CITYterm Bridges Summer 2014

BRIDGES: On Reading

INSIDE: David Dunbar on Empathy I Mira Jacob on Writing I Donor Report I Alumni Profiles I Class Notes

STAFF AND FACULTY CITYterm Erica Chapman, F’99 Director David Dunbar Academic Dean & Co-Founder

Lisa Doi Program Coordinator Ladane du Boulay French Faculty Jason Hult, F’00 Urban Core Faculty Jennifer Hughes Spanish Faculty Erik Johnke Urban Core Faculty & Math, Language, Science Coordinator Mitchell Krieger Math Faculty Jálynn Larry Enrollment & Advancement Coordinator Alyse Ruiz, F’03 Dean of Residential Life

Table of Contents Letter from Erica Chapman, Director....................................... 1 Letter from David Dunbar, Academic Dean & Co-Founder...... 2

Eva Seligman Urban Core Faculty

The Masters School Maureen Fonseca, Ph.D. Head of School Adriana Botero Associate Head of School

Alumni Profiles........................................................................ 3 Annual Donor Report............................................................. 16 Always and Never a Writer, Mira Jacob................................ 20 The New Yorker, Céline Gauchey.......................................... 21

CITYterm at The Masters School

Class Notes........................................................................... 23

49 Clinton Avenue Dobbs Ferry, New York 10522 Phone: 914.479.6502 Fax: 914.693.6905 General inquires: info@cityterm.org www.cityterm.org

Dear Friends of CITYterm, At CITYterm, we read all the time. We read short stories, New York Times articles, novels, poems, museum curator’s notes, and theatrical playbills, but we also read films, people, buildings, neighborhoods, and ourselves.

Reading has, for us, a broad definition, a higher purpose. One of our primary goals in defining reading so broadly and in practicing it so frequently is to make ourselves better observers of what is around us. We wish to equip ourselves with new techniques for making meaning of what we read and see. Technique is, in many ways, vision; and the more sophisticated one is technically as a reader of all texts, the more one can see.

Reading is a common thread in each CITYterm student’s experience.

Regardless of semester, each CITYterm student has been introduced to the idea of reading as an act practiced everywhere and on everything. Therefore, it’s fitting for reading to be the theme of this edition of Bridges, our annual community magazine.

BRIDGES: THE READING EDITION — A FEW HIGHLIGHTS: • A recent blog post from David Dunbar, CITYterm’s co-founder and Academic Dean, on reading and empathy, something we’ve been experimenting with over the past several semesters.

• Musings on being a writer from Mira Jacob, an author who has been meeting with CITYterm for about a decade and recently published her first novel, A Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing.

• An excerpt from Céline Gauchey’s (S’14, Marin Academy ’15) essay on what it means to become a New Yorker.

Letter from Erica Chapman, Director

• We have also included Class notes and twelve new alumni profiles. I am—as always—astounded by the variety of paths our alumni take. It is truly an honor to be part of this community!

• An Annual Report of Donors from last year (2013 – 2014), honoring the over 200 alumni, parents, faculty members and friends of the program who participated, lending financial support to our scholarship fund, as well as our faculty and program development efforts.

Great readers (and great experience-based learners) are curious and willing to engage. As Cassie Pruyn, a poet and CITYterm alumna from Spring 2005, recently wrote, CITYterm cultivates this spirit in students. In Cassie’s own words: “CITYterm did for me what it has done and continues to do for so many others…it asked me to become confident enough to approach the world in a childlike manner again.” I hope this edition of Bridges brings you childlike joy, a sense of curiosity, and a fond feeling of connection to CITYterm.

All my best, All my best,

Erica Chapman, F’99 Director, CITYterm at The Masters School CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 1

For the past several years, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of teaching empathy. Like many of the skills that I think are crucial to becoming a dynamic experience-based learner, I think you can learn it, but I am not sure you can teach it.

Are there skills that are precursors to empathy that can be taught? How would one go about doing this? Can we practice empathy and get better at it? What’s the relationship between reading and empathy? I’ve also been working on a blog, a way to collect my thoughts on a wide range of topics and to connect with teachers, students and friends near and far. Check it out: http://dkdkzone.blogspot.com/.

A Letter from David Dunbar

HERE’S AN EXCERPT FROM MY BLOG ON READING & EMPATHY: Nikki Giovanni has long been one of my favorite poets. Initially I thought it had something to do with faith and belief--because Nikki Giovanni BELIEVES what she is writing--but then I came across the following quote:

“I resent people who say writers write from experience. Writers don’t write from experience, though many are hesitant to admit that they don’t. I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.”

One of the principles about reading that I have been testing for years is that reading and writing are more intimately connected than people think. Now, I know this is not revolutionary, right? But look at Nikki Giovanni’s quote again. If that principle is true, and writers write from empathy, then readers ought to read from empathy. Then, obviously, teachers ought to teach how to read empathically.

I had been working on some ideas about “precursors” to empathy, and then began to see that, for many people, protocols worked well as a harbingers of internalized behavior.

Could I develop an “empathy protocol” for literature class?

At about the time I was implementing this protocol, CITYterm had the chance to see Here Lies Love at the Public Theater. This production – put together by musicians David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and directed by Alex Timbers – is an immersive theatrical experience that “deconstructs the astonishing journey of First Lady Imelda Marcos from her meteoric rise to power and subsequent descent into infamy and disgrace.”

While it is an amazing show, and it was fascinating to watch David Byrne walking around all in white (with matching hair) taking notes throughout, it was the “pre-talk” with Alex Timbers that gave me the most pause to ponder how one creates empathy.

One of the questions a student asked was precisely that--how does an author enter so deeply into Imelda Marcos’ head that they could believe they understood her and make the audience believe that as well?

Alex’s response (from my cribbed notes) was something like this, “Well, we started by avoiding the obvious clichés of her shoe fetish which might have flattened her; it was too much of a heavy handed symbol and a judgment on her. We were exploring.

So one thing that emerged was her love of disco and Studio 54. And the techno-club music became a kind of metaphor for the totalitarian kind of rhythm but also the kind of euphoria of the dance club was the kind of euphoria of being in power.”

At this point another student asked, “But how do you know where to start?”

Alex responded, “Well, in this case, we went back to the beginning. To certain assumptions she had about life right from the start. And those assumptions frequently took the form of questions she asked herself--Is it a sin to love too much? Is it a sin to care? And, ultimately, why don’t you love me? That is the question that drove her.”

“How do you come up with these metaphors, assumptions and questions?” I asked.

“Actually much of it is kind of intuitive at first. They come to you after you have immersed yourself, but then you start to look at them critically to see if they actually work together to give you a full sense of who she is.” Alex ended, and we headed up to the show. On the way up the stairs one of the students asked me, “Did you pay him to say that stuff?”

In asking this question, the student was making reference to the “empathy protocol” that the class had been using to explore some short stories the week before.

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continued on page 22

Lil ie Carroll CITYterm, Fall 2007 Palmer Trinity School, 2008 Duke University, 2012

Lillie Carroll shares her journey from CITYterm to India to Atlanta.

CITYterm definitely had an impact on me during college. I credit becoming a Cultural Anthropology major to the kinds of projects and thinking we were introduced to at CITYterm.

