several faculty are moving into new positions on campus.

With the reconfiguration of the History, Philosophy, Religious Studies and Social Science Department, history teacher Harrison Shure will become the head of the History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies Department, and economics teacher Alexander McCandless will lead the Social Sciences Department.

Marley Matlack is the new director of the Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies after several years as associate director, and Megan Stoecklin moves from the Alumni/Development Office into the Alvord Center associate director post. English teacher and Innovation Trimester faculty Timothy Helfrich ’96 is taking on the role of director of the Community Work Program. English teacher Kathryn Saxton will be the new director of Writing Initiatives. Andris Briga, audio visual coordinator in the Information Technology Department, will be the new director of student activities. Several faculty members also will move into dorm head positions: math teacher Anne Sher in Longman Hall, head football coach Jeff Moore in Kravis, Director of International Students Jaci Cardwell in Ammidon, and science teacher David Samuels in Taylor. Spanish teacher Lillian Corman, who has headed Longman Hall and directed the Longman Leadership Institute for two years, will be the head of Cutler Hall.

Art teachers Mark Zunino and Jennifer McCandless had solo exhibits of their work in the Sue and Eugene Mercy Jr. Gallery this spring. “Recent Work” was Mark’s exhibition of paintings in oil and watercolor and drawings. “Living Among the Humans” was Jennifer’s show featuring her satirical, narrative ceramic sculptures. The A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, also featured artwork by Jen and 19 other artists in a national members exhibit titled “Active directions of the mind” this spring. A.I.R. is an artist-run organization of women artists from across the United States.

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The Henry R. Kravis ’63 Center for Excellence in Teaching welcomed nearly 50 teaching professionals from 36 independent schools for a meeting of the Consortium for Teacher Development in May. Organized by Kravis Center faculty members Sara Deveaux, Rachel Nisselson, and Harrison Shure, the one-day conference offered six workshops followed by a “What’s next?” discussion as a capstone for the day.

The Loomis Chaffee faculty held workshops with innovative education expert Grant Lichtman this spring as part of the school’s ongoing effort to provide students with a relevant education in a rapidly-changing world and to promote access, diversity, and inclusion within the community. An internationally recognized author, speaker, facilitator, and strategist for school leaders, Mr. Lichtman spoke at an opening presentation, met with faculty members associated with the Kravis Center for Excellence in Teaching, and conducted a design challenge workshop for faculty in the Pearse Hub for Innovation.

At a community celebration at the conclusion of the school year, Head of School Sheila Culbert recognized faculty and staff who had reached the 20-year mark in their tenure at the school this year. They included Virginia DeConinck, testing coordinator and assistant director of student activities; psychology teacher Mimi Donegan; campus safety officer Steve Lohnes; Elizabeth Parada, dean of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion; Linda Rossi, administrative assistant to the head of school; and Chinese teacher Bo Zhao.

The school bid farewell this summer to the following faculty members: art teacher Chet Kempczynski; music teacher and Orchestra Director Kalena Bovell; math teachers Ben Fisher, Hudson Harper, and Hannah Saris; Assistant Director of Communications Keller Glass; science teachers Clare Parker-Fisher and James Sainz; English teacher Daniel Reed; Dean of Students Patricia Sasser; psychology teacher and head field hockey coach Manya Steinfeld; and Associate Director of Admission and head girls lacrosse coach Julie Wadland.

History teacher Harrison Shure and Arabic teacher Ludmila Zamah received the Austin Wicke Prize in June. The prize, given in memory of Austin by his parents, honors faculty members of less than 10 years of service who “have demonstrated a dedication to the discipline of teaching and a commitment to fostering the growth and development of young persons.”

English teachers Berrie Moos and Sally Knight were presented with the Distinguished Teaching Award in Honor of Dom Failla in June. The award honors outstanding teachers with more than 10 years of service at the school.

Head of the Science Department Naomi Appel this spring was awarded a Palmer Fellowship, a multi-year grant that will help fund Naomi’s pursuit of an advanced degree.

History teacher Lori Caligiuri has been named to the Carol Joseloff Taub and Joan Joseloff Kohn Instructorship in History. The instructorship was established in recognition of the achievement of the faculty of The Chaffee School in offering instruction to young women and in the hope that the study of development of human societies, both past and contemporary, will foster the political and intellectual growth of students at Loomis Chaffee.

Six employees received Service to School Awards at the conclusion of the school year.

Honored for their “significant contributions to the success of this academic year,” this year’s recipients were Paige Abrams, event planner in the Alumni/Development Office; Nicholas Allard, plumber in the Physical Plant; Christine Coyle, writer in the Office of Strategic Communications & Marketing; Patricia Loomis, database manager in the Alumni/ Development Office; Louis Natal, campus safety officer; and Elizabeth Stewart, senior associate director of admission.

Faculty members Jennine and Andrew Solomon welcomed daughter Dylan Jae on June 20.

P el ic a n Sports

Photo: Stan Godlewski

Junior Seth Robertson and sophomore Heisen Kong

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VARSITY RECORDS BASEBALL 10-7 BOYS GOLF 6-11-1 2

GIRLS GOLF 16-0 New England Champions 2nd Place, Founders League Championship

BOYS LACROSSE 12-8 GIRLS LACROSSE 12-4 Founders League Champions

SOFTBALL 1-11 BOYS TENNIS 3-12 GIRLS TENNIS 5-6 BOYS TRACK & FIELD 8-0 Founders League Champions 2nd Place, Division I New England Championship

GIRLS TRACK & FIELD 5-3 3rd Place, Founders League Championship

GIRLS WATER POLO 7-10

1 Girls lacrosse team 2 Junior Jack Livingstone 3 Sophomores Nalinda Wanikpun and Joy Liu

7 Freshman Willa Hock and senior Tiara Lewis-Falloon 8 Senior Carter Hutchinson 9 Junior Arjun Grover

4 Junior Clare Wibiralske

10 Junior Anya Sastry

5 Sophomore Julian Hernandez

11 Junior Peter Steinle

6 Senior Tyler Delgado

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Photos: Stan Godlewski

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By Becky Purdy | Photographed by Catherine Johanna Dunlavey ’13

Four Stories from the

Class of

2019 These seniors, like a great many of their classmates, understand that “best self” is a journey, not a destination.

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Rebecca Mucheru HOMETOWN Teaneck, New Jersey YEARS AT LOOMIS Four EXTRACURRICULAR ROLES Singer, actress, resident assistant, A Cappelicans leader, community service enthusiast, Project Green leader NEXT YEAR Kenyon College

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Rebecca Mucheru’s family has a recording of her when she was in preschool demanding, “Record me singing,” then launching into the ABCs song.

“That’s where it started,” she says. “I was obsessed with being heard from then on.”

Becca’s singing has graced performance spaces around campus for four years, from the Hubbard Performance Hall, where she sang with the Concert Choir and with the student-run Musical Revue, to the Norris Ely Orchard Theater, where she had roles in Shrek: The Musical and The Old Man and The Old Moon, to Founders Chapel, where she led the A Cappelicans.

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I’m hopelessly in love with Loomis Chaffee.

Becca has lent her voice to many other endeavors at Loomis Chaffee as well. A leader of Project Green, she helped reinvigorate the student environmental club, whose projects included a T-shirt drive and Boomerang Bags initiative that recycled fabric from the T-shirts into reusable bags, the creation of notepads from stationery left over from the school’s Centennial capital campaign, and the sponsorship of an annual poetry competition with natural spaces as the subject matter. A Girl Scout who is still active with her troop from home in New Jersey, she pursues community service opportunities with zeal.

Among other service projects at Loomis, she volunteered with the music and memory program at Seabury Meadows, a memory care center in Bloomfield, Connecticut. She also served as a resident assistant in Ammidon Hall this year and volunteered with the Pelican Support Network, which helps new students adjust to Loomis. An inquisitive student, Becca graduated with a Global & Environmental Studies Certificate, and she capped off her final year at Loomis by collaborating with two classmates to produce a play in the NEO as a Senior Project. She was awarded a Founders Prize her junior year for her leadership and citizenship, and on Class Night in May she received a Sellers Faculty Prize “in recognition of personal achievement and service to the Loomis Chaffee community.”

of hard work in Prep for Prep were worth it, she affirms, “because I got to spend four years here, and I absolutely love this place. I’m hopelessly in love with Loomis Chaffee.” In her college search, she looked for schools that reminded her of Loomis. “I’m going to Kenyon, and they have a whole middle path, so I was like, ‘How can I say no to that?’”

Becca narrates her academic timeline at Loomis with examples of topics that fascinated her, especially those that involved history. In Spanish 4 this year, she loved learning about the history of Spanishspeaking parts of the world while listening and speaking in the language. In Ancient Philosophy and the Philosophy of Nonviolence, she gained insights into the origins of different philosophies and learned how Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Ghandi, and other leaders developed philosophies that challenged the status quo.

In College-Level Comparative Government and Politics this year, the discussion-based approach and the demands of a college-level course pushed Becca’s limits. “Even though that class was really hard for me, there was never a moment when I wished I wasn’t taking the class because the content was just so interesting,” she says.

Never one to shy away from a challenge, Becca has a way of telling the unvarnished truth while keeping it in perspective and remaining positive. Despite the stress of senior year and the college process, she didn’t buy it when classmates said they couldn’t wait to graduate.

Coming from a public middle school in Teaneck, New Jersey, Becca heard about Loomis through the Prep for Prep program, which identifies promising students of color from the New York City area and helps them prepare to thrive at independent secondary schools in the Northeast. After gaining admission to the program in the seventh grade, Prep for Prep students spend the summers before and after eighth grade attending full days of classes in New York City five days a week, and during the eighth-grade school year, they attend classes every Saturday. The program also prepares its students for standardized tests required for admission to most independent schools, introduces them to the boarding school lifestyle with two weeks on a school campus during the summer, and helps them to apply to independent high schools. One of Becca’s Prep for Prep advisors was Nana Minder ’14, and Becca looked up to her.

“First of all, no you don’t,” she begins in passionate response. “You just can’t wait so you don’t have to worry about school anymore. For the most part, you’ve spent four years here. All your classmates are people who you’ve lived with, who you’ve struggled with. These are all people you are extremely close with and you’ll hopefully have in your life forever. You don’t want to get away from your friends. You don’t want to get away from the safe spaces you’ve created on campus. …

You’re trying to leave the stress behind. Maybe you’re tying the idea of the stress to the place. Well, there are reasons to come back for reunions, and that’s because you’ve had so many good memories.

You don’t hate it.”

After visits to five schools, Loomis rose to the top of Becca’s list. “I came here, and I was so happy that I did,” she says. The 14 months

There’s a reason Becca has wanted to be heard, even back in preschool: She has something valuable to say, and it’s worth listening.

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Mark Valadez HOMETOWN Mexico City, Mexico YEARS AT LOOMIS Four EXTRACURRICULAR ROLES Student Activities leader, environmental proctor, cross country captain, theater technician, prefect, resident assistant NEXT YEAR University of Chicago

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It was past late check-in on a Saturday night in Carter Hall, and Mark Valadez was missing. A responsible prefect known for his considerate nature, Mark rarely, if ever, neglected to check in on time. Dorm head Naogan Ma was “worried like only a mother would be,” Mark recalls. She picked up her phone and called the dean on duty, Patricia Sasser, who answered right away from her post in the student center.

“We don’t know where Mark is,” Naogan reported.

“Oh, he’s here,” Patricia responded. “We’re playing Go Fish.”

Mark, it turns out, was keeping Dean Sasser company while they waited to tidy up the student center after students finished watching a sporting event on TV. Alerted to the late hour, Mark rushed back to Carter to check in with Naogan.

“In retrospect it was the funniest moment,” he recalls,

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“because she was waiting, so gently and sternly with, ‘Where the heck were you?’” He stayed talking with Naogan that night until after 1 a.m.

“I’ll miss those moments,” he says.

resident assistant in Taylor Hall this year. He remained close to many of the underclassmen, his “prefectees,” from Carter and took pride in their growth to become prefects and student leaders themselves.

Except for the tardiness, this incident was typical Mark Valadez: Ubiquitous on campus but rarely in the spotlight, Mark kept the machine of community life well-oiled during his four years on the Island. A student activities assistant, dorm leader, engaged scholar, committed athlete, theater technician, practical-minded environmentalist, and sincere friend to many, Mark couldn’t duck the spotlight at Commencement, when he received the Nathaniel Horton Batchelder Prize for Industry, Loyalty, and Integrity. “Mark is one of those students the Loomis Chaffee faculty will speak of for years to come,” read the conclusion of his laudatory citation for the prize.

Mark also served as an environmental proctor, a student position devoted to raising awareness of environmental issues on campus, reducing waste, and shrinking the school’s carbon footprint. He took on the role as a sophomore after a school-sponsored trip to Joshua Tree National Park, where student travelers worked with scientists and park rangers to study and better understand environmental issues. His experiences motivated him to work to stem climate change and promote sustainability. Mark was a head e-proctor this year.

In the classroom, Mark took a big-picture approach to learning. He was fascinated by connections he discovered among different subjects and by ways in which what he learned helped him to understand and navigate the world. “Many times we forget that what you learn in the classroom is not just for the classroom, and people get too bogged down with turning in the paper,” he says. “For me, I don’t focus on grades. I mean, I make sure that they’re up where I want them to be, but when I go into a classroom, it’s not about the test.”

Mark, who is from Mexico City, arrived on the Island as a freshman open to the possibilities. “It was a lot of fun, a little bit hectic,” he says of his freshman fall. “A couple of key people introduced me to things.”

He quickly discovered the infectious enthusiasm of Michael Donegan, a dean of students and the director of student activities, and Mark signed up to help with “StuActs” events on campus. “I took Mr. Donegan’s advice to heart in terms of getting involved,” says Mark, who soon also joined the cross country team and the theater tech crew.

Math and sciences, including computer science, particularly intrigue Mark. Last summer he attended a five-week program at Yale University, where he took statistics and Yale’s introductory computer science course. He says the program was fun — “type 2 fun” — as he strove to conquer several problem sets and tests every week, sometimes working from noon to midnight on the challenges. “I say it’s fun because at 12 at night when you’re freaking out because the problem set is due and you’ve been working for three days on it, when it actually works, it’s the best feeling in the world,” he says.

Cross country was a new experience for Mark. “The first practice was three miles, and I asked [then-captain] Tristan Rhodes, ‘Is this what you do every day?’” Mark recalls. “And he was like, ‘No.’ I was relieved for a second. Then he said, ‘This is the lightest of our days.’ I was like, ‘This is going to be a long one.’”

In the first five-kilometer time trial of the season, Mark struggled but finished, with a time of 35 minutes. But he persevered, and, as the weeks passed, he improved. By the end of his freshman season, he was the top JV runner on the team. The following year, he earned a spot on the varsity as the No. 5 runner for the Pelicans, and as a junior and a senior captain, he ran third or fourth on the team in the meets. He lowered his best time on the home course to 17:02 — less than half the time it took him to complete his freshman time trial. He also gained a supportive community of fellow runners, one he enjoyed so much that he chose to run track in the spring, focusing on distance events and picking up pole vaulting. (He placed third in the pole vault at the Founders League Championship this spring.)

Mark, who will attend University of Chicago in the fall, hopes to focus his studies on financial engineering and sociology and later to pursue an advanced degree in computer science. He describes financial engineering, a branch of economics, as “structured problem-solving in terms of finances.” His academic and career intentions all come back to his fascination with explaining the world, understanding people, and solving problems.

Problem-solving was the focus of the Innovation Trimester (I-Tri), a program offered for the first time at Loomis this spring, and Mark was one of 10 seniors engaged in the inaugural course. The students, under the guidance of two teachers, devoted the full term to helping local companies and organizations solve challenges, from helping a social service agency to better serve homeless people in Windsor, to advising a hydroponic farm as it expanded production and sought to reach more customers. Mark says he loved the opportunity to put his learning into context and practical use and to help people in the surrounding community.

Mark’s learning curve as a theater and events technician followed a similar upward trend, and it further widened his social circle. Nearly every weekend he helped set up for and break down campus events.

“That just became part of my routine, Friday and Saturday nights helping out with events and hanging out and talking with people,” he says.

Mark also did lighting and sound tech in the Norris Ely Theater for every major production, and many additional shows, throughout his four years at Loomis.

Among the many people at Loomis that Mark will miss next year is his sister, Alexa, a rising senior. The two siblings grew closer in their three years together on campus, and they gravitated toward the same groups of people. “It became a normal thing for me to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my sister and all my friends,” Mark says. “I’ve enjoyed that, and that’s one of the things that I’ll definitely miss.”