Having the experience of approaching and interviewing random strangers on the street in New York City definitely helped me feel comfortable doing anthropological research and interviews!

In 2012-2013, I participated in a fellowship program in India called the IDEX Fellowship in Social Enterprise. As an IDEX Fellow, I was placed in a low-income school where I worked with the school management and the broader school community to identify the challenges they were facing and design and implement sustainable, scalable solutions.

That extremely general description pretty much covers everything I knew before starting the fellowship, but I was just excited to be paid to live and work in India! I had a great experience and I was fortunate to be paired with an extremely welcoming conservative Muslim school on the outskirts of Hyderabad. After spending nearly two months learning the rhythm of the school, I worked with staff members to develop teacher training workshops, art classes, a career counseling program, and a talent show (there is a video of me singing Justin Bieber in a sari in front of around 500 students that will hopefully never surface). I enjoyed working on a variety of projects with my school, but my favorite part of the fellowship was getting to know the community: joining them to celebrate Muslim holidays, having homemade biryani, and also sharing some of my favorite Western things with them--for example, the teachers at my school loved dark chocolate peanut M&M’s! Aside from my work life, some of the fellowship highlights included exploring Hyderabad on my scooter, being an extra in a Bollywood film, and traveling around North and South India. I know that India’s diversity in culture, language, religion, thought, and more will continue to bring up “DKDK” moments for me.

Since then, I moved to Atlanta to work in human capital consulting with Ernst & Young.

Human capital consulting basically means helping companies with their people-related issues and advising on programs and policies that help companies have the right people, in the right jobs, at the right time and cost. So, I’m learning a lot about organizational design, global employment trends, and pretty much all of the behind-the-scenes processes & strategies that help an organization to be successful. I am not sure if I will stay in this field forever, but either way, just learning about how organizations are run will be helpful in the future, no matter what field I am in.

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 3

Pauline Zaldonis CITYterm, Fall 2004 Loomis Chaffee, 2006 Oberlin College, 2010 Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy, MS in Urban Policy, 2014

Pauline Zaldonis takes her learning from CITYterm to the world of urban food systems.

After participating in CITYterm in the fall of 2004, I returned to Connecticut to finish high school. I did not immediately return to New York City, but rather moved to Ohio to study history and Latin American studies at Oberlin College. One of the biggest things that I took away from CITYterm was learning how to read the city as a text and I have continued to use this strategy while exploring new cities and thinking about the issues that affect urban communities around the world. During my junior year at Oberlin, I studied abroad in Santiago, Chile, where I focused on urban poverty and development.

After graduating from Oberlin, I spent a few years hopping from city to city, spending a year teaching English at la Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, Colombia, through a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship, and another year in Hartford, Connecticut, through the Americorps VISTA program, before finally landing back in New York in 2012.

I moved back to New York to pursue my Masters in Urban Policy at Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy. In many ways, studying urban policy at Milano reminds me of CITYterm; it emphasizes experiential learning and hands-on projects, and it has given me the opportunity to formally study the issues affecting urban communities. I have worked on projects ranging from urban composting to campaign finance reform, and I am focusing my studies on urban food systems and food policy in the city. I am interested in exploring how food system activism can contribute to creating a more just and sustainable urban environment. While I studied, I worked at Insideschools.org at the Center for NYC Affairs, where I visit and write about the public schools in the city.

After graduation, I moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where I started a new job managing a mobile farmers’ market, which will bring affordable local produce into low income neighborhoods with limited food access, at Hartford Food System.

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Matt Bateman CITYterm, Fall 1999 Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences, 2000 Sarah Lawrence College, 2004 University of Pennsylvania, Ph.D., Philosophy, 2012

Matt Bateman reflects on the influence of CITYterm on his academic path.

I started CITYterm fourteen years ago in the fall of ‘99. Between then and now was more school with only minor interruptions: finishing high school, then college, and then graduate school. I finished my Ph.D., and now I’m teaching.

On my journey through academia, I’ve tried to repeat the patterns of learning at CITYterm, most especially the emphasis on first-hand experience, on exploring, and on using all human products as “texts” to be engaged with, critiqued, and learned from.

In college, I tried to take opportunities to be truly immersed in my pursuits. I worked in a child development center while learning developmental psychology, and learned Greek while studying Plato and Aristotle. Afterwards I went to graduate school for philosophy — usually (incorrectly) thought to be among the most detached and ivory tower subjects. I specialized in the philosophy of science. This meant learning a great deal of science, but I also became enculturated in the world of science. I joined a lab, took seminars with cognitive neuroscience graduate students, and started reading things with titles like “Handbook of Functional MRI Data Analysis”.

CITYterm’s emphasis on experience is relevant not only to my research methods, but also to its substance. You’ve probably heard the notion that, in science, the job of experience is to either support or disprove theories. In my research I argue that it can do much more. Experience guides the formation of theories, refines them, motivates us to pursue certain questions in the first place, and suggests entirely new questions. In other words, experience does not make contact with theory only at the very last stage of inquiry. That this could be controversial will probably seem absurd to anyone who has been through CITYterm.

I taught at Franklin and Marshall College, where I was in the strange but wonderful position of being a philosopher in a psychology department. In my teaching I try to replicate as much of the CITYterm pedagogy as I can. For me, teaching is not a didactic process, but is about showing students something in a way that somehow reaches into them, connects to something, and stirs them to engage. I am now the Head of Curriculum and Pedagogy at LePort Schools, a network of private Montessori schools.

In one respect, though, CITYterm left me warped and scarred: I have an ever-present desire to live in New York. For the first time in over a decade, I’m not living in either New York or some nearby northeastern substitute. I’m sure that eventually I’ll make our way back to the world’s capital.

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 5

Sandy Wood CITYterm, Spring 2007 Concord Academy, 2008 Vassar College, 2013

Sandy uses her learning at CITYterm as she enters the world of teaching.

A little over a year after leaving CITYterm, I found myself navigating Delhi’s chaotic yet precisely choreographed streets, and then leaning out the window of the Tata Sumo jeep as we wound our way up two days of twisty-turny, unpaved mountain roads, ascending into the misty monsoon cloudscape. I was on my way to Jhamtse Gatsal Children’s Community, a residential school and home for at-risk kids from the local villages, located in the Tibetan Himalayas of Northeastern India.

The things I carried included: my most tattered and well-worn sweatshirt, a compact headlamp and fancy shmancy microfiber towel recently acquired from REI, a journal accompanied by a scrupulously selected artillery of pens, bare basics of toiletries (which I’ve since learned to whittle down even more), and pictures of my family and friends back home. I also carried curiosity, a particular brand of fearlessness, and appreciation for how much I stretch when thrust into unfamiliar situations. These latter items I am lucky to have been gifted by my teachers at CITYterm. They served me better (and, in fact, were lighter to pack) than the microfiber towel.

At each roadside tea stand we stopped at on the way, I watched myself venture out of the car, despite the easy familiarity of its interior. I smiled at strangers, and upon their invariable return, pushed myself to brave conversations. This, for me, has never stopped being scary—this breaking down of walls and diving into the unknown—but now I have many miles of experience that corroborate just how energizing and valuable, and how surprisingly consistently so, that outreach is, so I overcome my initial anxiety much more quickly.

CITYterm, I have often reflected, taught me how to ask questions of the world and go out and seek answers for myself, and how to go about that exploration with bold daring and humble respect.

In the years since this first trip to India, I have continued to desperately call on and determinedly hone these skills and outlooks, including on repeated summer visits to Jhamtse Gatsal and phenomenal gap year and study abroad programs from Chile to Mongolia. I don’t know if I would have chosen the types of programs that I did, and seriously doubt that I would have explored as deeply and exalted as exuberantly throughout them, if not for my practice doing those things with the million degrees of commitment and urgency infused into every moment of every day in Dobbs Ferry and NYC. I moved to Jhamtse Gatsal to join the staff, I am certain that the education I received at CITYterm influences my teaching, as it has throughout years of tutoring and classroom work in Poughkeepsie and abroad. It couldn’t not, really, since its perspectives and practices are so deeply, inseparably ingrained in my own cognitive and interpersonal functioning. In the classroom, I aim to create opportunities for purposeful learning by tackling topics that are widely vital and personally relevant. This ensures that the process of investigation itself builds skills, not just knowledge, and cultivates students’ understanding of themselves and their relationship to the world at large. I’m indescribably grateful for those gifts that my teachers and peers at CITYterm, and our urban laboratory itself, gave to me, and I am eager to pay them forward to a next generation of students, hungry and ready to engage the world around them in new, invigorating, and crucial ways.

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Wil Gorin CITYterm, Spring 2006 Wellesley High School, 2007 Sarah Lawrence College, 2011

Will explores the unknown by pursing a musical career with his band SLOTHRUST. Before CITYterm, I struggled in public high school. I was one of the kids who was very good at slipping through the cracks: copying my friends homework, getting passing grades to avoid unwanted attention. I’m pretty sure if it weren’t for CITYterm I would not have realized that education could be something more than the decided curriculum. In public school it was memorize, regurgitate, and forget. CITYterm taught me how to think, process, and understand.

Now I’m living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, working part time at Citywinery as a server/bartender in order to pay my rent while I pursue my music. I’m in a rock band called SLOTHRUST (slothrust. com) with two friends I met at Sarah Lawrence College. We have been playing together for 4 years now. We put out a full length album in 2012 and went on a national cross country tour to promote it. In 2013 we finished a full length album that was put out by BadaBing Records. We just landed a publishing deal with FX. Our track “7:30 am” is the theme song to FX’s new show “You’re The Worst.” We are also negotiating our next record deal with Fat Possum Records, and if all goes well our third full length will hit stores internationally by end of January. We are gearing up to hit the road again on a cross country tour with a band called Cymbals Eat Guitars in October.

Essentially I’m 4 years into my 10 year “Go For It” phase. I really enjoy playing in this band. I’m in other music projects as well (like a Rage Against the Machine cover band) but we are really putting everything we have into SLOTHRUST. When we started we often lost money on the road playing shows. Now that we are more established we are starting to actually be able to make money from playing shows! The dream is to pay my rent from touring, part time job at Citywinery and maybe teach a little bit on the side for extra cash. Fame and fortune would be nice too. As much as I love New York, I ultimately want to escape the city and get back in touch with nature. Living in New York is tough, rent is very expensive, and it can be a real struggle to stay above ground and pursue the arts.

At the same time it is the land of opportunity for many artistic careers, so I have to just keep on hustling.

10-15 years from now I see myself living in Colorado, opening a restaurant with the millions I made from all my platinum records and enjoying my life with my family, 2 dogs, and a cat with a nice big back yard. www.slothrust.com

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 7

YOLANDI ELVIRA CRUZ GUERRERO CITYterm, Fall 2011 Boston Arts Academy, 2012 Smith College, 2016 (expected)

Yolandi uses her CITYterm skills as she navigates her way through college.

Help is always given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.

In my last writing for CITYterm I described it as my Hogwarts (the school Harry Potter attends in that now classic series) and I still see it as such! For me CITYterm was more than a home, it was a haven, a safe place where I grew immensely in such a short amount of time. After CITYterm I returned to my home school, Boston Arts Academy, to finish my senior year. It was definitely hard to adjust to the norms of my home school. When I was in CITYterm I felt like I was in control of how I was being evaluated because as a scholar I was both encouraged and expected to be part of the process. This was one of the reasons why going back to a “normal” school setting was difficult because “alternative” had become habitual.

After finishing my last year in high school, I started my first year at Smith College. After my freshman year I had an amazing summer abroad, where I was able to visit Spain, Morocco, and Portugal. On campus, I’m part of Nosotr@s the affinity group, I’m also co-chair of my own organization called SpitFire, and leading a radio show called Bomba.

I think the most important thing I learned at CITYterm was to follow my intuition. I already had intuition before CITYterm, but I feel like this program gave me permission to practice it. When I entered as a first year into college, I was nervous that I would have a hard time adapting into this new space, and I was nervous that I wouldn’t let my own inner light shine as much as it could. However, now I know that because I followed my intuition (which was sometimes filled with ambiguity) I was able to pave my own road.

I will always be grateful to have met all the beautiful people I was able to meet. I am truly grateful to CITYterm, for teaching me without boundaries, and for allowing me to enter New York City marching to the beat of my own drum and granting me the right to leave marching to the song of a vibrant tomorrow.

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JOSH ZAKIM CITYterm, Fall 2000 Buckingham, Browne & Nichols, 2002 University of Pennsylvania, 2006 Northeastern University School of Law, 2009

Josh traces his journey from Dobbs Ferry to elected office!

CITYterm had a major influence on me during and after high school. Living and learning with a group of some of the smartest people I’d been around was a great experience and really opened me up to new ways of thinking. Our group discussions both in and outside of the classroom were always challenging and being able to live and experience New York during that semester was a highlight of my high school years. I returned to BB&N more confident and with a much broader worldview and willingness to challenge my own preconceptions.

I’m a lawyer and small business owner in Boston and was elected to the Boston City Council in November 2013. Fellow CITYterm alums Franklin Ross and Matt Javitch have been a huge help on the campaign trail here in Boston.

Read more about Josh in Boston Magazine: tinyurl.com/jzakim

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 9

Haley Baron CITYterm, Fall 2006 San Francisco University High School, 2008 Wesleyan University, 2012

Haley tracks her journey from the streets of New York to a sustainable farm outside of D.C. I arrived at CITYterm thinking of myself as one thing and one thing only: a leader. I understood this to mean I needed to speak up as much as possible during discussions, always lead whatever group I was a part of, and ensure my voice was being heard at all times. I left CITYterm having realized, with lots of help from my teachers and a couple of cleansing tears, that leadership came in many forms and we could all be leaders. I returned to my competitive and high-stress school in San Francisco with an understanding of the value of unique leadership skills. I trained myself to ask critical questions that could shift conversations in new directions and helped classmates look through lenses previously unknown. While I had not seen these abilities to originally be attributes of a leader, CITYterm pushed me to comprehend the definition of leading in a new way. Over time, I have become the person colleagues and peers look to for creative solutions to complex problems and someone they can depend on to ask critical questions that bring in new and sometimes conflicting points of view.

One way that I have continued to use the skill of thinking outside of the box – a skill I further developed while at CITYterm – is by confronting a norm that society assumes recent college graduates will follow. I have been living in the “real world” for a couple of years and quickly understood this norm to be the pressure to work one full time job. After a year of doing just that, I decided that my one 9-5 position couldn’t fulfill my interests and what I valued in life. Instead, I configured a work schedule where I am involved in a variety of projects and part-time jobs.