The value Mark placed on community and the skill with which he built community lent themselves to leadership positions. A mentor to many students, he served as an international student ambassador as a sophomore, helping other international students acclimate to the school and American culture; as a prefect in Carter his junior year; and as a

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Stacy Park HOMETOWN Hwaseong-si, South Korea YEARS AT LOOMIS Four EXTRACURRICULAR ROLES Resident assistant, managing editor of The Log, entrepreneur, violinist and concertmaster for Orchestra, science tutor, prefect, member of JV ice hockey, III soccer, and water polo teams NEXT YEAR UPenn’s Wharton School of Business

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Stacy Park was the top scholar in the Class of 2019, but to stop there in summing up her contributions to Loomis Chaffee would vastly oversimplify her impact in a multitude of realms on the Island.

Yes, she received all A’s and A-plusses in the most demanding college-level and advanced courses that the school offers. Yes, she earned the Donald M. Joffray Senior Mathematics Prize and junior academic awards in science, math, foreign languages, and music. And yes, she taught herself Calculus A during the summer after her freshman year so that she could advance to Calculus B/C as a sophomore, followed by both Multivariable Calculus and Statistics as a junior and Linear Algebra this year.

But Stacy, genuine and joyful, also served as a prefect in Cutler Hall her junior year and a resident assistant in Ammidon Hall as a senior; played lead violin in the Orchestra; was a features editor and then managing editor of The Log; tutored her peers in the Science Resource Center; earned a Founders Prize as a junior for her leadership and citizenship at the school; and played water polo, III soccer, and JV ice hockey— or “JV puck,” as she and her teammates called it. She and classmate Abby Huang also found time to start a business, Snatch, an online platform for students to sell and buy used items on their school campuses. As a Senior Project, Stacy and Abby created and launched the website and began marketing the service at schools in Connecticut. The citation for the Loomis Family Prize for scholarship, awarded to Stacy at Commencement, quotes her advisor as saying that Stacy “packs more into a day than most people fit into a week.”

Stacy’s academic interests evolved at Loomis. At the beginning of her freshman year, she says, she expected to concentrate on the violin and the study of history, her two main interests at the time. Although those two pursuits still interest her, she made new discoveries on the Island that excited her even more. She took Chemistry Advanced with Robert DeConinck as a freshman, and she found the material surprisingly intriguing. “It was just so abstract that it was weird and cool,” she recalls. And math had until then meant plugging in equations to solve problems. But her Algebra 2 Advanced teacher freshman year, Stephen Sacchetti, derived all of the equations they used. “You actually start from the beginning and build it up,” she says. “That’s probably why I didn’t really like math and science before, because you were just given a formula and you did it.”

Her interest in STEM subjects took off from there, but Stacy says she also continued to grow as a student of the humanities. At first she struggled to understand some of the native expressions in readings for English class, and her writing was careful and dry. But as the years passed and teachers encouraged her to stretch — and as she learned a different, journalistic writing style for her Log articles — she gained the confidence to experiment with her writing. Her idea of creative writing assignments expanded from creative stories written in traditional fashion to essays written in a creative style. In history classes, Stacy preferred in-class discussions to writing papers, but she found an intriguing topic for her junior research paper: the Rock Springs Massacre of 1885, in which white miners attacked their Chinese-immigrant co-workers, killing 28 of them and driving many others from the town. Stacy pored over newspaper accounts from the time as primary sources for her paper, and she discovered that racism not only helped to fuel the attacks but also seeped into some of the news reporting. “It’s interesting how no one really has a full picture of history,” she reflects.

When Stacy thought ahead to college and beyond, she thought she wanted to focus on a STEM field such as computer science, chemistry, or engineering, but she worried that she would miss the humanities and people-centered pursuits. Then last summer she attended the four-week Leadership in the Business World program at the University of Pennsylvania, and she fell in love with the field of business, which she says combines her interests. The summer program involved working on a team of peers to develop a business plan for a new idea. The group interactions and the technical side of building a business startup plan appealed to her, and as she and her teammates resolved problems and surmounted challenges, she discovered a particular aptitude for managing. The experience convinced her to apply to college at UPenn’s Wharton School of Business, where she will begin studying this fall.

Stacy and her older sister, Rosie ’18, arrived at Loomis together four years ago, Stacy as a freshman and Rosie as a sophomore. (Their brother, Andrew, is a rising sophomore at Loomis.) The family lives in South Korea but decided to experience life in America for a few years when the children were in elementary school. They moved to Seattle, Washington, where they intended to live for two years before returning to Korea.

Those two years stretched into four as the siblings thrived at school in Seattle. When the girls neared high school-age, the family began to look at American boarding schools, and both girls chose Loomis. Stacy says she liked having Rosie at school with her, especially in their first year.

Both new students away from their parents for the first time, they grew closer and learned to rely on each other. It was especially comforting that first year, she says, to go to airports together and share the long trip home to Korea and back.

Multivariable Calculus, or “Multi,” a difficult course that requires abstract thinking about three-dimensional shapes, was probably Stacy’s biggest academic challenge at Loomis, and this winter, months after she had completed the course, she discovered a startling reason why: “mind blindness,” or aphantasia. She cannot visualize things. “When people said, ‘Visualize yourself at the beach,’ I thought it was metaphorical. I can’t see anything in my mind,” she says. “I was mind-blown that you could actually see stuff.” She made the discovery when she was helping her friend Jean Shin, a junior, with a physics project. Jean said she wondered if people picture graphs in the air when they watch a ball flying upward. Stacy laughed, and that triggered a conversation.

Stacy was incredulous that, for instance, a person could look at his or her hand and imagine an apple in it. For her part, Jean was amazed that Stacy could not conjure an image in her mind’s eye. “She said, ‘What do you do when you’re in a bus going to a game? Don’t you daydream, look out the window and see little things?’” Stacy recalls, laughing at the memory. “And I was like, ‘No, I just look out and see the roads.’”

“Also, Rosie set the standards high academically,” Stacy says. “She was very academically driven, and I looked up to that. Before, in Seattle, I thought, ‘If I just do it, this is enough.’” Rosie’s hard-working mindset rubbed off on Stacy, and she began to see the value of striving to do her best, not just completing her work. “You don’t have to be all hard-core with everything, but it’s always good to have that mindset … because you can always do more,” Stacy says. “I also think if you work more on something, you develop more passion.” She adds that she is naturally easy-going, so while she developed a strong work ethic, she did not let the work overwhelm her with stress.

After making this discovery, Stacy continued to ask people about this phenomenon, and she marveled that they could “see” things that they imagined. Her classmates wondered how she had survived Multi. “I don’t know,” she says. “I guess I just think differently.”

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Liam Scott HOMETOWN South Glastonbury, Connecticut YEARS AT LOOMIS Four EXTRACURRICULAR ROLES Editor-in-chief of The Log, Model United Nations delegate, tour guide, member of equestrian and varsity tennis teams NEXT YEAR Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service

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Before traveling to Cambodia and Vietnam last summer on a Loomis Chaffee-sponsored trip, Liam Scott had heard of the Khmer Rouge and its brutal rule of Cambodia in the 1970s, but he knew little more about the mass killings committed by the regime, wiping out an estimated 1.6 million Cambodians.

As the student group and accompanying faculty visited the Killing Fields extermination camp and other sites recounting the genocide and interviewed a survivor of the regime’s oppression, the realities of this tragic chapter in Cambodia’s history came into sharp focus.

“I was just struck by how little I knew about the Cambodian genocide and genocide generally,” Liam

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recalls. He wanted to learn more and do more, he told history teacher Harrison Shure one evening as the group was returning to their hotel. “I wasn’t sure what that would look like, but I said, ‘Can we do something more with that when we get back to Loomis?’”

and depth of Liam’s work in developing the course and the eloquence of his presentation. “What made Liam’s presentation more remarkable,” Tim reflects, “was his poise and the maturity of his thinking in responding to a [room] full of teachers and administrators asking him rather deep and pointed questions about his concepts, his explorations, his choice-making, and his decisions. He handled this with aplomb, impressive content knowledge, clear and well-considered reasoning, and with an emotional presence that bespoke intellectual and personal ownership of the process.”

“Yes, we should,” Harrison replied. And so began a journey for Liam that included a year-long independent study on genocide and, with Harrison’s guidance, the creation of a new history course that will be taught next year, Genocide: Media, Remembrance, and the International Community. The journey ignited a passion in Liam for the study of genocide, for the examination of history through different lenses, and for the art of teaching.

Passion for learning is hardly a new experience for Liam. From his dual pursuit of French and Chinese language studies — both reaching the sixth-year level — to his love of close textual analysis in literature and from his role as an editor-in-chief of The Log to his avid involvement in Model United Nations conferences and the equestrian and varsity tennis teams, Liam embraces learning opportunities at every turn. In fact, when he reflects on his various Loomis experiences, he talks first about what he learned from each activity and from the faculty members who guided him.

During the fall term, Liam worked to develop an overview of the course, create a course description, and present the proposal to the History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Social Science Department, which approved the course. In the winter term, Liam researched case studies of genocides, developed the content of the course, and learned about pedagogy and good teaching practices. He also visited history teacher Kevin Henderson’s Global Human Rights class and taught two class periods on the Rwandan genocide. Liam built on these experiences in the spring term, when he constructed the course, developing a narrative that brought together the teaching techniques and the material students would explore.

Working on The Log with his peers and with faculty advisor Jessica Hsieh ’08 improved Liam’s writing and editing and taught him about collaboration, leadership, and the nuances of journalistic ethics, he says. Liam started with The Log as a contributor his freshman year, then a staff writer, and then a section editor before becoming an editor-in-chief as a senior. “I’ve learned what it means to lead well,” he says of his editing role, quickly adding, “I definitely haven’t gotten there. I’m not an expert on leading. But I’ve learned more about leading through practicing leading.” He says his experience with The Log also opened his eyes to the pitfalls of complaining. “I think it’s easy to want to criticize everything when you’re doing journalism, and I might have fallen into that trap initially,” he says. “You can criticize, but there should be a point behind that criticism.”

To supplement this work, Liam interviewed seven genocide survivors and descendants of survivors as a Senior Project during the last two weeks of classes at Loomis. He uploaded the interviews, along with conversations recorded earlier with two other people, to a website that can be used for the Genocide course. The interviews were emotionally intense, he says, and he appreciated not only the generosity of the people who shared their stories, but also the opportunity to debrief with Harrison after the interviews.

“I’m so grateful to Mr. Shure for embarking on this experience with me. He taught me what it means to … feel endlessly passionate about something and like I can make a difference,” Liam says. “I’m just so grateful to have had the opportunity to work so closely with a teacher, and [the fact] that he taught me how to do all of that is something that I can never thank him enough for.”

Participating in Model United Nations conferences, under the able guidance of history teacher Rachel Engelke, helped him discover a passion for international affairs, a field on which he will focus his studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Liam was part of the Loomis delegation to the Yale Model UN and Boston Model UN conferences for the last three years, and he and a contingent of Loomis students participated in the Yale Model Government Europe in Budapest, Hungary, in 2017. He says these experiences improved his public speaking skills, his understanding of diplomacy, and his ability to develop creative solutions to problems and crises.

Near the end of the spring term, Harrison organized a course defense, similar to a thesis defense, in which Liam presented his plans for the course, the pedagogy and intention behind it, and the structure he had chosen. A committee of 15 faculty members, including members of the department, the director and associate director of the Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies, the director of the Kravis Center for Excellence in Teaching, Director of Studies Timothy Lawrence, and Associate Head of School Webster Trenchard, attended the presentation and asked Liam questions. They were blown away. “It was very impressive,” Tim says. “We were ready to offer him a future teaching position on the spot.” Tim had worked with Liam every year on his academic planning, so Tim was impressed but not surprised by the detail

Although sad to say goodbye to friends and faculty, Liam says his overriding emotion at Commencement was gratitude for his four years at Loomis and the community that watched out for and mentored him. “I really cannot overemphasize how grateful I am toward Mr. Shure, Ms. Hsieh, Ms. Engelke, and Mr. Helfrich [Liam’s faculty advisor Timothy Helfrich ’96],” Liam wrote in an email after the interview for this article.

“They’ve made me who I am today, and I love for them to know that in every way possible.”

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BY CHRISTINE COYLE

Innovation Trimester Caps First Year of the PHI

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Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

A DEEP DIVE INTO DESIGN THINKING

Innovation Trimester students (left to right) Rishi Basu, Maalik McPherson, Jarrod Davis, Burke Perrotta, Faith Donegan, Mark Valadez, Justin Cordero, Daniel Ruiz, Ryan Schwender, and Ashley Edwards

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Daniel, Jarrod, Rishi, and Burke present their I-Tri group’s idea for a community radio station in the Colonel Loomis House.

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Packed with energy and imagination, the Innovation Trimester was a fitting capstone for a dynamic first year in the PHI. Located in the new Scanlan Campus Center and equipped with creative tools, industrial technology, and an atmosphere of entrepreneurship, the PHI invites students to collaborate on projects with purpose, and since opening in October 2018, it has bustled with activity. Students and faculty brainstorm around whiteboard tables, gather for instruction and presentations in amphitheater-style seating, design and program robots, make computerized designs with laser- and die-cutting machines and 3-D printers, and operate tools both large and small in the mechanical workshop and woodworking studio.

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Director of the PHI Scott MacClintic ’82 says that while tools and technology are key components of the PHI, its mission reaches beyond “making stuff” to “making a difference.” To advance this objective, the PHI faculty developed a cross-disciplinary curriculum that teaches students to work together to solve problems creatively using the concepts of design, engineering, and entrepreneurship. The term courses Problem Solving for the Common Good; The Science of Engineering and Design; Problem Solving in Manufacturing, Society, and Entrepreneurship; and Problem Solving in the Business World offer introductions to these concepts, and the I-Tri provides a deep dive.

“The PHI curriculum threads all come together in the I-Tri,” Scott says.

The 10 seniors chosen for the inaugural I-Tri devoted their entire spring academic term to the course, engaging in four major projects and

several smaller exercises to solve challenges posed by clients from the school and wider communities. With guidance from faculty members Jennine Solomon, associate director of the PHI, and Timothy Helfrich ’96, the I-Tri students learned and practiced design thinking, a problem-solving method that helped them to understand client concerns and develop innovative solutions. In addition to tackling the projects, the students met with and learned from professionals in small-scale agriculture, public service, marketing and communications, industrial design and engineering, entrepreneurship, and other fields.

In many ways, the final challenge and the group’s presentations on May 22 culminated the endeavors of the 10-week course and traced the now-familiar steps of design thinking: empathize, define (the problem), ideate, prototype, and test.

Photos: Jessica Ravenelle

n the morning of May 22, the industrial-looking expanse of the Pearse Hub for Innovation (PHI) was abuzz with activity and anticipation. Ten seniors, participants in Loomis Chaffee’s inaugural Innovation Trimester (I-Tri), mustered in two teams in separate areas of the multifunctional space to rehearse their final presentations for the course. In the middle of the room around a cluster of high tables and stools, a math class engaged in a design lesson. Meanwhile, in a back corner of the PHI, two students in safety goggles operated a plastics shredder in the glass-enclosed woodworking shop. As 9 a.m. approached, the I-Tri students put finishing touches on their projects, straightened their dressto-impress clothes, and made their way toward the wall-to-wall whiteboard in one corner of the PHI. Nearby, an audience of about 50 parents and faculty observed the goings-on and chatted around a refreshment table while waiting for the presentations to begin.

Left: The Colonel Loomis House at 208 Broad Street in Windsor center.

CHALLENGE:

What should Loomis Chaffee do with the Colonel Loomis House?

Left: I-Tri students tour the property with Director of Physical Plant Lance Hall. Above: Head of School Sheila Culbert and Chief Financial Officer Richard Esposito pose the challenge to students in Sheila's office.

A HOUSE WITH A VAULT

The 10 seniors chosen for the inaugural I-Tri devoted their entire spring academic term to the course, engaging in four major projects and several smaller exercises to solve challenges posed by clients from the school and wider communities.

The students first learned about their final challenge on May 6, when Head of School Sheila Culbert and Chief Financial Officer Richard Esposito presented them with the question, “What should Loomis Chaffee do with the Colonel Loomis House?” The school recently acquired the building, a former bank in downtown Windsor that was originally owned by Colonel James and Abigail Sherwood Chaffee Loomis, parents of the school’s five Founders. Sheila and Rich told the group that the solution should have an impact on the school community and connect Loomis Chaffee to the town of Windsor.

For the first step of their research for the challenge, the students and Physical Plant Director Lance Hall took the short walk from campus to the two-story brick building nestled in the town’s

center at 208 Broad Street, where the students gathered information from the site and its surroundings. Built in 1822 for James and Abigail, the building was purchased by Loomis Chaffee last year in recognition of its historical significance to the school.