I am extremely passionate about changing our food system for the better and realized I couldn’t choose one aspect of the complex system to focus on. Since I wanted to absorb as much as I could about our food system, I chose to work for organizations that allowed me to see the food system from diverse perspectives. The combination of jobs has given me the opportunity to live not only my professional life in a new way, but also my personal life. One of my jobs is working on a small, organic, sustainable farm in Maryland. While there, I am able to harvest produce and herbs to take home. I also work at farmers’ markets where I take home partially bruised or damaged foods. I challenge myself to not let anything go to waste, particularly by canning or freezing extra foods I cannot eat immediately. With a mostly vegetarian diet, I have been able to experiment with the food I take home. Whether it be the countless bags of frozen tomatoes from the summer harvest or applesauce from bruised apples that otherwise would have been thrown away, my work life has transformed my personal life. This unique balance has given me the opportunity to grow on and off the job.

Being forced to confront my own assumptions about what it was to be a leader and a learner changed the person I was in fall 2006 and continues to do so today. Though I do not know exactly what the future holds for me, I hope to continue integrating food into both my professional and personal life. One thing I know for certain is that wherever I go and whatever I do, the skills I gained in the fall of 2006 will support me.

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Caitlin Fitzgerald CITYterm, Fall 2000 Concord Academy, 2002 New York University, 2006

Caitlin may have had to leave the Brooklyn Bridge after CITYterm, but she found her way back.

I attended CITYterm in the fall of 2000. When it came time to apply for college, I applied early and only to New York University. Blessedly I was accepted. In the nearly eight years since I graduated from NYU, I have pursued my dream of making a living as an actor while living (most of the time) in New York.

CITYterm was a watershed moment for me. The kind of intellectual rigor and respect my mind was subject to lit a lot of fires that I am ever-grateful for. It seems to me that intelligence and curiosity are inherently intertwined and I credit the faculty of CITYterm, in particular David Dunbar, with revealing to me the transformative benefits of asking questions; “Living the questions,” as David likes to say.

CITYterm also gave me New York. I had always loved New York, always wanted and planned to live there as an adult, but CITYterm taught me to read the city as a text writ large and to engage with its complexities in a way that is never easy or settled but always rewarding. With this as my foundation, New York has become one of my best friends, my sometimes lover, occasional enemy, best interrogator, and constant inspiration.

But perhaps the thing I am most grateful for is David’s class about how to make meaning out of the stuff of our own lives how the world will speak to us if we care to listen and how it is possible to link our lived events so that they become a kind of shimmering net of interrelated occurrences. David taught me that we can choose to read our lives as complex narratives, where the past and the future are in conversation with each other creating a space where relevance can accrue. This has been particularly important in my life as an actor and storyteller.

On one of the last mornings of my semester at CITYterm, a small group of fellow students and I awoke in the dark and made our way down to the city in order to watch the sun rise from the Brooklyn Bridge. It is buried in a storage unit somewhere, but the picture I would include here is of me on the bridge, the Twin Towers rising in the distance, the sun lighting up the scaffolding and the buildings behind me in gold. The look on my face is one of possibility and wistfulness, as if I am looking into an assumed storybook version of my future where all of my New York dreams are tidily coming true. I couldn’t have known then the kind of heartache, rejection and somewhat masochistic perseverance that would be required in trying to accomplish those dreams and how my beloved city would sometimes be so brutal and unfeeling. There have been many times over the past thirteen years where I’ve wished for a little piece of that teenager’s certainty and naiveté, but CITYterm helped me learn that all of our experiences can be significant if we read them well. I recently wrote and directed a short film about a young woman struggling to make it as a musician in New York.

Initially the city seems to be working against her, but eventually her luck shifts and the lasttriumphant scene takes place on the Brooklyn Bridge, at dawn. Here is the scene description from the script: “Our girl stands on the bridge as the sun rises over New York harbor. It is just exactly like you dreamed New York would be. Magical.”

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 11

Cary Randolph Fuller CITYterm, Fall 2001 Joplin High School, 2003 University of Missouri, 2007

Cary weaves together the stories from her CITYterm experience with her current understanding of New York City.

The day after I graduated from CITYterm, my mother took me to Bloomingdale’s on 59th Street and bought me a pair of Frye cowboy boots. If the program taught me anything, it is that I, for all my cosmopolitan pretensions, was still very much a bumpkin. Or wasn’t a bumpkin at all. Looking back, the entire semester seemed to be an exercise in extremes. And surrounded by prep school kids from Boston and Marin County for those four months, I became fiercely defensive of my own background and of both reinforcing and breaking down the stereotypes. But returning to Joplin, Missouri, after four months in the Big Apple calmed me down a little. I no longer felt like the token redneck; I felt like something even worse: a snob. How could we study poverty from our cloistered boarding school classrooms, gawking at the guys asleep on the subway like penguins in a zoo? How would any of that help me graduate from my dirt poor public high school in the Middle of Nowhere, USA? It still doesn’t sit well with me. And then September 11 happened while we were there—amazingly no one went home early—and again, we gawked and tried to learn. We Learned with a capital L. I learned to write down quotes as I heard them and also jot down the context (otherwise they lost their humor). I met David Dunbar and read “Aurora” by Junot Diaz. I found the courage to stick up (and stick it to) teachers whom I didn’t like (and in the process I wrote a term paper that was recycled three times throughout the rest of my high school and college careers). I embraced the inner weird alongside 29 other walking hormones all discovering their weird as well. And you know what? I miss every day with those prep school snobs and Texas beauty queens and San Francisco hippies. Each of us was an extreme something; each of us stood out like sore thumbs, but so does every freak on the sidewalk in New York City, and learning that was a great education.

It’s a great opportunity to reach out and introduce myself to people I never dreamed of meeting—writers and inventors and stylish people who are doing incredible things—all for the sake of the magazine. If I find someone or something that’s cool, that’s it, I can get it and speak on behalf of Mr. Lauren himself.

It’s very humbling but also feels super glamorous, like I’ve become the girl I wanted to be when I was sixteen. I feel very lucky to have a job I love so much at a company I’ve admired for so long—this is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that I’ll never stop being surprised about.

Ask any CITYterm alum if he or she is working on a novel, and they’ll probably tell you yes, and I’m no exception. I wrote my term paper on Tom Wolfe and through a family connection actually got to interview him at his apartment. I took the train from Dobbs on the night of December 5 (my first solo trip!) and walked all the way up to 79th Street, and there he was in a navy and cream suit—right down to the polka dot socks—and his apartment was amazing. And I thought, “OK, this is what I need to be doing with my life, I need to write about ten international best-sellers and basically invent a new form of journalism in the process.” Well, it’s been nearly thirteen years, and my book is still in draft form, but I’ve kept the dream alive. That’s the thing about CITYterm—you find yourself remembering it at really odd moments, and you reach adulthood and New York is still mostly the same and your dreams don’t change too much. In that sense, I think my future will follow suit. I hope it’s just more of the same. More weird friends, some false novel starts, a lot of country music, and Dunbar on speed dial.

12 • CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014

Chris McCarrell CITYterm, Fall 2008 University School, 2009 Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music, 2013

Chris goes from Dobbs Ferry to Broadway!

After CITYterm, I entered my final semester of senior year at University School. I didn’t really understand the impact CITYterm had on me until I began college. I approached my studies differently than I had in high school. I was ready to take control of my learning process instead of just being a bystander. CITYterm gave me the confidence to be aware of my own learning and get bold in new ways to approach it at Baldwin Wallace.

This year, I made my debut playing Joly and understudying Marius in Les Miserables on Broadway. It’s been a crazy creative process. A lot of insane talent and strong opinions all thrown together. I surprisingly felt so comfortable getting into the conversation while working on the show because of my experiences with CITYterm. That was the most exciting part, finding flow with that caliber of artists.

I’ve completely destroyed all my preconceived notions about how Broadway works. I thought it would be overwhelming to be under such pressure. But once I jumped in and saw that it was completely manageable I began go get really excited about my career. This show has allowed me to see that I have a place in this business and I’m ready to continue working even more fearlessly in shows to come.

Read more about Les Miserables: tinyurl.com/cmccarrell

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 13

Cassie Pruyn CITYterm, Spring 2005 Falmouth High School, 2006 Bard College, 2010 Bennington Writing Seminars, 2014

Cassie weaves together stories from New York and New Orleans in her endeavors as a writer.

After CITYterm, I finished high school in Maine and then attended Bard College, after which I moved to New Orleans in 2010. My experience at CITYterm had an immediate, lasting effect on me, it challenged me at a time in my life when I was perhaps least stable but most desirous of being challenged. It asked me to become confident enough to approach the world in a childlike manner again. It taught me that education could mirror and expand upon the mindset I had naturally––as in, education didn’t have to be linear or artificial; I could engage with it on every level. Education could be experiential, indeed almost synesthetic, if one could commit to staying both open and intensely focused at the same time. What I loved about CITYterm was its emphasis on sincerity, as expressed every single day through the words and actions of the faculty: the world was something to explore with both the utmost sincerity and the utmost rigor. Several times, I was called out for approaching my projects and assignments with the disingenuous bravado many teenagers seem to exhibit. Although receiving this feedback was decidedly painful, this is one of those gifts that keeps on giving! I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the kind of educators that aren’t afraid of hurting a student’s feelings when an important lesson weighs in the balance. This meant that I was being taken seriously––as a person, as a student––and because of this, I had to take myself seriously as well.

I find that, in the years since I’ve graduated college, the lessons I learned while at CITYterm have begun to resonate even more deeply, because every day in New Orleans is an opportunity for questioning and learning. The history of this city is etched upon every surface, intertwined with its geography. This is a city that, with a style all its own, requires its residents to pay attention, and my way of paying attention is through writing poetry. In the past couple of years, I have committed myself to being a writer. It was, and continues to be, an exciting and also terrifying choice to have made, but really there was no other choice for me. I think of CITYterm all the time as I continue to toil over my manuscript(s): for example, I am writing a historical novel-in-verse about 17th century Dutch Colonial Manhattan, and so I am reminded of all of our adventures in the City, reading the past in the layout of the streets and the architecture, imagining it as unbridled wilderness it once was. I am also writing about New Orleans, and so every day call upon those skills I sharpened in the spring of 2005, learning to engage with place as a text, learning how to make connections between seemingly disparate parts.

I hope to publish these manuscripts at some point in the coming years. Alongside writing, I hope to teach, and in particular I would love to teach high school creative writing or literature. I would like to bring poetry out of the ivory tower; I would like demystify the fundamental connection between the poem and the reader. To teach poetry in this way would necessarily require an experiential, holistic approach. I have loved reading about all the ways CITYterm has influenced other alumnae, all of whom seem to be pursuing their passions with creativity, whole-heartedness, and determination!

14 • CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014

Ajie Akers CITYterm, Spring 2004 Concord Academy, 2005 Barnard College, 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Master of City Planning, 2015 (expected)

Ajie began studying cities at CITYterm and has continued to explore urban spaces in the United States, China, Mexico, and more!

CITYterm remains my most influential and treasured educational experience: it introduced me to my love for big cities, experiential learning, and getting out of my comfort zone, something that I’m basically addicted to now. After CITYterm, I attended Barnard College as an Urban Studies major. Besides the fact that I hadn’t gotten over my infatuation with Jane Jacobs (to this day, that still lingers), choosing urban studies let me pursue interdisciplinary learning and fieldwork outside of the formal classroom—all things that I had learned to appreciate at CITYterm. At Barnard I focused much of my studies on questions of race, ethnicity, immigration, and, in my final year, the built environment, particularly public spaces and transportation.

I also studied abroad and became very interested in international issues. In retrospect, this was natural. I now realize that my love for New York has always been rooted in its diversity and convergence of cultures.

After graduating, I worked on energy conservation programs for the City of New York for several years before moving to Beijing on a Luce Scholarship. There, I worked at the Urban China Initiative think tank and ate my way through noodle shops and hot pot palaces in 12 provinces. A chance to work on a federal task force for Hurricane Sandy rebuilding in New York brought me back stateside. These experiences were all vastly different and gave me a window into the types of careers that are possible for a person who is fascinated by cities. I realized that I wanted to be more directly involved in creating places that are vibrant, sustainable, and equitable, and for that I needed to go back to school.

This fall I entered a Master’s program in City Planning to gain skills in urban design, spatial analysis, and planning. This summer I am working for a transportation firm in Mexico City. I am looking at a group of new intermodal transportation stations that connect bus, subway, BRT, taxi, and pedestrian travel. Mexico City is considering building many more transportation hubs of this type, and I am trying to understand if the first few stations have reached their potential in improving public safety, efficiency, and other performance standards, particularly from the standpoint of urban design. The project will likely morph somewhat once I get there, because I’ve never been to Mexico City before and I have a lot to learn, which is part of why I’m so excited.

The work this summer could potentially grow into my thesis, which will in one way or another focus on urban design in developing countries. After graduating I plan to move abroad again. I live for the DKDK moments, and I absolutely love the overwhelming, confusing, and thrilling feeling that accompanies being immersed in a culture that is different from my own, and the satisfaction that comes with starting to figure it all out. Topically, I want to be involved in creating and retrofitting public places that are safe, fun, useful, and accessible. I’m not sure if this will be as a designer, planner, researcher, or project manager, but I’m looking forward to whatever comes next. CITYterm started me on this adventure. I’ll always be grateful!

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 15

2013–2014 Annual Report of Donors This edition of Bridges honors those who made contributions to CITYterm’s 2013-2014 Annual Fund. The philanthropic support that we receive from alumni, parents, faculty, and administrators from both the CITYterm and Masters communities and friends of the program is truly invaluable. As a small non-profit organization, your support is vital to the continued sustainability and growth of CITYterm, enabling us to share the life-altering experience of a semester at CITYterm with students from all hometowns, high schools, and experiences for many years to come. A gift to our Annual Fund is a celebration of the impact CITYterm has had on the lives of our alumni, ensuring the future of CITYterm, and endorsing the value of our experiential learning model.