The students interviewed Sheila, Lance, and Rich regarding the administration’s expectations and any limitations for the building’s use. The administration was open to broad ideas for the site, according to Sheila, who encouraged the students to “think big.”

Back in the PHI, the students split up into working groups and, gathered around tables, defined the final project challenge using design-thinking methodology. They wrote down their thoughts and observations on colored sticky notes, which they, each in turn, read aloud. Once all the sticky notes were read, the students individually and as a loomischaffee.org

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Left: Innovation Trimester students Ashley, Faith, and Rishi engage in design thinking exercises with their groups to generate ideas.

Below: Trustees listen to students’ early proposals for the Colonel Loomis House.

would be served from the former bank vault, which remains intact on the first floor of the building. The décor would feature archival photographs from The Chaffee School and landscaped outdoor dining and garden space to contribute to the town’s beautification, the group said. The office space on the second floor would serve community outreach and tutoring programs already offered through the school’s Community Service Program, and education programs for adults and children that would be taught by Loomis faculty and staff.

The students sought feedback on their initial ideas from Loomis Chaffee Trustees on May 10, when the Trustees were on campus for their spring board meeting. The Trustees, including Chairman of the Board Duncan A.L. MacLean ’90, asked questions and encouraged the students to continue developing their ideas.

Less than two weeks later, with their ideas refined and polished, the I-Tri students presented their

solutions at the May 22 event in the PHI. The first group of five students proposed setting up and operating a café called Chaffee Dessert Bar on the main floor of the Colonel Loomis House and using space on the second floor for community programs. According to the group’s proposal, Chaffee Dessert Bar would be open to the public and would draw students away from the Island for much-needed study breaks, recreation, and socializing. Seniors Faith Donegan and Ashley Edwards wore replica gray “Chaffee” sweatshirts identifying the Chaffee Dessert Bar brand, which Faith said would commemorate the girls and women who learned and taught at The Chaffee School.

Ice cream, fruit smoothies, and other refreshments

Lively music and the newscaster voice of senior Daniel Ruiz introduced the second group’s idea for the Colonel Loomis House — a community radio station. “Welcome to The Vault,” Daniel intoned.

An internet-based radio station and entertainment space at 208 Broad Street would help revitalize Windsor center, connect with the community, and bring the excitement of Windsor’s live summer music series to the area year-round, he explained.

“Our guiding question? How do we connect Windsor and Loomis Chaffee through communication?” explained senior Mark Valadez, sharing the group’s inspiration for the The Vault radio station.

The group envisioned partnering with Windsor High School and members of the community for the station’s operation and programming. In addition to The Vault’s recording and broadcasting facilities, which could be used by school and public entities, the building would include community space to provide a public forum for music, discussion, and educational programming. Construction of catering space to host public and private events would provide rental income, according to the group’s plan.

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Photos: Jessica Ravenelle

group considered what they had learned, sorted the notes into related categories, and looked for connections to form an aspirational “How might we?” question to guide their project. “The ‘How might we?’ guiding question works effectively like a thesis statement,” Tim explains.

Senior Justin Cordero concluded the presentation by noting that he and his group were inspired by what they had learned earlier in the term through challenges with community-focused small business owners. “We see an opportunity for Chaffee Dessert Bar to be a pillar of the Windsor community,” he said.

Both groups fielded questions from Sheila and others in the audience regarding their projected costs for implementation, staffing, expected foot-traffic, and other topics, after which the students and teachers received a round of applause.

“That was exhausting,” Ashley remarked after the presentations, “but I really enjoyed the competition between the teams. That was fun.” Other students expressed satisfaction in the success of their final presentations and relief that the leap of faith they’d taken in this first Innovation Trimester proved to be rewarding — and was now complete.

OWNERSHIP OF INQUIRY The inaugural I-Tri was an experiment in unknowns. How would the students address the series of challenges, and how would each project unfold? Would the businesses and community organizations benefit from the students’ advice? More broadly, would the I-Tri’s approach to learning succeed? Would the students gain creative, effective problem-solving skills and develop an innovative mindset they could apply to their future learning, careers, and lives?

Teachers Jennine Solomon and Timothy Helfrich ’96 work with I-Tri participants in the PHI’s flexible workspace.

The students and their teachers agree that their experiment succeeded, both in the individual projects and in the overall objectives of the course.

Jen and Tim say they saw significant growth in the students’ skills and expansion of their creative thinking from the first major challenge to the last. The students gained experience in collaboration, project management, research, data analysis, public speaking, interviewing, writing, and other skills. Jen and Tim also observed improvements in the students’ confidence, problem-solving ability, and leadership.

Senior Maalik McPherson, who participated in the I-Tri, expects to put the course’s design-thinking methodology into practical use. “I’m going to study engineering in college,” he says. “I think the ideation process we practiced helped develop an engineering mindset for me.”

The main objective of the I-Tri course, Tim says, is for students to approach their learning in a self-directed way — an ability that will enhance their educational, professional, and personal lives as they move on from the Island.

Althea McPherson, Maalik’s mother, also endorses the program. “[The I-Tri] is like an internship, only better,” she says, because the students address real problems, rather than just observing a business or organization in operation.

Taking an I-Tri project from start to finish required more time, mental energy, and physical stamina than the students and their teachers had anticipated, but it was worth the effort. “Challenge” proved to be an appropriate buzzword in their endeavors.

The main objective of the I-Tri course, Tim says, is for students to approach their learning in a self-directed way — an ability that will enhance their educational, professional, and personal lives as they move on from the Island. Or as Mark describes it, the experience “emulates the real world.” For each of the I-Tri challenges this spring, a group’s success depended on individual commitment to the project. Taking ownership over one’s own inquiry and education is also a goal of the PHI. loomischaffee.org

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GROWING ROOTS The students needed much more coaching from Jen and Tim in the beginning of the term than they did by the end, the teachers say.

The first challenge of the term was issued in March by Eliza Florian, owner of Grassroots Ice Cream in Granby: “How can Deep Roots Street Food win Granby?”

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The ice cream shop, located on the village green, opened in 2013, and Ms. Florian expanded the business operation last fall when she opened Deep Roots Street Food, a café that serves lunch and dinner six days per week in the same town center location. The café serves food that reflects Ms. Florian’s commitment to serving individuals and families in the local community by offering high-quality, globally-inspired street food that may be eaten on site or consumed on the go. Ms. Florian sought the students’ help in maximizing her existing customer base to support her new endeavor.

In her interactions with the group, Ms. Florian shared hurdles that she and other entrepreneurs encounter in maintaining and growing small businesses, including having limited funds for investment, striving for a work-life balance, attracting and keeping good employees, and competing against larger businesses.

1 Jewelry: Head of School Sheila Culbert led a jewelrymaking session in the PHI during a community free period.

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2 Toys: Students in the term course Problem Solving for the Common Good designed and built age-appropriate toys for children at Windsor’s Discovery Center. To read more about this project, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

3 Keychains: During Parents Weekend in October, family members tried making Loomis Chaffee keychains with the PHI’s laser-cutting equipment.

4 Tiles: Using recycled plastic, students created prototypes for potential uses of the shredded, melted, and molded material.

5 Playing cards: Students designed and produced playing cards from wood cut into wafer-thin pieces and customized with a laser cutter.

6 Recycled plastic: A plastics shredder in the PHI turns discarded bottles into raw material that can be melted and molded for new uses, a process explored by several students engaged in independent study projects this year.

7 Decals: During “Fun in the PHI” sessions on occasional Sunday afternoons, students and faculty created laptop stickers and window decals using the Cricut Maker, a precision cutting instrument.

Photos: Jessica Ravenelle and Christine Coyle

Made in the PHI

CHALLENGE:

How can Deep Roots Street Food win Granby?

The students split into three groups to develop solutions to Ms. Florian’s challenge. Jen says the students initially struggled to define the kinds of questions they needed to ask to inform their work, and they needed guidance on where to look for information for the empathizing and defining stages of design thinking. But with coaching from Jen and Tim, the students found their way.

Ms. Florian and Stephanie Stanzo, the restaurant manager, came to campus to hear the groups’ proposals in April.

One group proposed augmenting Deep Roots’s popular homemade lemonade drinks with globally-inspired, homemade sodas and in-housebrewed specialty coffee drinks and partnering with the Granby Artists Association to feature local artists’ work on the premises. Another group proposed hosting events like a 5K fun run to coincide with the town’s Open Farm Day in the fall, and open mic nights in the winter. The third group proposed starting a “Roots Rewards” loyalty program that could be managed electronically through a system already in use at the restaurant.

“We want customers to ‘deepen their roots’ at Deep Roots,” said Maalik before his group presented the loyalty program, complete with a detailed cost-benefit analysis.

“I’ve always been against loyalty programs — punch-cards and the like — but your data is changing my mind,” Ms. Florian remarked after the presentation.

Each of the three presenting groups shared the findings and analysis behind their proposals, including available industry and consumer information, and the ways that the proposals aligned with Deep Roots’s business objectives, physical capacity, and, most importantly, Ms. Florian’s guiding philosophy for the Grass Roots and Deep Roots enterprise.

“Wow! You nailed it,” Ms. Stanzo told the I-Tri students when they finished presenting.

Through the Deep Roots project, the I-Tri students began to see design thinking as an effective method for groups to come up with new and unusual ideas — to think “outside the box,” like entrepreneurs.

Opposite Page: The Deep Roots and Grassroots storefronts in Granby center. Above: The I-Tri class discusses ideas during a visit to Deep Roots Street Food. Below: Justin presents a proposal for widening the Deep Roots customer base. Right: Ashley, Daniel, Maalik, and Ryan propose a customer rewards program. Bottom: Associate Head of School Webster Trenchard, Dean of Faculty Andrew Matlack, Deep Roots and Grassroots owner Eliza Florian, and restaurant manager Stephanie Stanzo listen to proposals from the I-Tri students.

“I’ve always been against loyalty programs — punch-cards and the like — but your data is changing my mind,” business owner Eliza Florian remarked.

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On a site visit to Trifecta, the students and teachers toured the 3,500-square-foot former warehouse space where the company grows fresh produce year-round in nutrient-rich, circulating water under lights.

The I-Tri’s second major challenge involved a commercial hydroponic farm in Meriden, Connecticut. Kieran Foran, an entrepreneur and business partner of Trifecta Ecosystems, posed the challenge this way: “Where does Trifecta Ecosystems find the customers for a tenfold increase in production of Weekly Harvest subscription salads?”

On a site visit to Trifecta, the students and teachers toured the 3,500-square-foot former warehouse space where the company grows fresh produce year-round in nutrient-rich, circulating water under lights. Along the tour Mr. Foran explained how a hydroponic farm works and shared a brief history and philosophy of the business, which he said is committed to being community- and ecosystem-focused, sustainable, and data-driven.

“We’re not your typical farmers,” Mr. Foran said, explaining that the business began when he and his college roommate, Spencer Curry, set up a rudimentary hydroponic garden in their Boston apartment and wondered if they could grow enough food indoors to sustain themselves. What began as a hobby, he said, evolved and grew through

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CHALLENGE:

Where does Trifecta Ecosystems find the customers for a tenfold increase in production of Weekly Harvest subscription salads? several iterations from the pair’s first commercial garden in 2013 to its current facility set up in 2017.

The company cultivates a selection of fruits and vegetables that are well-suited for hydroponics, including several varieties of lettuces and salad greens that are in high consumer demand and can be grown in large quantities. Under the brand Weekly Harvest, the company sells its produce at farmers’ markets, through community-supported agriculture programs, and as pre-made “subscription” salads that are compiled and distributed to consumers from the Meriden location.

The subscription salads are the most profitable product for the company, according to Mr. Foran, but the Meriden space has limited capacity and is not ideal for a retail operation. To address this need,

Trifecta recently purchased a 20,000-squarefoot retail farm operation on 3.5 acres in New Britain, Connecticut, which Trifecta will convert to hydroponics. The new location will enable the company to expand its growing capacity to support total production of 2,000 individual salads per week, he explained.

After visiting the Meriden site, the students visited the New Britain farm before breaking into two groups of five to work through the design thinking process for the salad challenge. With the Deep Roots challenge and their other I-Tri experiences fueling their confidence, a healthy competition developed between the two groups.

“We were all strategizing about how we could

Photos: John Groo

YEAR-ROUND SALADS

Left: Salad greens grow in the indoor hydroponic gardens at the Trifecta Ecosystems building in Meriden. Below: The I-Tri class and teachers pause for a photograph during a tour of the hydroponic farm with Trifecta co-founder Kieran Foran (in yellow shirt).

Bottom: Fresh ingredients for the company’s Weekly Harvest subscription salads.

‘win’ the challenge on the bus,” Faith said, though there was no declaration of a winner in any of the projects.

The class returned to Meriden two weeks later to propose their ideas for enhancing the retail space at the New Britain farm to attract more customers and boost salad sales.

The first group offered the name Oat Street Café, a moniker using the farm’s address in New Britain, and proposed a retail operation that would feature healthy, farm-fresh, and locally-sourced breakfast and lunch offerings, especially signature Weekly Harvest salads, with picnic-style seating to appeal to families and college students living in the surrounding area. Some investment in food preparation space via a refrigerated trailer would be required to create the café, but the site would give consumers a more accessible location to collect their weekly salad subscriptions, and while there, they could purchase other specialty items such as bottled juices. Colorful photos of the fresh food would serve as promotions on Instagram, targeting especially the young demographic of students and employees of nearby Central Connecticut State University.

Appealing to Trifecta’s commitment to promoting

sustainable farming and serving local communities, the second team of students proposed forging community relationships in New Britain and the surrounding areas as a way to set down roots for Weekly Harvest and its products. By offering a “Helping Hands” program, whereby people could earn in-kind food vouchers in exchange for volunteer work, and by expanding Trifecta’s existing partnership with local schools and universities through its Farm2X agricultural education programs, the business could promote Weekly Harvest’s healthy locally- and sustainably-grown food. The purchase of a refrigerated truck, the group suggested, could create a mobile storefront from which Trifecta could sell subscription salads and other products at farmers’ markets and other community events, extending the company’s reach to consumers. The company could use the truck for corporate catering, salad prep, and food deliveries, and with an eye-catching logo on the side of the truck, people would see Weekly Harvest along local roadways, the students said.

Mr. Foran thanked the students for their work, which included expense outlays for equipment and other business investments, and said he would pursue their ideas further.

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HELP FOR HOMELESS NEIGHBORS The third major project for the I-Tri students was a departure from the other business-related challenges. On April 9, Deborah Sheldon, social services caseworker for the town of Windsor, revealed the challenge: “What can we do to help homeless people in Windsor?”

“On any given day in Windsor, six to eight people are living in tents, in their cars, or are couch-surfing,” Ms. Sheldon estimated. She explained that social services officials sometimes have to scramble to assemble the items a homeless person might need in the short term. “We hope you can design a takeaway — something that we can have available at the office to help people deal with their immediate situation.”

The students spent several days asking questions, making observations, and conducting research to inform their project. They interviewed case workers, food bank staff, police officers, and others in service to the community to learn what items and information can help people who are homeless and provide some comfort to them.

Senior Burke Perrotta says all the I-Tri students were inspired by Joe’s commitment to helping others in a way that affirms their humanity, so they adopted his “look good, feel good” approach as the guiding principle of their project design.

For this challenge, the students presented their ideas as a unified group to Ms. Sheldon, her colleagues at Windsor Social Services, and other members of town government and service organizations.

The students proposed that Social Services have ready-made kits on hand to give to people experiencing homelessness. The kits would contain resources to address both their functional and emotional needs. Among the positive reactions to the presentation, Ms. Sheldon said she especially appreciated the students’ people-centered approach to helping the homeless.

CHALLENGE:

What can we do to help homeless people in Windsor?

Photos: Jessica Ravenelle and Christine Coyle

At a Mobile Foodshare event in Windsor, sponsored by the regional food bank, and at an ad-hoc Wednesday evening food give-away organized by concerned citizens in Hartford’s Bushnell Park, the students met with community members coping with food insecurity and other concerns related to homelessness. In Bushnell Park, the I-Tri students met Anthony H. Cymerys ’49, known to many as “Joe the Barber” or simply “Joe,” who for many years has regularly

provided free haircuts to the homeless. Joe shared his motto with the students: When a person looks good, he or she feels good.

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The students proposed that Social Services have ready-made kits on hand to give to people experiencing homelessness. The kits would contain resources to address both their functional and emotional needs.

Left: The resource kits were packaged in waterproof bags. Opposite Page: At the weekly Mobile Foodshare event in Windsor, students connect with neighbors in the local community.

In the weeks that followed, the I-Tri students raised money and gathered donations from Loomis students, faculty, and staff; ordered special dry-pack backpacks; and compiled and delivered 25 at-the-ready resource kits to Ms. Sheldon at the community center. The kits contained easy-to-transport supplies like food and toiletries, helpful tools, information about available services, and some small comforts like candy, playing cards, and cozy socks.