In particular, we want to call special attention to donors who have given for three consecutive years or more (denoted with an *asterisk). Your support — year after year — sustains us and sets a powerful example for other members of our community. Alumni

WAYS TO GIVE THIS YEAR… Give online: www.cityterm.org/givingcityterm/donate-now/ index.aspx Call: Dial 914-479-6502 to make your gift over the phone Mail: Checks may be mailed to CITYterm, 49 Clinton Avenue, Dobbs Ferry, New York 10522 Gifts of Stock: Call 914-479-6502

often note that CITYterm was a pivotal moment in their development. In addition to being part of a unique community for a semester, alumni tell us that the skills they were introduced to in New York continue to be valuable in navigating a complex world.

A gift to CITYterm’s Annual Fund is a tangible way to give back, a public testament to the lasting power of a semester at CITYterm. As you consider charitable giving this year, we encourage you to participate in CITYterm’s Annual Fund.

16 • CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014

An envelope is attached for your convenience.

2013 – 2014 ANNUAL FUND CONTRIBUTORS This year, your generosity totaled $78,840, providing invaluable financial support that allows us to achieve our mission through increased financial aid, program support, and professional development.

KEY: Alumni Council Class Agent 2013-2014 Faculty & Administration 3-year consecutive donor* 5-year consecutive donor** 10-year consecutive donor***

EMPIRE STATE BUILDING ($10,000 +) Anonymous

CHRYSLER BUILDING ($5,000 - $9,999) Stacie and Jeffrey Halpern PF’12, PS’15 Alice Probasco Lupton

HEARST TOWER ($2,500 - $4,999) James Patrick Collins F’97* Alison and John Shulman PS’14

WALDORF ASTORIA HOTEL ($1,000 - $2,499) Susannah and David Bailin PS’12* Steven Bercu PS’14 Julia Chu PS’14 The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Eliot Dash F’02 Dash Family Foundation Laura and Kevin Dickey PS’13 Nancy Fox and Jon Edwards PF’13 Helen & William Mazer Foundation Kathy and Stuart Horne PS’14 Lori Jablonski PS’14 Amy and Howard Klion PF’08**

Klion Springwater Coven Family Foundation, Inc.** Esu Cleveland Lackey* Babette and Peter Loring PS’00, PS’97*** Cydney and David Martel PF’13 Carolyn Orr Mattoon** The Robert and Carolyn Mattoon Fund** Francine Miller and Daniel McLaughlin PF’13 Marivi and Darius Nevin PF’08** Karin and Giffen Ott PF’11* Katy and Robert Pattillo PF’06 Pilzer Family Foundation** Anita and Neal Pilzer PS’07 Diane M. Allen and John P. Remmert PF’10* Caroline and David Selman PS’14 Lynn Pilzer Sobel PF’97, PS’04*** Carolyn Hunt and William Wilkinson PF’11* Alexis Beach S’97* Laurie M. Beach PS’97

FLATIRON BUILDING ($500 - $999) Barbara Bell and Peter Garvey PF’04 Steven Kaell and Erica Chapman F’99** David S. Dunbar PF’99, PS’02** Carol and Howard Fine PF’10* Maureen Fonseca** Lisa and George Katz PS’11 Alec Koo PF’12 Norbert and Roger Longman PS’05*** Jennifer Morrison and Richard Marks PS’07* Family Mayer Foundation Inc. Barbara and Richard Melvoin PF’97 Susie and Larry Mondry PS’14

Laura Kittle and Jeremy Moser PF’04** Marlissa Briggett and Peter Necheles PS’13 De Qin Xu and Wei Ni PS’14 Diane Pink and Roy Pottle PF’07 Karen Barbour and David Sheff PF’12 Nereyda Garcia and Philip Sutherland PF’12

WOOLWORTH BUILDING ($100 - $499) Anonymous Kathleen Adams S’05 Bridget and John Barnes PF’11* Jack Bathke S’05* The Benfield Group Susan Schraft and Richard Berne PF’05 Boeing Cecilia Bonnabeau* Elliott M. Bossin PS’02 The Boston Foundation* Wendy and Titus Brenninkmeijer PF’10 Corey Briskin S’05** Amy and Elliot Callahan PF’12 Adrienne Campbell-Holt S’97** Christy and Frank Carter PF’09 Gabriela Castillo S’11* Sharon Nechis Castillo PS’11* Diana Kennedy and Jack Chernick PS’14 Citrix Systems, Inc. Boston Linda Nathan and Steve Cohen PF’09 Donari Copperidge F’96* Elizabeth and Thomas Crane PF’10 Graham Cuddy S’14 Laurel and Brian Daly PS’13 Elizabeth C. Doi Marianne and Richard Dornfeld PF’08 Douglas M. Dunbar F’99**

Walker M. Dunbar S’02** Eileen Fisher Melissa and Dominic Eisinger PF’13 Melinda and David Emmons PS’13 Ben Fainlight S’08* Mia Feldman F’96 Rose and Scott Fitzgerald PS’12 Paula and Gareth Fracchia PS’99 Andrew Freedman S’97 Mary Elliott and Mark Friedman PF’12 Betty Miller and David Gootnick PS’13 Amy and Norman Gorin PS’06** Greater Kansas City Community Foundation John K. Hall Kyra Hammer S’14 Candace Reffe and Edward Hogan PS’12 Jason Hult F’00** Mary and Timothy Hult PF’00** David Jacoby S’97** Jean Marie and Doug Jamieson PF’10* Diana and Alan Kaell Acadia Klain S’00* Jane and James Levitt PS’10, PS’12** Virginia and Mark Ling PS’11 Clare Martin and Terrence Lyons PS’14 Louise and Michael Malakoff PF’96** Ruth Mickelsen and William Manning PF’08 Ann Mitchell PF’99, PS’02** Katharine Nemec Lilli and Philip OuYang PF’09 Leigh and Scott Parks PF’13 Barbara Pickel Lake C. Polan S’97 Jamie Ponsetto F’12 Susan Warden and Les Porter PS’11*

2013-2014 CITYTERM DONORS BY GROUP CONSTITUENT All Students

NUMBER OF DONORS

DOLLARS RAISED

122

$8,705

Students from Last Academic Year

49

$795

All Other Alumni

73

$7,910

105

$45,760

All Parents

Parents from Last Academic Year

19

$14,781

Parents of Alumni

86

$30,979

36

$24,374

263

$78,840

Faculty, Friends, and Foundations TOTAL

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 17

Cliff Ritter F’11 Stephanie and Phil Ritter PF’11 Kerry and Dave Rothschild PS’14 Mary and Carl Schellhorn PF’06** Susan and Glenn Shea PF’12 Mark Silverstein PF’11* Alison Fisher Smith S’97 Antoinette Tomai PF’99 Barbara and Peter van Allen PS’12* WellCall* Robin Frederick Whitten PF’01 Maggie Wilkinson F’11 Laura Weisberg and David Wong PS’04 Nathan Wright

CARNEGIE HALL ($50 - $99) Anonymous (2) Suzanna Alter F’03** Paula and William Bathke PS’05* Jesse Brown F’04 Tess Brustein F’03** Zoe Carter F’99* Jennifer Weigel and Arthur Chin PS’12 Ting Lee and Joseph Chou PF’13 Michele Corley PF’05* Megan Crowe-Rothstein S’98** Daniel Devereux PF’97 Micah Dornfeld F’08** Sara Jane Emmons S’13 Jermaine Freeman F’96 Erin Greene F’04* Mindy Hastie PS’07** Rebecca Hauss S’04 Jung Hee Hyun S’08* Faith Isbell S’14 Barbara and Kenneth Kalter PS’97*** Stephen J. Kessler PF’97 Nanci and John Kryzak PS’00**