“This means the world to all of us,” Ms. Sheldon said.

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“MESSY COLLABORATION” Interspersed between the four major challenges, and rounding out the curriculum, I-Tri activities included workshops with visiting entrepreneurs; a one-day coaching session with the well-known educator Grant Lichtman, who spoke about design thinking; a tutorial about podcast development with faculty members Mary Forrester and Keller Glass from the Loomis Chaffee Office of Strategic Communications & Marketing; and several one- and two-day “mini” challenges.

Visiting entrepreneurs Brian Helfrich ’03 (Tim’s brother) and Andrew Kelleher coached the I-Tri students on a business partnership challenge related to their North Carolina-based venture, Summit Coffee Company. Visiting entrepreneur Grey Parker, chief executive officer of the Michigan industrial design company Sunberg-Ferar, spoke with students about the powerful collaboration of engineering and industrial design.

Like the I-Tri students, Jen and Tim faced unknowns in their teaching of the course. What practical skills would the students need to tackle the challenges? How would Jen and Tim balance students’ need for growth and creativity with the teachers’ need to provide structure to the learning?

proved to be the case. Jen, who also teaches science, says she’s comfortable in the organized structure of classroom teaching, so the I-Tri required her to embrace the discomfort of teaching in an entirely different way.

Just as the I-Tri encouraged students and teachers to step out of their comfort zones, the PHI relied on school community members’ willingness to try something new and learn in different ways to ensure a successful launch and continued interest in the facility’s resources.

And students, faculty, and staff delivered, affirms Scott MacClintic. Students enrolled in PHI courses, teachers brought their classes to the PHI for hands-on lessons, and people from across the Loomis Chaffee community joined in activities like “Fun in the PHI” weekend craft projects, a service-related “hackathon,” and jewelry-making with Sheila during a community free period. People also just stopped in to experiment with a virtual reality headset or to get help with a project.

“Getting to know what you don’t know, and getting comfortable with discomfort” has been the guiding philosophy for this first year in the PHI, according to Scott. By that measure, he says, “we’ve had a great year.”

A fair amount of “messy collaboration” was expected from the start, Tim says, and that

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1 PHI Director Scott MacClintic ’82 leads students as they build a device for recycling and reusing plastic waste on campus.

2 Spanish teacher Lilian deCastillo Hutchinson helps a student who is making a culturally significant object for a Spanish IV assignment.

3 Students in the course History of the Industrial Revolution and the Model T work on miniature car engines in the PHI workshop.

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COLLECTED WISDOM Longtime teachers Sally Knight, Mark Williams, and Jane Phillips retired at the end of this school year. As they turned to the next chapters of their active and engaged lives, we asked them to share some of the wisdom they have collected in their decades of teaching, coaching, and mentoring Loomis Chaffee students. As always, they responded with generosity.

Sally Knight

INTERVIE WS BY

Becky Purdy Sally Zimmer started working at Loomis Chaffee in 1981, immediately after graduating from Wesleyan University. She was hired to teach English and coach boys cross country, winter jogging, and the boys distance runners in track — at a time when a woman coaching boys in any sport was a rarity.

For the first couple of years, she lived on the third floor of then-Gwendolen Hall (on the site of the current Cutler Hall) and served as a dorm affiliate in then-Mason Hall (now Howe Hall). When Carter Hall was built as a girls dorm, she moved there and was affiliated with Carter ever since, even after she moved off campus and even after Carter became a boys dorm in recent years.

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Although she continued to teach English and coach throughout her tenure, Sally also worked in a number of other roles at Loomis, including stints as a writer in the Alumni/Development Office and as a counselor, having earned her counseling degree during a sabbatical year. Several years ago, Sally was named director of writing initiatives, developing and launching the Writing Studio, a cross-curricular mainstay of academic life at Loomis today.

Sally spent most of her growing-up years in Tonga in the South Pacific, where her father worked for the Peace Corps and later started a tourist business. Before Sally entered high school, she and her brother and their mother moved back to the United States, living in Portland, Connecticut, where Sally attended the public high school. (Although Sally did not attend Loomis Chaffee, she has many family ties to the school, including her husband, Peter ’85; son Miles ’10; son Tate ’14; Peter’s sister Jessica Knight Morris ’89; and Jessica’s husband, Jonathan K. Morris ’89.)

Sally was a standout distance runner at Portland High School; at Wesleyan University, where she was later named to the sports Hall of Fame; and as an adidas-sponsored runner after college. The marathon became her specialty. She qualified for her first Boston Marathon when she was still in college and went on to run that storied race many times. She qualified for and competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon in 1984 — the first year women ran the marathon in the Olympics — and in 1988.

During her 38 years at Loomis, Sally taught English at every

grade-level as well as the courses Journalism, Shakespeare, Creative Writing, Satire, Short Story, Contemporary Literature, and Desegregation and Democracy in South Africa, the latter being an English-history interdisciplinary course she taught with Meg Blunden Stoecklin.

What have you learned working at Loomis?

Well, I’ve learned everything I know about teaching. At Wesleyan I took everything that was offered in the educational studies program, and the only thing I didn’t do was student teach. There were too many courses that I wanted to take to give up that time to student teach, and I wasn’t positive that I wanted to go into teaching.

At the time I was still thinking that I might like to go into journalism or writing in some way. I hadn’t yet figured out that there was no way I was going to move to New York City, and if I wanted to pursue that career, that was probably what I ought to do.

I could not have gotten through my first years in teaching without Sam Pierson and Steve Stevenson and Jane Barton Bronk and Adrian Bronk. They were just so generous with materials and time, and Sam Pierson — I didn’t even have to ask. He could just anticipate that I was going to need something, and he would share a binder with me, share quizzes with me. I actually still have, look, I have a little note [she reads a handwritten note on a slip of paper pinned to her office bulletin board]: “Sally, a great discussible statement of Cat’s Cradle theme: Religion is based upon lies that satisfy. Science deals with truths that horrify.” Little notes like that loomischaffee.org

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he would leave me all the time. And I learned to coach. Bill Eaton was the first one to ask me what he thought was a rhetorical question during my interview — “I don’t suppose you want to coach the boys?” — and thought he’d get a “no,” and he got a “yes” from me. He was supportive all the way. I can tell you exactly where I was standing on the Loop when he asked me that question.

Has teaching English changed?

Yes, everything is much more purposeful, I think. It was much more about the canon, and it was a lot more about teaching the books than necessarily teaching the students how to learn independently. Obviously things changed with the simple introduction of Harkness tables. Most of us had long since abandoned any kind of rows of those individual chairdesk ensembles and had made a circle in the classroom or a horseshoe in the classroom for discussions.

But the advent of the Harkness table codified it?

Yes, and it’s been fun figuring out how best to help the students own the Harkness table and really grow into the discussions. I start in the fall by interrupting, doing little time-outs, more frequently to give them feedback. Instead of waiting until the end of a 40-minute discussion, giving them some feedback after maybe 10 minutes if it’s clear that certain people are already speaking more frequently than they ought to in order to create time and space for others. Reminding them it’s great to share their opinions, but we’re not talking about individual opinions as much as about interpretation of the literature and why we’re interpreting it that way, and reminding students to go to the text, go to the text, go to the text. By winter they’ve almost got it. It seems a little stilted, and students will sometimes say it feels stilted. When they get to the spring term, some of what had felt a little bit stilted, like holding back in order to leave space for others, now feels more natural, like the right thing to do, to wait to hear from everyone, to give people the chance to give words to the thoughts. I can’t even imagine having had anything like a Harkness discussion in high school. I don’t think I had a college class that came close to this kind of intensity and these kinds of deep dives until I was taking seminar courses, and that was junior year and senior year once the major had been firmly declared. Even at Wesleyan, where we had relatively small classes, I don’t think it was until my junior or senior year when I had classes with 12 to 15 people.

Beyond the Harkness discussions, what has changed in students’ approach to the subject matter since you started teaching?

Students own the content, they own the learning, more than they did. It may have been that I was young. It may have been that the state of education — whether it was public school or private school — was you went to school because you were supposed to go to school, and you learned the grammar because you were supposed to learn the grammar. And you got good grades because you’d always gotten good grades and that was the expectation. My sense is that students now are investing themselves not just because it’s what they’re supposed to be doing. They can see that what they’re doing now may just have some relevance to what they’re going to be doing years from now. Not everything, not always,

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but more so than in the past. And part of that is because more and more we’re teaching the skills of reading and the skills of writing.

How have you changed as a teacher?

I was terrified to tears walking through the door on my first day, and it wasn’t just my first day; it was probably my second, third, fourth, a month. In between classes I would go back to my office, and I’d just sit there and pore over my notes for my classes and change the order of things. I had such detailed lesson plans. I don’t think a word came out of my mouth that I hadn’t rehearsed the night before. I would never have had the confidence to just wing it and throw up some sentence on the board and then do a grammar lesson with it. It’s so nice now to know that all I have to do is say to myself, “OK, a little bit of introduction on F. Scott Fitzgerald, and let’s talk a little bit more about why we talk about World War I poetry before we go into The Great Gatsby.” Before, I had three pages of notes on all the things I wanted to say. So it’s a far more organic approach, and if I forget to say something about Fitzgerald’s father’s failure as a businessman, it’s not the end of the world. I’m going to talk about something else. I’ve also learned that we’re never going to cover everything that I think it would be wonderful if we could cover, and that’s OK. Any of the students who come to care passionately about reading, writing, literature will take more courses in college, and they’ll cover more then — and even then they won’t get it all.

You’re a big reader. Has that always been true of you?

I was reading early, and when we went to the South Pacific, there was no television, no radio except for one radio station that played only from dawn to dusk and not at all on Sundays, no public library in Tonga, and only the Mormon compound library as a place that I could go get books.

The Mormons offered to let me use the library, so we would go there once a week, and I would get seven books. I would read a book a day, and we would go back. Other than that, I just kept rereading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series. I had all of those. I still do, paperback, falling apart, but I will never get rid of them. And we would get over to Fiji from Tonga a couple times a year, and Fiji had bookstores, Tonga did not. Well, there was one Christian bookstore. But there are no books written in Tongan, so why have a bookstore, why have a library? So we’d

get over to Fiji, and I’d save all my allowance money and spend all my money on the Enid Blyton books, which were The Secret Seven and The Famous Five. Her books are the equivalent of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books in the U.K.

[When I started teaching,] I didn’t know how to make a good test or a good quiz. I adopted a lot of what Sam and Jane and Adrian did. I’d ask questions because they were on their quizzes. Or I gave quizzes that looked like quizzes that had been given to me. If you were to ask me why I gave those quizzes, [I probably would have answered], “I don’t know.

So the kid can get an A on them, prove they retained it.”

When did you start running?

I ran in Tonga actually. They had a house system in our school, and I competed for my house. I ran the half mile. And we were running barefoot on dirt tracks, under the watchful eye of the king, who would come out and watch all the interscholastic competitions. It was too hot to run in the afternoons, and so practice was before school. I would wake up to my alarm clock in the dark, and my dad would bike with me because it was dark. We’d get there just before the sun was coming up. And then he’d leave, and I’d be allowed to bike home by myself because it would be light by the time practice was over. In Portland I have no recollection how or why I joined the cross country team. I probably just did because people did.

What would you advise new teachers not to worry about?

I thought every single class had to be perfect, and I needed to get everything done that I’d planned on doing. It did not take me 38 years to learn it; it took me only three or four years to learn that I was probably never going to complete everything that I planned to complete in a single class period no matter how modest of a lesson plan I had — and that that was absolutely OK. Either we pick up the pieces and wrap it up the next time or we just put some closure on it, and it’s OK. The learning’s never done.

The topic’s never going to be exhausted.

What about advice for new coaches?

With new coaches, it’s the same thing. You need to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. It helps the athletes just as it helps the students that they know why they are doing what they’re doing, that there’s a method to the madness. Why are we doing these? And why this much rest? And then they own it. And they can question it too. There’s no one thing that works for everybody anyway. It’s the challenge of a classroom and a challenge of a team that, as small as our classes are and as many coaches as we might have to a large team, these are group endeavors and activities and experiences. While we work with individuals, it is a collective in the end. We want to get to know how each of our students learns best, but we can’t always accommodate that every single minute of every single class or every single aspect of every single item on the syllabus. Same thing with the workouts.

What advice would you give to new teachers, particularly about what they should focus on and what they should not focus on?

Be deliberate with assignments: What am I hoping a student will achieve or show in the process of taking this quiz or test? And how is it preparing them for what we’re going to do next? That’s so much easier said than done until you’ve taught it one time, or two times, or three times, or four times. I mean, I was doing things this spring, and I thought, “Why didn’t I do this before?” This spring for the first time ever I gave The Great Gatsby major paper topic before we even started reading Great Gatsby. I’d never done that before. Oh my gosh, this was probably one of the best sets ever of Gatsby papers. And it took me 38 years to figure that one out.

Sally and Peter look forward to moving to the Connecticut coast, where they own a family summer cottage and plan to build a year-round home in its place over the next year. In the meantime, Sally will ready their Bloomfield home for sale and begin pursuing her many other interests in earnest. Happily for Loomis, she has agreed to continue coaching boys cross country with head coach Andrew Bartlett in the fall, and possibly track in the spring.

To read Community Honors event tributes to Sally by colleagues Andrew Bartlett and Fred Seebeck, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

Fall 1987: Sally joins a circuit workout with her cross country athletes.

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Mark Williams History teacher Mark Williams joined the Loomis Chaffee faculty in 1975 after teaching junior high school social studies for five years in the Windsor Public Schools. A 1970 graduate of Yale University, where he majored in history and earned a state teaching certificate, Mark has always believed in empowering students to do the learning rather than, as a teacher, simply imparting knowledge to students.

Role-plays, group work, open-ended questions, and a willingness to let students wrestle with ideas — even when that meant prolonged silences while his students pondered questions he raised in class — have characterized his Loomis history courses for 44 years. Along the way, Mark also served as head of the History Department, mentored new teachers, advised the Student Council, coached swimming, and lived with his family in Maher House, a small dormitory that housed some of the school’s first boarding girls.

Mark taught a wide range of courses for the History Department through the years, including U.S. History, Constitutional History, Native American History, History of Women in America, Races, Immigrants, Community Studies, and instruction assistantships. He served as advisor to many student independent studies in history, and he developed a number of new courses, most recently History from the Inside Out: Uncovering the Roots and Legacies of the Early Modern World. He also has never stopped learning. He earned a master’s degree in education/history from University of Connecticut in 1975 and a Ph.D. in early American history from Yale in 2006. His dissertation, The Brittle Thread of Life: Backcountry People Make a Place for Themselves in Early America, was published by Yale University Press in 2009, and he has authored and co-authored many other articles, textbooks, reviews, books, and curricular materials.

A historian as well as a history teacher, Mark has taken an active role in the historical study of Granby, Connecticut, where Mark and his wife, Myck, live. His 1996 book A Tempest in a Small Town: The Myth and Reality of Country Life — Granby, Connecticut, 1680–1940, won awards from the Connecticut League of Historical Societies and the Association for the Study of Connecticut History for its scholarship in local history. Most recently, Mark has been working to create historical signs at Holcomb Farm, a property in Granby that is on the National Register of Historical Places. Mark and Myck have raised six children, all of whom attended Loomis with the youngest graduating this spring. They are Adam ’92, Amy ’94, Benjamin ’98, Taegan ’09, Kaily ’11, and Quincy ’19.

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What are your plans for the near future?

We will continue to live in West Granby. It’s a wonderful place, and we love our old (175 years old) house. It does keep us busy, but we want to do some traveling. I also hope to continue to do historical research and public history projects. I’ve written a number of books and articles about poor people and backcountry people in the early modern period — I call my field “riff-raff studies” — and I’d like to do more of that. Right now, I’m involved in saving a cemetery and an old tobacco barn as well as erecting historical signs in the area to educate the public about the New England past, with the historic district in which we live as illustration.

What have you learned during your career at Loomis?

I’ve certainly learned a lot during my time teaching at LC, but probably the most important is that one of the best ways to learn is by teaching. Even in my 48th year teaching history I learn something new every day. Another “most important” thing I’ve learned is to always pay close attention when my wife makes a suggestion about what I should say to or do with my students. She’s a smart mom and an accomplished teacher herself, and she pushes us all to do our best and expect the best of others.

How has your teaching changed or evolved during your tenure?

I don’t think the style of my teaching or the methods I’ve used have changed much. The content has, of course, as there are changes in historiography, and there has been a lot of that. And I’ve incorporated a lot of my own research and curriculum development projects into my teaching as I’ve gone along. But I was pretty lucky in college and in my first job teaching junior high school to be exposed to some great ideas and research about teaching, and those have been constants with me ever since. They were very forward thinking, and a lot of what is considered “innovative” today was already being discussed and tried out in the ’70s. Things like: putting the onus on the student to do the work; getting students to ask questions themselves and be curious; respecting students in their capacity for higher-order thinking, even fourth-graders; using games, role plays, films, museums, and other forms of experiential learning; having students work in small groups and having them generally collaborate; each student or group being responsible for sharing results of individual or group investigations; and so on. Of course, I’m always thinking about how I’ll change things the next time I teach them — I even caught myself doing that this year a few times.

How has the history discipline changed? Has emphasis on certain skills shifted, for instance?

When I was in college and my first round of graduate school, social history, history of ordinary people, was just making its appearance.

I was certainly caught up with that and the new kinds of questions and sources involved there. In more recent years, post-modernism and post-colonialism have become important, as well as the return of narrative writing. I had to go back to a second round of graduate school to get my Ph.D. to get myself up to speed with all that.

Interpretation and analysis skills are still very important, but now there’s more on top of that.

What advice would you give to a new teacher in your field?

For history teachers, I would tell them they’ve got to get away from the way they were taught in college. Lecturing just doesn’t do it for teenagers. And new teachers should forget about the way most of them were taught in high school. Get out of your own classroom and observe, observe, observe. Look for new, exciting, and fun exercises that make the kids think and imagine. Don’t be lazy about assigning short papers just because you don’t want to spend a lot of time reading them — teaching them to write is something they will thank you for forever. A lot of young people in college who aren’t sure what to do with their lives often say, “I can always teach.” But, in a lot of cases, they can’t. It takes special communications and empathy skills to be a good teacher of adolescents. Some of it is an art, some of it must come naturally, and some of it can be learned by studying psychology. If you haven’t got it, you’ll know soon enough. Pay attention. Whatever the case, don’t assume that because you know some history, you can teach it. Also, be constantly humble enough always to be thinking about how you will do it better next time. Make notes on that. Finally, history is meant to be done as much as it is meant to be read about. It isn’t that it’s important for everyone to be his or her own historian; it’s just more fun to engage in putting the pieces together as historians do. Then when you read the professionals, you can appreciate them more.

What has changed and what has stayed the same about the way students approach learning history?

If you’re talking about the way it’s taught, we’ve always had a great variety of approaches in our department, and so it’s hard to talk in terms of changing trends. If you’re talking about the expectations of the kids themselves coming in, that’s pretty much stayed the same.

Most, unfortunately, are used to history as rote learning, or reading textbooks and answering questions at the end of chapters — that is, looking up and copying text. They are blown away when they get to LC and we expect them to think. What’s not changed is that LC is a big change for most kids.

What has it been like to see all your children go through Loomis, especially across so many years?

I think the school has been good for all of them. Myck and I have been frustrated from time to time when we thought there were activities or programs that were interfering with the core purpose of the school — sometimes people tend to go overboard, or don’t factor in the day student commute. But our kids have had a lot of great teachers, and I’ve actually had the pleasure to teach all of them myself and share with them what I love. My wife and I have enjoyed watching them grow and learn, and we’ve loved being able to watch all six of them play three seasons of sports. The school has grand ideals and works hard to live up to them. It’s also a unique place in many ways. There really isn’t a place I would rather have had them go to high school.

And that’s a big part of why I stayed all these years.

To read a Community Honors event tribute to Mark by his colleagues Rachel Engelke and Karen Parsons, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

May 2019: Members of the Williams clan celebrate Quincy’s graduation from Loomis Chaffee. Photo: Island Photo

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Jane Phillips Jane Phillips grew up on a farm in rural Connecticut, summers on an island in Maine, and describes herself as “an outdoorsy kind of girl,” so while teaching environmental science and biology was her second career, it was in many ways like coming home.

Jane arrived at Loomis Chaffee in 2001, and in the ensuing 18 years, she saw the field of environmental science explode, both as a course of study and as a prominent topic in the news.

Enrollment in the year-long environmental science course at Loomis grew rapidly; one year her entire teaching load was Advanced Placement Environmental Science classes. In recent years the Science Department has added environmental term courses, such as Ecology, and Human Populations and Impact, and colleges and universities have expanded what was typically a single major in environmental science into multiple majors.

Jane majored in nutrition in college but realized that she would need to work in a hospital or in a large city to put her degree to use, and neither option appealed to her. She decided instead to enroll in law school and specialize in consumer law, and after earning her law degree, she worked as a compliance officer in a bank. When she was in her 40s, though, she returned to Connecticut College to pursue a master’s degree in teaching and science, and then she accepted the job at Loomis.

In addition to teaching, Jane coached squash, field hockey, and soccer and served as a faculty representative to the Board of Trustees. She and her husband, Earl, live in the rural town of Middle Haddam, Connecticut. Their two sons, Scott and Morgan, both attended Loomis.

What was it like to start teaching after having a different previous career?

I’ll never forget my first day of teaching. My first day was 9/11.

I had not taught before and had never been inside of a dorm. I had just had my first bio class. I come out, and kids are walking around, and I hear someone saying, “And then the plane hit the Pentagon,” and I’m thinking, “Wow, they have really good imaginations around here. They must have been in a writing class.” And then it just all broke loose. I was entering dorms I’d never been in to see how people were doing, and of course then all the worst video was being shown. The school decided to have classes, and kids could go to class if they wanted to be there or if they wanted the normalcy. It was a long day.

How did you become interested in teaching environmental science?

My father taught biology and ecology. This was way back, around the first Earth Day, so I’ve always had that strong leaning. I’m an outdoorsy kind of girl. I grew up on a farm. It was a chicken farm in very rural Connecticut: Hampton. It’s way out past Willimantic.

In fact, my high school was three towns with 50 kids in my graduating class. The town had under 1,000 population. Rural is good for me. I’m comfortable when it’s rural.

What have you learned in 18 years in teaching?

I’ve learned how much I don’t know. It’s very humbling to be with a really strong faculty — and exciting at the same time.

Something that I didn’t learn but appreciated all along is the camaraderie within our department. The Science Department is close and helpful to each other. We’ve had members of the department with serious illnesses, and no one says, “How much are you going to pay me to cover for someone?” It’s just, “When do you need me?” It’s been very good that way. And everyone shares. It’s not like, “I did that. You can’t have it.” It’s, “What do you need? How can I help you?” We share exams, we share quizzes, different ideas, so it’s very collaborative. I don’t think there’s any science teacher I wouldn’t feel comfortable going up to and asking questions in my subject or a different subject.

What else have you learned here?

I came here from a public school perspective. And I remember saying to my husband, “I don’t know if I can teach in a private school. They’re all going to be snobs.” And what I learned was that kids are kids, and they all need guidance. I’ve learned to appreciate that kids are the same across the board.

What advice would you give someone who is new to teaching?

Having a mentor teacher is very important. And I’m not good about this, but I would recommend that after every unit, sit down and write down what you will do next year to improve it, what you did, what worked, what you can improve. [Science teacher] Betsy Conger is the master of this. She is highly organized. She puts me to shame.

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What changes have you seen in the subject matter that you teach?

I have to constantly be researching as I go along because so much keeps changing and so much is happening. Some people teach environmental science based on every Tuesday’s New York Times science section. They read that and teach based on what’s happening now. I have a syllabus plan, but I use what is happening to turn to different subjects along the way. So when there was the 2011 tsunami in Japan, we talked about that and how it affected the environment. Or during the wild fires in California, we learned about how the environment was involved. We are learning so much through research.

Have students’ attitudes toward this field of study changed in your years here?

Environmental science is where I feel I can change kids’ attitudes.

Environmental science used to be the outside course. Eighteen years ago I had to convince students that climate change was real. Now they come in knowing it exists and wanting to know what to do about it. Now they are less excited about learning the properties of water and other things, but as they learn about it — for instance, the main reason for sea level rise isn’t melting of the ice cap but warming of the ocean water because as it heats up, it expands — once they learn about these qualities, they understand how it applies to what is happening and what can be done. We also talk about the psychology of how to change behavior. The percentage of people who recycle is pretty steadily 30 percent because that’s the percentage of people who already care about it and will do it. How do you grow that and change people’s behavior so more people recycle?

What’s the cottage in Maine like?

It’s on an island in Casco Bay. It’s actually one of the old ticket booths for ferries, so it’s small, but I love it. [She shows photos of the house on the rocky shore, with a porch overhanging the water.] At high tide the water’s under the house. It’s on a 10th of an acre. When we closed, we have a friend who said, “You know, you really haven’t bought anything. It’s a 10th of an acre.” And I said, “Yeah, but what a 10th of an acre!” We used to go down and sit on that rock and eat lunch. You could buy stuff at the little general store, a little tiny store. And we’d look over and say, “Ah, can you imagine?” We kayak, and we’d say, “We could kayak, and —” And then the next year it went up for sale. It’s like it was meant to be.

What will you miss about Loomis Chaffee?

Like any place, the heart of the place is the people. I will miss the people. The students keep you young, and the faculty keep you grounded.

What are your plans going forward?

I chose to retire so I could do things. It’s not because I don’t enjoy teaching or that I’m tired of Loomis. I think Loomis is wonderful. I think the school does so many things right, and I’m always in awe of my peers, of how much they know. The first year and a half [of retirement] I’m going to be redoing our house in case we want to sell, and if not, we have the house the way we want it. It’s an 1806 house. The wallpaper that we put in 28 years ago is peeling. There’s painting that needs doing. There’s scraping. There are floors that need refinishing. I’ll do all of that, but it’s not gutting it and redoing it. It’s interior redoing. I don’t want to redesign it. We like 1806. So that’s just forward-looking. I spend most of my summers in Maine on a little island in a little cottage. I do jewelry. I make quilts. I work with my hands all the time. I want to do more volunteer work. I’d love to raise a puppy for a seeing-eye dog and then give it away after a year.

Everyone says, “How could you give it away?” Someone has to do it in order for people to have a seeing-eye dog. I always have more than one dog around. And I keep bees. There are just so many things I want to do.

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S

tudents who meet with Director of Studies Timothy Lawrence in his office encounter a fantastical assortment of desktop toys, perfectly suited for whimsical imaginations, fidgety hands, and the child in all of us. Tim started collecting the toys when he worked in the Office of College Guidance, where students instinctively reached for the wind-up gizmos

and twisting puzzles while they discussed the often stressful process of applying to and choosing a college.

When Tim moved to the Academic Office, the menagerie continued to expand, partly from his own curation and partly from gifts from students he has advised.

Amidst the tools of an academic dean, English teacher, and musician, the toys serve as a reminder of life’s sillier side.

Faculty Desks TIMOTHY L AWRENCE

Greek bouzouki, one of many instruments that Tim plays

Jar of M&M’s, a favorite of students and Head of School Sheila Culbert

A diverse gathering of characters: Wolverine meets Cartman, Kermit, and Tim Burton’s Tragic Toys

A hologram generator; it’s even spookier in person.

A Rube Goldberg-esque gadget that walks across desks and climbs stacks of books

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY

J E S S I C A R AV E N E L L E

O bject Le sson

Building a Clockcase from an 18th-Century Sketch

By KAREN PARSONS Loomis Chaffee History Teacher & School Archivist

Around 1752, artisan Timothy Loomis III (1724–1786) of Windsor opened his practice book, found a blank page among the remaining leaves at the back, and began to draw. As he drafted the likeness of a tall case clockcase, Loomis included some — but not all — of the case’s measurements, penned notations about its decorative elements, and sketched a fashionable mid-18th-century pagoda top and a flame finial. The drawing has been identified by historian William Hosley as one “of the earliest known proportional diagrams by a New England furniture maker,” and with it Loomis demonstrated his extensive knowledge of joinery gained during apprenticeships, presumably in Windsor and Hartford.

Perhaps the drawing functioned as a teaching tool for apprentices working alongside him. Or it may have enticed potential clients who considered hiring Loomis for building or remodeling their houses and barns and for crafting fine, high style furniture.

Timothy Loomis never imagined his sketch would guide a much later group of apprentices working in the Pearse Hub for Innovation (PHI) at the school that his distant cousins would found in 1874.

When Loomis became a joiner, he followed in family footsteps. His father, grandfather, and two uncles had worked as joiners. In time, his sons, Timothy IV and George, continued the practice. Timothy III updated at least one room in the Loomis Homestead in Windsor and constructed furniture in 1760 for his aunt and uncle, who lived there. The Loomis Chaffee Archives and the Connecticut Historical Society hold Loomis’ business records, including the practice book and his account books. Hosley’s detailed analysis of this evidence, “Timothy Loomis and the Economy of Joinery in Windsor, Connecticut, 1740–1786,” fleshes out Loomis’ diversified and flexible career in joinery, defining him as a preeminent artisan of his time and place. A traditional approach to

making objects and to the business of being a maker — forged through kinship, training, and opportunity — shaped his constructions and his list of customers. While some would have regarded Loomis’ furniture as “overbuilt,” loyal clients who could afford this labor-intensive craftsmanship would probably have said his work demonstrated quality and integrity. In 1753, not long after drafting his sketch, Loomis built a tall case clock for Jonathan Ellsworth. His account books record other clockcases, and furniture scholars attribute a few extant clockcases to Loomis, although none are signed examples.

Students in my Digital History course this year took on the challenge of building Loomis’ clockcase. Using design software to craft templates and laser-cut pieces for 1:4 prototypes (first in cardboard, then in birch plywood), each of three groups constructed a portion of the clockcase. What Loomis left out of his sketch played as pivotal a role as what he included. Calculating the missing measurements, transforming the design into a three-dimensional object, and — most significantly — interpreting the assumptions behind the drawing resulted in collaborative and unscripted problem-solving sessions. Moving from the first to the second iteration of the prototype required patience and a full-class debrief of work done to-date. To make decisions about the steps necessary to achieve Loomis’ design, the students had to use a variety of skills, including critical thinking and empathy, as they sought to understand Loomis’ artisan mindset. With the steady guidance of the PHI faculty, they gained 21st-century skills and deeper understandings about what it means to be a maker and to work alongside other makers. At the end of the project, they reflected on their experience.

One senior noted, “I learned that I can do more than I think I can.”

Timothy Loomis might very well have hoped this for his own apprentices as they too became makers. loomischaffee.org

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Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

Cl a ss No tes

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Cl ass Not e s

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1957

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Bradford L. Tinkham retired to Masonic Village, Pa., and gave up his pilot’s license and real estate license. He leads an apolitical weekly discussion group called The Inquisitives, which he reports meets with “minimum bloodshed.”

Dave Caley and friend Jay Osgood were guests of Rich Donnelly and Barb Donnelly in Bonita Springs, Fla. They also enjoyed dinner in Naples hosted by Dave Long and Judy Long, took in a Yankees-Red Sox game, and toured Everglades National Park.

Dave spoke by phone with Denny Goodrich, who is a retired rabbi.

Craig Stewart and his wife, Val, continue to enjoy living in the Northwest. Craig reports that while he continues to work, Val is spearheading the construction of their new home in Port Townsend, Wash. They see their children and grandchildren weekly.

Barry O’Neal wrote a small play that was performed at his church to what he describes as “some acclaim.” He continues to compose music, write poetry, and delight in his (almost) 12-year-old granddaughter.

1948 Active in the Herb Society of America and lay minister of St. Matthew’s Church in Bradford, N.Y., Patricia Beach Thompson writes and lectures on herbal topics such as “Women Through the Ages” and “Herbal Journey Through Literature.”

1949 Beverly Lyon Ellis had a wonderful visit in Hawaii for 10 days to celebrate her birthday. She was accompanied by her daughter, Cathy, and two of her nieces and their families. While there, Beverly visited with her three sons, three grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

1952 Stephen Solomon feels great at 85 years old. He reports, “I play golf five times per week.”

Frank R. Cook has been married to his 1952 prom date for 66 years. They returned early from Florida this winter, and Frank quips that the state “is a good fit for our president.”

Dorothy Smith Pam was recently elected to the Amherst Town Council in Massachusetts for a three-year term. “We are building a new government from the ground up,” she reports. She loves the way that Windsor has kept its town commons, and she’s “working to preserve some of the small New England feel” of Amherst.

CHAFFEE BOOK CLUB

Michael Olds remembers with fondness George Warren’s Problems of Democracy class, in which he was challenged to read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital and find flaws in Marx’s logic and conclusions — all during the height of the McCarthy era.

“Life has been very busy and I feel very blessed,” says Marcia Goodale. Marcia is focused on her roles on a summer gala committee for her local hospital and hospice volunteering. She had a “life-changing” trip to Africa in October 2018 and is looking forward to going to Italy this fall.