18 • CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014

Christina Ludovici F’08** Myra Lyles and Raymond Ratliff PF’05 Koreen McQuilton PS’04 Claudia Mihm F’12 Katherine and Frank Mihm PF’12 Frances E. Osthimer PF’98 Faith and Jeffrey Pine PF’10* Mia Saunders PS’09 Lily Schorr S’06 Marion Cunningham and James Sherley PS’11* Zack Sigal S’05* David Simons S’01* Suzanne Paré and Jeff Stern PS’10* Peyton E. Steurer S’13 Darlene Bojrab-Taylor and Alan Taylor PS’98, PS’01 Charlie Townsley F’13 Alexander S. Urquhart S’03* Thomas Yaps F’98

CITY HALL ($1 - $49) Anonymous Sebastian Andrew S’14 Carrie Bell-Hoerth F’05 Chiara Bercu S’14 Nancy and Todd Bland PS’13 Constance Blumenthal F’13 Nicholas Boulos F’13 Ilana Brandstetter F’13 Jared Burk S’13 Courtney A. Camps** Olivia M. Capozzalo S’09* Iris Carbonel F’13 Jacob Chernick S’14 Jeremy Chimene-Weiss S’13 Kenneth Chou F’13 Avery Cohen F’13 Sarah Cohen S’13

2012-2013 ALUMNI GIVING

By June 30, 2015, we plan to dramatically increase alumni giving; please consider giving a gift today and rallying your semester to give generously!

Semester Number

of Donors

Dollars Raised

Fall 1996

4

$320

Spring 1997

6

$966

Fall 1997

1

$2,500

Spring 1998

2

$70

Fall 1998

1

$75

Spring 1999

0

$0

Fall 1999

3

$750

Spring 2000

1

$150

Fall 2000

1

$100

Spring 2001

1

$75

Fall 2001

0

$0

Spring 2002

2

$120

Fall 2002

1

$500

Spring 2003

2

$75

Fall 2003

2

$100

Spring 2004

1

$50

Fall 2004

2

$100

Spring 2005

4

$425

Fall 2005

2

$50

Spring 2006

6

$188

Fall 2006

0

$0

Spring 2007

0

$0

Fall 2007

1

$5

Spring 2008

2

$150

Fall 2008

3

$200

Spring 2009

2

$40

Fall 2009

3

$95

Spring 2010

0

$0

Fall 2010

3

$60

Spring 2011

1

$66

Fall 2011

3

$240

Spring 2012

2

$35

Fall 2012

4

$179

Spring 2013

7

$225

Fall 2013

20

$262

Spring 2014

29

$533

Madeline Corcoran S’14 Lucy Crane F’10* Lauren Cunfer S’14 Haley Jo Cutrone S’14 Savannah R. DiDato S’14 Mary Doi Judith Donald Margaret Edwards F’13 Frances Eisinger F’13 Olivia Eschenbach-Smith S’09 Carmen Estepan PF’13 Max Fine S’14 Celine Gauchey S’14 Margaret and Hershell George PS’12 Jibria Green S’14 Brianna Haden F’13 Catie Hall F’07 Adam Harb F’12 Cynthia and Ghassan Harb PF’12 Jacob Horne S’14 Jennifer Hughes Keelin Hurd F’09 Emma Bruggeman Iacono F’05* Siobhan Masterson and Erik Johnke* Alexandra Kaplan S’06 Maximillian Kellerhals F’13 Barbara Laco S’12 Laura Levitt S’12* Siobhan Lewkowitz F’13 Tess Liberman F’13

Sydney Lim F’13 Elizabeth Littenberg-Tobias S’03 Victoria Lyons S’14 Patrick McGettigan* Bryn McLaughlin F’13 Benjamin Mercer S’02 Ruby S. Miller-Gootnick S’13 Carly Mondry S’14 Nguhi Muturi F’11* Sophia Namara F’10 Shea Necheles S’13 Christopher Neikirk F’13 Camille Newton F’09 Wenxuan Ni S’14 Emma Olsen F’13 Allison Parks F’13 Alexandra Phillips S’06* Laura Pickel* Jennifer Pierre S’06 Jonathan Pine F’10 Amy Hozid and Thomas Plancon PS’08 Jessica Podgurski S’14 Michael Rodway S’14 Calla Rosenfeld S’14 Gabrielle Rothschild S’14 Sherry Rusher PF’04 Mary M. Ryan* Chloe Sanyoun S’14 Parker Selman S’14 Emma Senior S’14 Maria Quiroga and Alvin Shiggs PS’01*

Sabrina Shulman S’14 Lisa Eschenbach and Will Smith PS’09 Mary-Mildred B. Stith S’98 Katherine Tomes F’13 Allison Wade PS’14 Adon Wade-Currie S’14 Eder J. Williams* Alexandra Williamson S’14 Christina Wohler PF’05** Darren Wood Cynthia Yang F’96 Veronica Yang F’12 Sydney Yonack S’14 Elisabeth Zak S’14

John K. Hall Mary Doi

HONORARY GIFTS

GIFTS IN KIND

The following donors chose to honor a member of our CITYterm community with their gifts.

Erica Chapman F’99 Amy and Norman Gorin PS’06 Erin Greene F’04 Diana and Alan Kaell David S. Dunbar PF’99, PS’02 Amy and Norman Gorin PS’06 Antoinette Tomai PF’99*

Jason Hult F’00 Peyton E. Steurer S’13 Erik Johnke P’18 Jamie Ponsetto F’12 Steven Kaell Erin Greene F’04 Diana and Alan Kaell Ryann McQuilton S’04 Koreen McQuilton PS’04 Laura Pickel Mary Doi Eder J. Williams Mary Doi

The following donors generously contributed to CITYterm during the 2013-2014 school year with gifts of their time, space, and energy to help further CITYterm’s mission.

Emeric Harney, S’04 Diane Bradshaw, PS’13 and Maddie Bradshaw, S’13 Marjorie Bowen, PF’12, PF’14 and Megan Bowen, F’12

Douglas M. Dunbar F’99 Ann Mitchell PF’99, PS’02 Walker M. Dunbar S’02 Ann Mitchell PF’99, PS’02 Amanda Foushee F’04 Sherry Rusher PF’04 CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 19

Always and Never a Writer

BY MIRA JACOB

For more than ten years, CITYterm students have been reading drafts of Mira Jacob’s recently published novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dreaming, and meeting with her to explore what it means to read and to write.

When you grow up thinking you might be a writer, you imagine that there will be a day when you will actually feel like one. “I’m also a writer,” you will tell other writers at parties at the Essex House, where you’ve never actually been, but have seen from Central Park on your one visit to New York in 1986, and have reimagined as a sort of time capsule for all writers ever, a clubhouse for everyone from Shakespeare to Arthur Miller to Judy Blume. So it will come as a shock that when you have actually done it—moved to New York, gotten your M.F.A., started working on a novel that will take you ten years to finish—you will feel less like a writer than you thought imaginable. In these moments, I have found, it is very good to have an appointment to speak to CITYterm students.