She takes the Italy trip, designed by her daughter’s company, L’esperta, every two years with a group.

The May gathering of the Chaffee Book Club was led by two members of the Modern and Classical Languages Department, Michael Anderson and Sara Deveaux, who facilitated a lively dialogue about Madeline Miller’s Circe.

Attendees included (seated): Mims Brooks Butterworth ’36, Katie Cox Reynolds ’45, Gretchen Schafer Skelley ’45, Jenefer Carey Berall ’59, and Betsy Mallory MacDermid ’66; and (standing): discussion leaders Michael and Sara, Anne Schneider McNulty ’72, Beverley Earle ’68, Betty Collins ’72, Kate Butterworth de Valdez ’67, and Priscilla Ransom Marks ’66.

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Cl ass Not e s

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1 3 1 Teachers and students working on an Innovation Trimester project ran into Joe Cymerys ’49 in Bushnell Park in Hartford this spring. Pictured are seniors Rishi Basu, Mark Valadez, Justin Cordero, Joe, and teachers Jennine Solomon and Tim Helfrich ’96.

5

2 Beth Garvin Myette ’80 and Liz Mandeville Stryjewski ’81 met up at the USA Hockey National Championship tournament in Ellenton, Fla., in May, after having played hockey together at Loomis 39 years ago.

3 Bruce Alexander ’61 ran Bay to Breakers, an iconic 12-kilometer race in San Francisco, with his son and grandson in May. While warming up, he ran into fellow Trustee and racer Neville Bowers ’01 among the 20,000 participants.

4 Michael O’Malley ’74 has been a guide on the rivers of California, Oregon, and Idaho for 40 years.

5 Dwinette E. Johnson ’86, a member of the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County’s Board of Directors

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“Happily retired, keeping busy with aikido martial arts, and training for a brown belt,” Cynthia Knox writes.

She continues to ride dressage and works part time consulting for a biotech company.

Mary Saners’s book What Else You Got? (Head Wind Publishing) has been dubbed a “fun read that’s also a must-have primer with timeless tips for anyone entering the media today.”

Mary’s award-winning documentary on teen pregnancy helped launch her radio career, but it’s her smoky voice and her fascination with people that has sent her around the nation producing shows for NPR, CBS, Voice of America, and more. Through her love of sports and her nose for off beat stories, like the circus camp for kids and the luxury cat hotel in Maine, she has worked alongside some of radio’s greats, and she generously shares what she has learned along the way in her new book.

1963 After writing more than 20 nonfiction works focused on Chinese military and intelligence history, Ralph D. Sawyer recently released two novels of historical intrigue, Assassin’s Quandary: An Intrepid Healer in Early China and Solitary Subversives.

The former is the tale of a young physician coerced into becoming a reluctant assassin, the latter one of two young New England brothers who resort to deception, the “ploy of suffering flesh,” and explosive theatrics in an attempt to prevent the War of 1812.

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Cl ass Not e s

ABOVE Loomis Class of 1969 — 50th Reunion: (front) Tom Shea, John Kaufmann, David Broughel, Doug Carnrick, James King, Pete DeStefano, Peter Brophy, Vincent Arguimbau, John Jenkins, Robert Wilson, Peter Hicks, Steve Nightingale, Al Freihofer, Peter Nelson, and Bruce Davis; (second row, seated) Bill Lippincott, Eric Ross, Sandy Cutler, Peter Kahn, Jim Parton, David Brawer, Bob Barr, Kit Miguel, Maurizio Martelli, and Bill Graham; and (back) Fred Sweitzer, Paul Kingston, Brit Lay, Andy Smith, Win Quayle, Eric Minck, Rob Stevenson, Rick Carey, Ted Li, Kurt Lauenstein, John Cowan, Brett Lebhar, Bill Beckett, Jeffrey Cullen, Alex McNeily, Ted Mooney, Del Shortliffe, Stewart Schaffer, Brian Rooney, Rich Osborne, Ken Brooks, Phil Dodd, Jim Casserly, and Rich Spillane. Attended Reunion but missing from photo: Geoff Bishop, Bruce Blackwell, Marcus McGee, Mike Merrill, and Tony Weil.

Photo: Nicole Bushey

1974 Michael O’Malley is a contributor to a lively collection of river rafting stories, Halfway to Halfway and Back. He is entering his 40th season as a guide on the rivers of California, Oregon, and Idaho.

achievements, making our lives immeasurably better.” Steven, a professor of applied mathematics at Cornell University, has written three books, including his latest, Infinite Powers.

LEFT Chaffee Class of 1969 — 50th Reunion: (front) Sharon Leyhow, Perri Orenstein Courtheoux, Anne Baker Lewis, Megan O’Neill, Merrill Bunce Hurst, Amy Silliman Avedisian, and Carol Coe Fowler; (middle row) Kathy Duke Roby, Maureen Daly Hamm, Betsy Pelgrift Boak, Deborah Dunsmore Fraser, Nan Booth, Kathryn Coe ’71, and Betty Sudarsky Bradley; and (back) Sharon Smith, Wendy West Nelson, Katrina Vernlund Hill, Eleanor Brushwood, Suzanne Nolan, Franci Vinal Farnsworth, Alice Vernlund Ford, and Toni Simms Pollard.

Attended Reunion but missing from photo: Susan Skelley. Photo: Nicole Bushey

1977 1976 Actor, director, and writer Alan Alda interviewed Steven Strogatz at a public event at the 92nd Street Y in New York City this spring. The nonprofit community and cultural center promoted the event as an opportunity to hear Steven’s “brilliant and endlessly appealing explanation of calculus — how it works and why it’s one of humankind’s greatest intellectual

On April 12, Deborah Baker gave a reading and led a discussion on her book The Last Englishmen: Love, War, and the End of an Empire at the University of Virginia’s Institute of the Humanities & Global Cultures. Deborah has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Biography and the National Book Award. She was awarded the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant in 2016 for her work on The Last Englishmen.

For a photograph of the Chaffee Class of 1969 and Loomis Class of 1969 together, visit www.loomischaffee.org/magazine.

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1980

Chaffee Scholarship Fund Established by Chaffee Alumnae

K. Heidi Fishman was featured in a CNN article on May 2 about Polish diplomats who helped Jews escape Nazi death camps by forging Paraguayan passports for them. Her grandparents, Heinz and Margret Lichenstein, were given Paraguayan passports, which helped save them from being transported to Auschwitz. After the war, the passports aided their return to Amsterdam and helped Heinz to continue working. For a link to the article, visit www.loomischaffee. org/magazine.

1986 Dwinette E. Johnson was elected to serve a three-year term on the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County’s Board of Directors, commencing on March 1. The Legal Aid’s mission is to provide high-quality civil legal advice, representation, and education free of charge to disadvantaged children, families, and individuals in Palm Beach County. Board membership allows Dwinette to combine her legal skills with her community service work. She has participated in public service programs empowering the communities in which she has lived for the better part of 30 years. She is excited about the opportunity to continue to serve her local community in this capacity.

The school is pleased to announce the establishment of the Chaffee Scholarship Fund, thanks to a gift from an anonymous Chaffee alumna and a bequest from Gay Leffel ’55. This endowed fund “honors the legacy, intellectual rigor, and spirit of The Chaffee School, which opened its doors in 1927 before joining with The Loomis School in 1970 and becoming The Loomis-Chaffee School in 1972. It is to be awarded to a deserving girl, with preference for a day student, whose family qualifies for need-based financial aid.”

“I recently published a collection of the first three years of my comic strip Pet Peeves, which is published three days a week online and in various print newspapers around the country,” reports David London. You can read more about David’s comic at his website www.petpeevescomic.com and purchase his book on Amazon.

1989 Sue Henshon recently published Winter Haiku, Spring Haiku, and Summer Haiku, collections of lyrical poetry, on Amazon Kindle. Her newest book, Teaching Empathy: Strategies for Building Emotional Intelligence in Today’s Student, was accepted

by Prufrock Press for publication in September 2019.

1992 For more information on how you can add to this scholarship fund or join the John Metcalf Taylor Society, please contact Associate Director of Development Heidi E.V. McCann ’93 at 860.687.6273 or heidi_mccann@loomis.org. www.loomischaffee.org/plannedgiving

Around the Sun, a movie written by Jonathan Kiefer, premiered at the Cleveland International Film Festival in March.

A tale of “love, reason, and realizing you’re not the center of the universe,” it stars Cara Theobold and Gethin Anthony.

RIGHT Loomis Chaffee Class of 1994 — 25th Reunion: (front) Temp Keller, Ben DiFabio, Anubha Sacheti, Francesca Cecchi, Amy Williams Lunding, and Alex Lunding; and (back) David Bilas, Jason Karp, Adam Meyers-Spector, Aaron Abrams, Matt Griffin, and Katherine Galbreath Nogaki. Photo: John Groo

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Economics Students Learn from Alumni in Finance

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Alumni working at Citigroup and Slack hosted 20 Loomis Chaffee economics students who were visiting New York City for an experiential learning trip at the end of May. Economics teachers Liz Leyden and Mat DeNunzio organized the trip for their students to apply classroom work to real-world experiences and to dispel myths about working on Wall Street.

At Citigroup, the first stop of the day, Managing Director Ben DiFabio ’94 arranged for students to meet with junior members of the Investment Banking Group, who explained their work and answered the students’ many questions. Jen Podurgiel ’96, vice president of Global Securitized Markets at Citigroup, led the second presentation of the day, giving a tour of two trading floors and discussing the work of that section of the bank. She also shared her background and career path from a master’s degree in electrical engineering to the trading floor of Citigroup 18 years ago.

In the afternoon, the students visited the Flat Iron District offices of Slack, where Jonathan Prince ’85 is head of strategic communications and senior advisor to the chief executive officer. Jonathan welcomed the students to the office and introduced them via video conference to Fareed Mosavat ’97, director of product, Lifecycle. Fareed provided an overview of Slack and his background working for tech start-ups and answered students’ questions on topics ranging from how Slack makes money to what he likes most about his job.

After the trip, the students took what they had learned and presented their research in blogs, videos, podcasts, bulletin boards, and articles as their final class projects.

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4 1 Judy Parish Oberting ’87 (far left) and Associate Director of College Guidance Kathleen O’Keefe Wiggenhauser ’95 (second from right) faced off as coaches of their sons’ peewee hockey teams in a home-andaway series last winter. In addition to sharing Pelican hockey roots, Judy coached Kathleen in hockey at Dartmouth College.

2 Alex Buis ’13 in concert.

3 Betty Stolpen ’04 married Adam Brett Weiner on March 9 at the Bowery Hotel in New York City.

Betty is a major gifts officer at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and serves on the Head’s Council at Loomis.

4 Lucas Reed Dolce holds his baby sister, Charlotte Kay Dolce.

Their proud parents are Candice Naboicheck Dolce ’99 and Michael Dolce ’99.

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A lumni G at her i ngs

ABOVE Commencement 2019: Graduates and alumni family members gather in front of Huntington Wall: (front) seniors Joe Sanderson, Grayson Hall, Silvia Mayo, Grace Lyons, Harrison Raddock, Max Wice, Sage MacClintic, Jacqueline Cleary, Lucas Scheuer, and Tarquin Hanson; and (back) Maureen Crombie Sanderson ’88, Bob Hall ’56, Lisa Pinney Hall ’88, Steve Hall ’86, Andy Mayo ’86, Nathaniel Lyons ’16, Doug Lyons ’82, Debbie Savitt First ’59, Rich First ’86, Bob Wice ’88, Scott MacClintic ’82, Peggy Hedeman (William Hedeman ’54), Evan Scheuer ’76, Charlie Hanson ’17, and Fridolf Hanson ’85. Photo: John Groo

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John “Nez” Nesbitt sends greetings from New Hampshire and shares news of Mountain Kora, his wife’s new business leading hiking adventures. “My newest mission is to make it onto all of her trips,” he says.

Dana Sandberg married David Raines on December 15, 2018, at the Rainbow Room in New York City. Loomis Chaffee Class of 2000 alumni in attendance included Angela Hokanson, Victoria Hougham, Heather Kawalick, Julie Shulman Kupfer, Abby Meyerson, and Paula Shapiro.

Lindsay Hower is excited to announce her engagement to Mac McConnell and the expected arrival of their first child in September.

1998 Charles Russo and Lauren Russo welcomed their first child, Charles Cassidy Russo Jr., on November 16, 2018.

1999 Candice Naboicheck Dolce and Michael Dolce are excited to announce that they had their second child, Charlotte Kay Dolce, on March 8. They live in NYC and love being a family of four.

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2001 Nitin Sacheti recently published his first book, Downside Protection: Process and Tenets for Short Selling in All Market Environments (PC Media). Nitin is the founder and portfolio manager of Papyrus Capital.

2013 Alex Buis reports that he released his debut album, Early Girls, under the name Bouse. The majority of the album was written while he was on the Island. “This record was composed entirely do-it-yourself; I wrote, recorded, mixed, and produced it,” he says. Alex is playing the Denver brewery circuit and played a set at the Orpheus Music and Arts Festival in Glenwood Springs, Colo.

2018-19 Annual Fund Sets New School Record!

Thanks to the generous support of the Loomis Chaffee community, we raised a record-breaking $4,571,292 for the 2018–19 Annual Fund. We are extremely grateful for the collective generosity of our alumni, parents, grandparents, parents of alumni, and friends who believe in the mission of our school and the strength of a Loomis Chaffee education.

This loyal support has enabled us to break a record every year since 2011–12.

Your gifts provide almost 10 percent of the school’s operating budget and allow us to provide our students with a truly transformative educational experience.

On behalf of the entire school community,

thank you!

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1 Miami Reception on March 14 at the home of hosts Laura Alonso-Gallo and John Bussel ’87, P ’21. Pictured: John, Eduardo Halvorssen ’88, and Erik Halvorssen ’85 2 Chicago Reception held on May 14 at The Chicago Club. Pictured: Associate Head for External Relations Nat Follansbee, Head of School Sheila Culbert, and hosts Brooke and Duncan MacLean ’90 3 Atlanta Reception on March 12 at the home of hosts Kara and Brian Mylod ’98. Pictured: Jeffrey Gartzman ’75, Rob Kohl ’73, Sheila Culbert, and Evan Wetstone ’84

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4 Charlotte Reception on March 11 at Dressler’s Restaurant. Pictured: Host Rich Osborne ’69, Sheila Culbert, and Nat Follansbee 5 Vero Beach Reception on March 13 at the home of hosts Mary and Harvey Struthers ’60, P ’85, ’96, GP ’17, ’18, ’21.

Pictured: Nat Follansbee; Director of Development Tim Struthers ’85; sophomore Luke Struthers; Mary and Harvey; Sheila Culbert; Jill and Allan Shore ’60, P ’91; and Sally Crowther Pearse ’58 and John Pearse ’58, P ’82, ’85, GP ’13, ’18, ’21

Alumni Gatherings & Receptions 6

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NEW YORK CITY April 12, New York Yacht Club 70

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SAN FRANCISCO

April 23, EPIC Steak

6 Nancy Niekrash Budd ’82, P ’08, ’12; Rebecca Sayles P ’13; Bill Budd P ’08, ’12; and David Sayles ’76, P ’13 7 Nat Follansbee; host Polly Hanson P ’17, ’19; Sheila Culbert; and host Fridolf Hanson ’85, P ’17, ’19 8 Caroline Nightingale ’10, Griffin Adams, Shannon Fiedler ’10, Robert Nightingale ’13, and Robert Carroll ’11

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11 Brett Rodriguez ’90; Jennifer Lindh ’90; Jake Cerrone ’90; Leah Lovelace ’90; Andras Petery ’90; Clarissa Horowitz ’89, P ’22; and Jeffrey Crolius ’91 12 Griffin Cardew ’10, Kaitlyn Benson ’04, and Jake Semones ’10 13 Tim Struthers ’85 and Bryan and Melanie Scher P ’18

9 David Flash ’81, Mike Swift ’80, and Bill Love ’82

14 Amanda McParlane ’13, Kathleen Hallal P ’20, and Lan Phan ’78

10 Nat Follansbee; Sheila Culbert; hosts Soojin and Christopher Lee P ’14, ’16, ’19; and Tim Struthers ’85

15 Hosts Stephen ’85 and Nancy Paul with Sheila Culbert

LOS ANGELES April 24, Home of hosts Nancy and Stephen Paul ’85 13

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Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

Obit ua r ies

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1947 David Burton Van Vleck, on April 22, in Cornwall, Vt. A fouryear student from West Hartford, Conn., Dave was involved in Student Council, Glee Club, Choir, and the Stagehands Union, and he served on the Loomiscellany Board, Mason Dorm Committee, Committee of Review, and Executive Committee of the Endowment Fund. He was active in soccer, baseball, and basketball, and he lettered in football and hockey. An accomplished scholar, Dave earned the Lt. Martin Harold Johnson Memorial Prize at Commencement. He went on to earn several degrees: a bachelor’s degree in economics and sociology from Princeton University, a master’s degree from University of Michigan’s School of Forestry, a master’s degree from Cornell University, and a doctorate in ecology, anatomy, and physiology from Cornell. While not in pursuit of degrees, Dave served for two years as a meteorologist in the U.S. Navy and taught math and science at Loomis from 1954 to 1958. He taught as a graduate assistant at Cornell while pursuing his doctorate and then moved to Florida, where he taught biology at the University of Miami. In 1968, Dave accepted a position on the faculty of Middlebury College, and he and his wife, Eunice, moved to Vermont, where they lived, worked, raised a family, and remained for the rest of their lives. David was an associate professor at the college from 1968 through 1972, and while there he wrote and published How and Why Not To Have That Baby, a 32-page book describing methods of birth control and implications for the world human population. The book sold nearly a quarter of a million copies. He also published articles in scholarly

periodicals, including Journal of Mammalogy, and frequently spoke on the subject of reproduction and population growth. Dave became a science teacher and department head at Middlebury Union High School, where he developed an Advanced Placement biology course and served as coordinator of health programs for grades seven through 12. After retiring from teaching in 1992, David and Eunice acquired a 140-acre farm on which they developed a thriving apple orchard and raised cattle. David’s civic commitments included service as Cornwall town moderator, as a member of the area Lions Club and regional planning commission, and on the board of the Addison County Audubon Society. He also started a Middlebury chapter of Planned Parenthood in 1969. David’s many interests included science, farming, environmental sustainability, and human populations, and he enjoyed tennis, outdoor pursuits, and travel. David remained in good health through his 80s and was able to travel extensively, exploring the Arctic Bering Sea and setting foot on all seven continents. He remained connected to Loomis Chaffee by serving as a 65th Reunion volunteer and as a member of the Common Good Society. Dave was preceded in death by his wife, Eunice, in December 2018, and his brother Joseph Van Vleck ’45. He was survived by his four other siblings, Henry Van Vleck ’51, Sarita Van Vleck, Mary Van Vleck, and Nancy von Allmen; his three children, Carolyn, David, and Sarah; and extended family members, including nephews Joseph Van Vleck IV ’73 and Christopher Van Vleck ’89 and niece Valerie Van Vleck ’86.

A memorial service was planned for both David and Eunice this summer.

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Elizabeth Whipple Jourdan, on April 5, in Hartford, Conn. A four-year student from Windsor, Conn., Betty was active as business manager of The Chiel, class secretary, and librarian. Betty earned a bachelor’s degree from Pembroke College and retired from Hartford Hospital in 1988 as a nursing unit secretary. Betty first met Donn C. Jourdan ’45 in college, even though they were both from Windsor and their parents were friends. They married on October 20, 1951, in the First Church of Windsor, resided briefly in West Hartford, and then settled in Windsor in 1953, where they raised their family.

In retirement, Betty and Donn moved to East Lyme, Conn., where they enjoyed nine years living on the coast. According to the family obituary, Betty’s passion in life was cooking. With no formal training, Betty learned how to cook from her mother and other relations and with time and practice became a talented, creative chef. She published a book of her recipes, Soup to Nuts.

“Even though the bittersweet memories of Betty’s final days in her kitchen … may be fleeting, the mouth-watering memories of her coffee and chocolate ice cream cake will endure forever,” the obituary stated. Betty was survived by her husband, Donn; her five children, David ’71, Stephen, Barbara, Richard, and Douglas, and their spouses; nine grandchildren; and cousin Jane Mackay Howe ’49. She was preceded in death by cousins A.B.C. “Cal” Whipple ’36 and Frances Whipple Bingham ’39. A private burial was planned.

James Bond Didriksen, on March 17, in Newnan, Ga. A four-year student from Riverside, Conn., Jim was involved in the Concert Orchestra, Ping Pong Club, Radio Club, Darwin Club, Chess Team, Nautical Club, Science Club, and Bridge Club, and he served on the Senior Scholarship Committee. Both an athlete and a scholar at Loomis, Jim was active in football, baseball, basketball, tennis, and wrestling, and he earned a Rensselaer Medal at Commencement. He attended Yale University and earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from University of Maine. Jim served in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and worked for Sikorsky Aircraft in the development of helicopters.

He and his wife, Marianna Hedlund, whom he married in 1966, lived in Hamden, Conn., where Jim was a member of the Hamden Symphony and worked at the Peabody Museum of Yale University. He remained connected to Loomis Chaffee as a member of the John Metcalf Taylor Society.

After the passing of Marianna in 2009, Jim moved to Georgia to be closer to family. In addition to Marianna, Jim was predeceased by his brother, Caleb Didriksen Jr. ’42, and his sister, Anne D. Habersetzer. He was survived by many extended family members.

A memorial service was planned for later in the year to be held in First Congregational Church in Old Greenwich, Conn., where Jim’s ashes will be interred with his wife and parents.

Former faculty member Barbara Anne Bair Kosty, on May 4, due to complications from pneumonia.

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in the Chaffers and the French Club, and she was an editor and reporter for The Chiel. She attended Hartford College for Women before earning a bachelor’s degree in English and education from Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. She later earned a California teacher’s certification from University of Southern California and a master’s degree from Wesleyan University. Shortly after graduating from Washburn, Barbara married Sam Kosty, and the couple raised two children, Paul and Pam, in Connecticut and California. Passionate about literature, grammar, and education, Barbara taught English and served as an advisor to The Log and The Loom at Loomis Chaffee from 1976 until 1989. She is remembered by former students and colleagues for the warmth, enthusiasm, and infectious sense of humor that she brought to her teaching. In addition to her many years on the Island, Barbara taught at schools in Glendale and San Diego, Calif., as well as at School Year Abroad programs in Rennes, France. In retirement, Barbara served as a volunteer docent at the San Diego Museum of Art and as an outreach volunteer for the San Diego Opera. She and Sam moved to Henderson, Nev., in 2003. According to the family obituary, Barbara had unstoppable creative and artistic energy. She was an excellent cook as well as a talented seamstress, needlepoint artist, jewelry designer, and card-maker. Her favorite pastimes included reading, doing crossword puzzles, playing bridge and mahjong, and traveling.

Barbara was survived by Sam, her husband of more than 63 years; her two children, Paul K. Kosty and Pamela Kosty Back ’76; and four grandchildren. Services were held on May 31 at Saint

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Gabriel Byzantine Church in Las Vegas, Nev. The family asks that donations in Barbara’s honor be made to Loomis Chaffee or Saint Gabriel Byzantine Church in Las Vegas.

1952 Thomas Alexander Symington Wilson, on April 23. A threeyear student from Birmingham, Ala., Tom was involved in the Political Club, Book Exchange, Bridge Club, and Jazz Club, and he served on the Executive Committee of the Student Endowment Fund, on the Entertainment Committee, and as president of Student Council. He received the Gwendolen Sedgwick Batchelder Prize for Industry, Loyalty, and Manliness at Commencement.

Tom was active in basketball and earned a varsity letter in both football and track. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Washington and Lee University, Tom studied medicine at University of Alabama, earned a medical degree at Johns Hopkins University, and returned to Birmingham to complete his medical residency.

During his long and successful medical career, Tom served as chairman of the Alabama Heart Institute and president of the Alabama Chapter of the American College of Surgeons. Committed to community service, he was senior warden of the Cathedral Church of the Advent, chairman of the board of St. Martin’s in the Pines and Spring Valley School, and a board member of the Community Foundation of Birmingham. According to the family obituary, Tom was “affectionately known as ‘Doc,’ [and] he enjoyed 61 happy, fun-filled, and adventurous years with his wife, Mary K. Their marriage is

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one to remember and celebrate; it will remain as an example to their children and grandchildren.” Tom first met Mary K. in the second grade, and they were married after college in 1957. A talented woodworker, Tom created many exquisite pieces of furniture for his family members and made altars for churches throughout Alabama. He enjoyed spending time with his family, including at the beach and traveling together to adventurous destinations.

Tom’s favorite pastimes included golf, sailing, and social activities.

He will be remembered for his quick wit, commitment to family, humble generosity, and deep spirituality. Preceded in death by his brother, William W. Wilson ’45, Tom was survived by his wife, Mary K.; his three children, Kathryn, Tommy Jr., and Cumbee, and their spouses; and eight grandchildren. A funeral and burial were held on April 25 at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham.

1955 John Chan Ingraham, on March 20. A four-year student from Bristol, Conn., Chan was involved in the Ski Club, Chapel Choir, and Book Exchange, and he was in the chorus of several theatrical musicals. He was a cheerleader, a typist for The Log, a medical aide, and a member of the Elections Committee and the Executive Committee of the Student Endowment Fund. Chan was active in football, hockey, baseball, track, and cross country.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Saint Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., where he met his wife, Patricia “Pat” Ingraham.

Working for Eastman Kodak in sales for 30 years, Chan lived

with his family in four different locations beginning in Cheyenne, Wyo. In retirement, he volunteered at Urban Ministry in the soup kitchen every week for many years. He also volunteered as an usher for various theater venues, including the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C., where he was one of 11 house managers. He served as a deacon and elder at First Scots Presbyterian Church in Charleston. Interested in preserving the history and legacy of the Ingraham family, founders of Ingraham Clock Company in Bristol, Conn., Chan frequently purchased antique Ingraham clocks and gave them to family members. He will be remembered as a gentleman who “never knew a stranger and loved to meet new people wherever he went,” according to the family obituary.

Preceded in death by his brother Norman K. Ingraham ’52, Chan was survived by Pat, his wife of 54 years; his children, Jenny I. Martella and Peter D. Ingraham, and their spouses; and four grandchildren.

1957 Richard James Mackler, on February 3, peacefully at his home in Montreal, Canada, where he lived and practiced medicine for nearly 45 years. A four-year student from West Hartford, Conn., Richard was an outstanding scholar and leader of school activities. He served as chairman of the Handbook Board, president of the Chess Club, reporter and editor for The Log, editor-in-chief of The Loom, co-editor of Loomiscellany, and chairman of the Senior Scholarship Committee, and he was involved in the High-Fidelity Club, Classics Club, and French Club. He was

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active in soccer, track, tennis, and cross country, and he managed senior baseball. Richard’s many academic honors included earning the First Scholar Prize of his junior class, the Jennie Loomis Memorial Prize for Highest Scholarship of the senior class, the Norris Ely Orchard Memorial Prize in English, and membership in the Cum Laude Society. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and was one of only eight members of his class elected to Phi Beta Kappa in their junior year. He won a Fulbright Scholarship to study German history in Vienna, Austria. Upon his return, he attended Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. A strong opponent of the Vietnam War, Richard completed his medical training in Montreal, Canada, and remained there for the rest of his life. He was a practitioner and professor of endocrinology at McGill University for many years. In addition to learning languages — studying Italian in addition to being fluent in French and German — Richard enjoyed a variety of other intellectual pursuits. Committed to serving the common good, Richard generously supported the arts, education, and public health through philanthropy, which included financing medical care for people in need, establishing scholarships for students in the field of medicine, and providing for a visiting lectureship at Loomis Chaffee in honor of Joseph Stookins, his beloved French teacher. According to his brother, Gerald Mackler ’55, Richard was “loved and honored by his many patients and friends.”

In addition to Gerald, Richard was survived by his sister, Karen Mackler ’65; six nieces and nephews; and many extended family members. He was buried next

to his parents in the Emmanuel Cemetery in West Hartford.

1958 Maureen Sullivan Crandall, on April 28, at her home in Lexington, Va. A four-year High Honor Roll student from Windsor, Conn., Maureen was active in the Glee Club and Chaffers; served as editor of Epilogue, secretary of the Political Club, and a reporter for The Chiel; was on the Library Committee; and played hockey.

She earned a bachelor’s degree with cum laude honors from Smith College and a doctorate in economics from Northwestern University. Maureen’s career in economics included teaching at Lake Forest College in Illinois, Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School and Energy Laboratory.

She moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for Foster Associates energy publications, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Department of Energy, and the National Defense University, where she taught economics and other courses to military and civilian students. As an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Maureen lectured about energy and security policy. She wrote about energy economics and policy for a number of industry publications and authored the book Energy, Economics & Politics in the Caspian Region: Dreams and Realities, published in 2006

by Praeger Security International. Maureen served as president of the National Capital Area Chapter of the United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE) in 2006–2007 and in various capacities on the national

council of the USAEE, which gave her its Senior Fellow Award in 2009. Widely recognized for her contributions to scholarship and teaching on the subjects of national security and economics policy, Maureen received many awards and professional acknowledgements. Preceded in death by her parents, Francis Joseph and Hazel Thrall Sullivan ’32; her aunt Marian Gilman Thrall ’34; and her cousin Priscilla Thrall Eatherton ’55, Maureen was survived by two brothers, Anthony T. Sullivan ’56 and William T. Sullivan ’71; her two children, Margaret Crandall and James Crandall; her aunt Shirley Thrall Hugot ’48; her cousin Cynthia Thrall DiFabio ’57; and three grandchildren. A memorial reception was held on May 17 in Windsor, followed by interment at Palisado Cemetery in Windsor on May 18.

1959 Hartley Dodge Bingham Jr., on April 21, in Cedar Grove, N.J. A three-year student from Verona, N.J., Lee, as he was known, was involved in Student Council, the Dance Committee, the Orchestra, and the Key Society. He served on the Senior Student Endowment Fund and as president of Book Exchange, and he was active in football, hockey, baseball, and tennis. Lee earned a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College in 1963, and he married Brenda Landrum of Hobbs, N.M., that same year. He earned a master’s in business administration from Columbia Business School in 1965 and served as a captain in the U.S. Army, stationed in Germany. Lee began his professional career with Lehman Brothers in 1968 and later owned

and operated Elmco Distributors and Elm Manufacturers. During his active life in New Jersey, Lee co-founded the Montclair Hockey Program, served as president and trustee of the Montclair Golf Club, and served on the board of Mannington Mills Company, a flooring company, for 35 years. Lee remained connected to Loomis Chaffee as a 50th Reunion volunteer and as a member of the John Metcalf Taylor Society and the Common Good Society. He enjoyed regular seasonal visits with his family to Skytop, Pa.; and Santa Fe, N.M. Lee was survived by Brenda, his wife of 56 years; his two children, Hartley Dodge Bingham III and Whitney B. Crosby; and six grandchildren. A memorial service was held on May 10 at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Essex Falls, N.J. Norman Clark Reynolds Jr., on January 6, 2018, with his family by his side. A four-year student from Bristol, Conn., Norman was involved in the Orchestra, Stamp Club, Astronomy Club, Press Club, and Senior Scholarship Committee, and he was a proofreader for The Log. He was active in soccer, football, tennis, hockey, and lacrosse. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 1964 and a master’s degree and medical degree from University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. While in Minnesota, Norman met and married Elaine Reynolds, and the two moved to Milwaukee, Wis., in 1975, where they raised their family. As a neurologist at Mt. Sinai, Froedtert, and the Veterans Administration hospitals in Milwaukee and as a professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Norman’s professional career included extensive

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County, Wis.; Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; Moosehead Lake, Maine; Hawaii, Japan; Germany; Italy; Spain; and Ireland, and visits to the family’s seasonal home in Vero Beach, Fla. Norm was survived by his wife, Elaine; his two children, Matthew and Karen; and a granddaughter. A memorial service was held on April 14 at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Milwaukee.

medical research in the areas of movement disorders — largely focused on Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases — until his retirement in 2010. A longtime member of the Minnesota and Wisconsin Army National Guards, Norman served his country until retiring with the rank of colonel in 2001. According to the family obituary, Norman was

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“adamant that science and religion are not mutually exclusive,” and, as such, he was an active and enthusiastic member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Milwaukee, serving on the vestry as a treasurer and warden and later as chalice bearer and sub-deacon.

In retirement, he enjoyed taking ministry classes and participating in the men’s fellowship. In 2011,

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under the pseudonym Br. Spike Jonas, Norman wrote the novel Using a Time Warp to Get it Right: A Dialogue With Disciples, which reflected his thoughts about religion, history, and science. Norm was fond of music and reading, and his favorite outdoor pastimes included camping, fishing, and hiking. He enjoyed traveling with his family, including to Door

Lucinda Elise Petersen Bingham, on Sept. 13, 2018, peacefully and surrounded by her family. A four-year student from Bloomfield, Conn., Cindy was active in sports and served as a class representative to the Athletic Council and as a class officer. She was involved in the Political Club and the Foreign Policy Association. Cindy spent summers in Connecticut picking tobacco and working at a candy store. She earned a bachelor’s degree in math at Middlebury College in 1964. Cindy met her husband, Gordon Bingham, while they both studied at Middlebury, and the two were married in 1966. They moved to Evanston, Ill., where Cindy went to work for Washington National Insurance.

Her experience in insurance and skill in math led to her become one of the company’s first employees to be trained to use a computer. Afterwards, Cindy was recruited by Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., to develop the school’s computer infrastructure, and, while there, the birth of her two sons led her to become an early adopter of the working mom lifestyle. The family moved to Clinton, N.Y., in 1972, where Cindy implemented an administrative computer system as a systems analyst for Hamilton

Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

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College. In 1981, the family moved to Lewisville, N.C., where Cindy began a longtime computer consultancy role working for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company along with a group of women who nicknamed themselves “the Data Madams.” She led a large project to convert to a new computer database system and trained employees how to use it. In addition to her successful career and her family, Cindy was committed to her local community. After she retired from the company in 1999, Cindy and Gordon ran the North Carolina Association of Independent Schools from 2000 to 2005. Together they created a website and newsletter, planned workshops and conferences, and recruited sponsors. After her second retirement, Cindy occupied herself with many of her lifelong interests: sewing, knitting, gardening, walking, and reading. She enjoyed being on the board of Friends of the Lewisville Library and volunteering at the Community Care Center, a free medical clinic for low-income clients. Cindy was survived by her husband, Gordon; her two sons, Christopher and Matthew; her daughter-in-law, Whitney Allen; her sister, Janice Petersen Wilson; four grandchildren; and extended family members. A memorial service was held on September 29 at Lewisville United Methodist Church. Honoring Cindy’s commitment to education and community service, the family obituary suggested contributions may be made to the Bingham Scholarship Fund at Middlebury College, the Marion Petersen Scholarship Fund at Loomis Chaffee, or the Community Care Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

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Richard Louis Robinson, on November 15, 2018, at home in New York City. A four-year student from Windsor, Conn., Richard was involved with the Printing Club, Senior Scholarship Committee, Dining Hall Committee, and Crackpot Committee — a club whose existence is unverified but appears in his yearbook entry. He also was recognized in Loomiscellany for his ability to perform magic tricks, and he was active in soccer, basketball, and baseball. An excellent scholar, Richard was on the Honor Roll for three years and was a Graduate with Distinction.

He attended Yale University but dropped out months before graduation to join a rock ’n’ roll band.

After moving to Manhattan in the late 1960s, Richard worked as a record executive at Buddah Records; wrote a syndicated music column with the Bell McClure syndicate; was a late-night disc jockey on the FM radio station WNEW; and hosted a syndicated radio show. He directed early music videos for The Ramones and Blondie; produced albums for the Flamin’ Groovies, Lou Reed, and David Johansen; and wrote 13 books about a variety of topics, including music, kung fu, magic, and making videos. He also co-authored Dick Clark’s autobiography. He was a contributor to Creem Magazine and edited the rock magazines Hit Parader and Rock Scene. In the late 1990s, he quit the music business to perform as a magician and run several magic web sites devoted to magic. He was survived by his wife, Lisa Robinson, who is also a music journalist and author.

Thomas Robert Andrews, on March 2. A four-year student from Windsor, Conn., Tom was involved with the Dining Hall Committee, Glee Club, Pelicans, Senior Room Committee, and Musical Club, and he served as chairman of the lab assistants. He was active in football and track.

Tom earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was active in the ROTC military officer training program.

Afterwards, Tom served for many years in the U.S. Air Force, assigned to bases in Mississippi, Oklahoma, California, and Washington, D.C., and overseas in Greenland and Germany. He retired with the rank of major.

After the military, Tom spent 11 years working at Washington National Airport as deputy manager of engineering and maintenance and served for five years as vice president of operations at Tucson International Airport in Arizona before retirement. Flying was a lifelong passion for Tom, and he owned a succession of private aircraft as an adult. While residing in Tucson, he was active with American Legion Post 109, where he served as commander, and at the Rotary Club of Tucson, where he was on the board. He also served as chair of the Student Exchange Outbound Program for Southern Arizona. Tom was married to his wife, Jewel Andrews, for 40 years. Tom and Jewel welcomed several foreign exchange students into their home for one year at a time. Tom’s community activity included membership in the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association, in organizations promoting tourism in Tucson, and in military support organizations. He remained connected to Loomis Chaffee as a member of

the Common Good Society. Tom was survived by his wife, Jewel; his daughter, Dimitria Clayton; and his two sisters, Jan Owens and Judy Taylor. A memorial service was held on March 9 at the American Legion Post 109 in Tucson.

1967 Lewis H. McKeon, on Sept.

19, 2018, in Lebanon, N.H. A three-year student from Amherst, Mass., Lewis was involved in the Darwin Club and the Religious Life Committee, and he earned three letters in varsity track.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College in 1972. In 1973, Lewis married Barbara Twichell, and they lived in Strafford, Vt., before building a home in Lebanon, N.H., where they raised two children.

An outdoor enthusiast, Lewis enjoyed hiking, skiing, cycling, and boat-paddling. A “hutman” of the Appalachian Mountain Club in the late 1960s, Lewis was a concerned environmentalist as well as a talented craftsman and engineer. He was survived by his wife, Barbara; his two children, Sarah King McKeon and Ryan McKeon, and their spouses; his four grandchildren; and his three siblings, Maury McKeon, Edith Abbott, and Seamus McKeon.

Friends and family gathered to share fond memories of Lewis at Dowd’s Country Inn in Lyme, N.H., on September 29.

1968 Richard Dole Johnson, on February 15, peacefully at his home in Elk, Calif. A four-year student from West Hartford, Conn., Rick was involved in the Printing Club, Chess Club, Orchestra,

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and Photography Club, and he served on the Senior Scholarship Committee and as a lab assistant.

He was active in soccer, tennis, lacrosse, basketball, and wrestling. A top scholar, Rick was inducted into the Cum Laude Society and was a National Merit Finalist. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, and he spent his working life in the field of software development and testing in San Diego, Calif. After retiring, Rick moved to Elk, where he was active in the volunteer fire department.

Throughout his life Rick enjoyed music, particularly Celtic folk music. He was survived by his wife, Melissa Monty; his mother, Dorothy Johnson; his brother, Theodore D. Johnson; and many extended family members. A memorial gathering to celebrate Rick’s life was planned in Bloomfield, Conn., at a later date.

1969 Deborah Susan Welwood Yurko, unexpectedly, on May 2, at Hartford Hospital. A four-year student from West Hartford, Conn., Deb was involved in many facets of student life, including as a member of the Dance Club, Book Club, and Current Affairs Club. She was active in hockey and volleyball, and she served as president of the Glee Club, as a member of the Library Committee, as a campus tour guide, and on the typing staff of the school newspaper. Deb earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Connecticut and a master’s degree from the University of Southern Connecticut. Her professional career as a speech and language pathologist included many years working in the Hartford Public School District, including most recently at Burns Elementary

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School in Hartford. A longtime resident of Simsbury, Conn., Deb was a member of the Simsbury Light Opera and a talented video director. Her favorite activities included spending time with her family and pets, painting, and following her favorite sports teams and players, including the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots, and NASCAR racing. Deb remained connected to Loomis Chaffee as a member of the Loomis Chaffee Alumni Board of Directors, where she served as president in 1995–96, and as a member of the Common Good Society. Deb was survived by her husband of 26 years, Robert A. Yurko; her son, Christopher Yurko, and his wife, Kate; her three grandchildren; her sister, Martha Diffenderffer; and her extended family. A graveside memorial service was held on May 10 in Fairview Cemetery in West Hartford.

1971 Stephen E. Bohner, on January 9, at his home in Stuart, Fla. A two-year student from Jensen Beach, Fla., Steve was involved in the Dining Hall Committee and Stagehands Union, and he was active in soccer, tennis, and basketball. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Vanderbilt University. For more than 30 years, Steve was the owner/ broker of Premier Realty Group in Sewall’s Point, Fla. He loved spending time with his family and friends as well as boating, fishing, diving, playing golf, skiing, and any sort of adventure.

According to the family obituary, Steve was a devout Christian who had affiliations to many churches in the Stuart, Fla., area.

Predeceased by his stepfather, Douglas S. Kennedy ’37, Steve

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was survived by his two children, Jessica D. Bohner and Sean L. Bohner, and their spouses; his fiancée, Lisa M. Field; his brother, Chris Bohner; and many extended family and friends. A service was held on January 19 at Treasure Coast Community Church in Jensen Beach. John K. Bosee ’70, Steve’s friend from his days on the Island, sent a remembrance. “Steve came to Loomis as a junior. He was a ‘good old boy’ (emphasis on good) from Stuart, Fla., which was then a sleepy coastal Florida town,” John wrote. “He first saw snow in the main quad and put his surfer bathing suit on to roll in it. He had an unshakable sense of fun and optimism. He was a member of the first swim team and loved music and playing the guitar. We were outside the Fillmore East for a concert within steps of George Harrison, Ringo Star, and John Lennon after the Beatles had broken up. We tried not to gush (or ‘freak out’ in the lingo of the era). He was involved in the theater on the tech side, and I know the Loomis experience meant a lot to him.”

Florence Ransom Schroeter, on March 19, unexpectedly, at her home in East Hartford, Conn.. A four-year student from Windsor, Conn., Florence earned a bachelor’s degree from University of Hartford. Afterwards, Florence became a resident of East Hartford, where she was committed to serving the community as a justice of the peace, a member of the Republican Town Committee, and a member of the town’s Culture and Fine Arts Committee.

She worked as a research assistant at the University of Connecticut’s School of Social Work and at the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and she

volunteered with the East Hartford Commission on Services for Persons with Disabilities. An active member in the First Congregational Church of East Hartford UCC, Florence sang in the choir and was a member of the women’s group. She was an avid fan of the University of Connecticut Huskies women’s basketball team. Preceded in death by her husband, Jerrimey Schroeter, and her parents, J. Ford Ransom Jr. ’39 and Mary Ellsworth Ransom ’40, Florence was survived by her sisters, Priscilla Ransom Marks ’66 and Susan Ransom Nagy ’67, and their spouses; and many extended family members. A funeral service was held on April 13 at the Lodge Community Chapel in Windsor.

1974 Morwen Swilling Two Feathers, formerly known as Paula Jean Swilling, on July 10, 2018, from a brain tumor. A four-year student from Bloomfield, Conn., Morwen earned a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College and received a master’s degree in women’s studies from Boston University. Afterwards, she settled in Concord, Mass., where she lived and was a vibrant part of the community for more than 30 years. Morwen worked as executive director for several nonprofit organizations over the course of her career, and she had many interests and passions. She was a longtime and committed member of the EarthSpirit Community, where she met her husband, Jimi Two Feathers. She was a talented artist, drummer, dancer, teacher, and published writer. According to the family’s obituary, Morwen “created a rich and vibrant community wherever she was … [and after brain tumor diagnosis]

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lived a full and beautiful life for many years beyond expectation.”

She was survived by her husband, Jimi Two Feathers; her son, Kane Two Feathers; her stepson, Daren Two Feathers; her siblings, Penny Field and David Swilling; and many loved ones. A celebration of her life was held on October 20, 2018.

1975 Patrick J. O’Connell, on March 15, peacefully of natural causes at his home in Eastham, Mass.

A four-year student from West Hartford, Conn., Pat served as president of Student Council in his senior year, as editor of Handbook, and as chair of the Admissions Committee. He was involved in the Foreign Policy Association, The Log, and the Hartford Model United Nations, and he was active in baseball and football. Pat was awarded the Ammidon Prize at Commencement. At Duke University, he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1979 and a master’s degree in education in 1980. Pat earned his law degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1988, and he practiced law for several years with the firm of Carmody & Torrance of Waterbury, Conn.

He married Kathleen Finucane in 1995 and settled in Eastham on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where he was active in civic affairs and the local music community.

Passionate about music throughout his life, Pat, or P.J. as he was sometimes known, was an accomplished singer-songwriter. As a resident of North Carolina during the 1980s, he led the Durhambased Flying Pigs, a band whose releases include “Desi” and “Mexican Divorce.” As P.J. O’Connell, he released the musical recordings

“Dream Life” in 2001, “Happy Go Lucky” in 2002, “Careful” in 2007, and “Join the Crowd” in 2011. His recordings featured many of his musician friends, including members of NRBQ and the Incredible Casuals. As a performer, he played at venues across the United States and in Japan, and All Music Guide described him as an “Americana power pop auteur on a journey that keeps getting more and more beautiful with each release.” According to the family obituary, Pat was “legendary for his kindness and loyalty to his friends and fellow musicians, his incisive wit and discerning taste, an encyclopedic knowledge of popular music, and a vast recorded music collection.”

Predeceased by his daughter, Elsbeth Caitlin O’Connell, Pat was survived by his wife, Kathleen; his siblings, Edward O’Connell ’73, James O’Connell ’76, and Elise O’Connell Boccia ’80, and their spouses; and many extended family members and friends. A Mass of Christian Burial was celebrated on March 19 at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, followed by burial at Fairview Cemetery in West Hartford.

1977 Andrew Gibian, on June 25, 2018, in Colorado Springs, Colo. A three-year student from Southport, Conn., Andy was a dorm proctor and editor of a school publication, and he was involved in Student Council and the Photography Club. Andy earned his bachelor’s degree in hotel and restaurant management from University of Denver. He spent his professional career in the hospitality field until his retirement in 2015. According to Andy’s brother, Paul Gibian, Andy “loved mountain bike rides

in the foothills near Colorado Springs, and especially in his beloved Garden of the Gods. He will be remembered for his easy smile, kind heart, and sense of humor.”

2011 Anthony Scott Knowlton, on April 1, unexpectedly, of an apparent drug overdose. His family shared the following in Anthony’s obituary: “We are hoping by sharing this information this will serve as a wakeup call for all the young people, and parents alike, as his family was blindsided to learn of an apparent drug use.” A two-year student from Stafford Springs, Conn., Anthony attended East Catholic High School before coming to Loomis Chaffee. A talented athlete, he played a variety of youth sports in Stafford as a child and worked as a lifeguard and taught swimming classes at Staffordville Lake. Anthony was a standout on the varsity football team at Loomis and was elected as team co-captain in his senior year. He was active on the varsity wrestling team, on the track team, and in club softball. After Commencement, Anthony continued to play football at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y. A resident of Manchester, Conn., he worked for several years at Rein’s Deli as a line cook and waiter, and he was employed by Allied Tree and Lawn Care as a sales representative. He was survived by his mother, Deidriene Knowlton, and her husband, Michael McCloskey; his father, Scott Knowlton, and his companion, Crystal Mills; his nine siblings; and many loving extended family members. A memorial service took place on April 12 at Introvigne Funeral Home in Stafford Springs.

More News The Alumni Office has learned of the passing of Lois Frye McKie ’41 on April 12, 2017; Clinton Gilbert Morrison ’41 on May 19; Edwin Snelgrove ’42 on May 28; Jean Rowland Haffenreffer ’43 on June 2; Robert H. Ellis ’45 on February 12; Gretchen Schafer Skelley ’45 on June 4; Richard Osborne Sr. ’47 on April 25; Robert H. Sauer Jr. ’47 on April 24; Edward A. Chittenden III ’48 on December 22, 2012; Richard Dyne Hardy ’51 on January 13; Edward Cornell Stainton ’52 on December 12, 2017; Robert Devlin Jr. ’61 on May 15; Daniel Joseph Connelly ’71 on June 14; Richard A. Wilde ’81 on May 24; and Lena M. Chen ’87 on July 7.

More information, as available, will be printed in future editions.

As this issue went to press, the editors learned of the passing of Miriam Brooks Butterworth ’36, on July 9 in Bloomfield, Conn. “Mims,” as she was known, was an active member of the school community as a student, a devoted alumna, a parent of three alumni, a faculty member for nearly a decade, and a Trustee for many years. A full obituary will appear in a future issue of Loomis Chaffee Magazine.

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Prom Glam on the Quad Fashion and hairstyles have changed, but prom-bound students still dress up in their finest, carefully coif their hair, and gather for photographs on Grubbs Quadrangle every spring.

THEN: In this archival photograph from the 1970s, students ready for the spring dance in the formal attire of the era.

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NOW: Pairs of prom-goers, including seniors Jaden Rismay and Lily Verna, stroll from Grubbs Quadrangle to the awaiting buses that will take them to the 2019 prom venue in Simsbury. Photo: Jessica Ravenelle

The Loomis Chaffee School 4 Batchelder Road Windsor, Connecticut 06095 CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED

JOYFUL Senior Molly Henderson leaps across the NEO stage during the Spring Dance Revue.

Photo: Nicole Bushey

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