David Dunbar cracks up every single time I tell him this. “Really?” he will say, shaking his head.

“That was the thing that made you feel most like a writer?” He says this as though having a bunch of smart and thoughtful people read your work, open themselves to it, and ask you the most insightful questions is some kind of everyday occurrence. As though the world is full of people just waiting to take you seriously.

It took me nearly ten years to complete my first novel, and while I am thrilled to say that it published this summer in four countries and will be out in nine others by the end of the year, I can also say that this larger world viewing would probably not have happened at all, had I not had the good fortune to become a CITYterm guest author. Because the study of writing at CITYterm is structured around the idea that writing is a series of choices, talking to students about the ones I made and why became an affirmation of the fact that I was, indeed, a writer. It showed me the depth of my knowledge and also, as the years passed, my commitment to getting the work done. Which is a funny thing for an adult to get from a group of incredibly smart students, I admit.

But it’s also one that I can pay back when I find myself talking to the future writers in the group, and showing them, inadvertently, how it’s done.

Learn more about Mira and read her book today: www.mirajacob.com!

Caption

20 • CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014

At CITYterm we talk about reading as an act of authorship, a way to create meaning by being in dialogue with a text.

In the excerpted essay below Céline uses a close reading of John Steinbeck’s “The Making of a New Yorker” to describe her own journey in New York and celebrates her new found powers of observation.

The New Yorker In “The Making of a New Yorker,” Steinbeck discusses both the beauty and the pain of his experience in New York City. He writes of his first “assault” in the city by saying, “I was afraid to go out on the street – actually afraid of traffic – the noise. Afraid of the landlord and afraid of people. Afraid even of acquaintances.” Throughout the first period of time Steinbeck lived in the city, he might have felt a sense of disconnection with the city. But the second time he moved to New York, he was able to accept what the city had to offer, and he was also able to embrace the fear that had been ever present in his mindset. I believe that Steinbeck’s experience was very similar to that of a CITYtermer. We, as CITYtermers, often begin the semester unfamiliar with, and sometimes fearful of, the city. But once we begin to spend more time there, we start to notice the small details that make New York City what it is, which leads us to accept what surrounds us. How do we connect with the city? And what does having a relationship with the city feel like?

BY CÉLINE GAUCHEY, SPRING 2014, MARIN ACADEMY 2015

I remember the first time I walked around NYC as a CITYterm student. I had been to Manhattan in the past, but I had always considered myself a tourist and not a real New Yorker. But as I walked around Grand Central, I did not know what category I should put myself in. Was I a New Yorker now? Was I still a tourist? Maybe something in between? Although I had the mindset of a temporary New York resident, I still did not feel right saying that I lived in New York. I felt that very sense of fear that Steinbeck recounted in his essay, “There was something monstrous about it – the tall buildings looming to the sky and the lights shining through the falling snow. I crept ashore – frightened and cold with a touch of panic in my stomach.” But now, like Steinbeck, I love New York. But what made me, Steinbeck, and many other CITYtermers end up loving the city when we started out fearing it?

After moving back to New York, Steinbeck finally felt a sense of belonging with the city. He wrote, “Everything fell into place. I saw every face I passed. I noticed every doorway and the stairways to apartments. I looked across the street at the windows, lace curtains and potted geraniums through sooty glass. It was beautiful - but most important, I was part of it. I was no longer a stranger. I had become a New Yorker.” Steinbeck most likely felt the same feeling I felt when I began comfortably walking through the city. Rather than ignoring what the city had to offer, Steinbeck began to embrace the small details that made the city what it is. Like Steinbeck, I no longer ignore the details in the city. Instead, I pay attention to the different shades of the tulips on Park Avenue and the small swirls that frame the windows of Tiffany on Wall Street. I began to feel its energy running through my veins, which made me feel invigorated as I proudly strode in between the familiar skyscrapers that surround me in Manhattan. Like Steinbeck said, “It seems to me that the city finally accepts you just as you finally accept the city.”

Becoming a New Yorker is like threading a sewing machine. It is so complicated to loop the thread through all the different holes and you don’t understand why it is necessary to pay attention to every detail and frankly, it is unbelievably frustrating. But once you get the hang of it, you begin to notice the beauty of the way it works and the beauty of the way it punctures the fabric that is laid in front of you. You notice how it can create different stitches and different products, but it all comes from the same machine that continuously brings to life the creativity of the people that utilize it as a valuable resource. After all of those tiny seemingly tedious actions, you are left with a beautiful product and experience forever.

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 21

A Letter from David Dunbar continued from page 2

What follows below is the exact “empathy protocol” the students received in class:

HOW TO PRACTICE EMPATHY? A BEGINNERS GUIDE To start with: For now, let’s start with a definition that views empathy as “the capacity to imagine the thoughts and feelings of the inner life of another person—deeply understanding how someone else constructs the world.” In order to practice empathy you obviously have to be able to change your perspective, but you also have to try to see the world the way the other person ”constructs” it. When we construct the world we have certain feelings, certain thoughts, certain metaphors and myths that are the foundations of our world, and we also access and apply our past experience.

Empathy is, almost by definition, an act of the imagination. You are not another person; you are you. Therefore, practicing empathy may be more like calculus than algebra. You are trying to get as close as you can to the objective, but you will probably never completely reach it. Everyone says, “imagination is more important than knowledge”—let’s see if that is true.

Finally, empathy is the ability to inhabit someone else’s way of constructing the world—intellectually, emotionally, psychologically and physically.

What skills might help us do this?

1) Avoid Judgment: I bring this up only because we are so conditioned to be judgmental (in good and bad ways). I wonder, in fact, if this is the goal of high school and our prime way of being in the world? Being judgmental does NOT help, however, in being empathetic.

2) Deep Listening/Mindfulness/Metaphors: Be fully present when you are trying to be someone else. Prepare yourself to listen for the METAPHORS that are the foundation of how this character constructs the world. The premise here is that we have “metaphors we live by” that are foundational. These may take the form of stories, mottos, slogans, or myths. They will be revealed in what the character does and does not say, by their actions, and sometimes by the most nuanced of gestures. Some of them may be explicitly stated, but, oftentimes, they will be embedded and only implicit.

3) Group Identity Identifiers: We think of ourselves as individuals, but also a members of different groups. Being empathetic would require being aware of the degree and intensity of the identification on the part of any given individual on a given occasion. Are there groups (race, gender, religion, nationality, geography, age, sexual orientation, etc) that are particularly important to this character in constructing how they see the world? When does the character see themselves as an individual? When as a member of a group?

4) Premises and Assumptions: Premises are foundational beliefs that we are aware that we hold; assumptions, however, are often more deeply embedded and we are unaware that we hold them. However, both premises and assumptions can be inferred and deduced from people’s words and behaviors. Sometimes these are individual to the particular person, but sometimes they are group assumptions. For example, to be an American is to have internalized the children’s story of The Little Engine That Could. The culture inculcates a sense of, “I think I can, I think I can.”

5) Questions characters are asking themselves: We are all in the process of asking ourselves different questions as we live our lives. What are the questions your character is asking? The trick here is to be really precise in your phrasing of the question(s) you think they are asking.

The Role of Intuition in Practicing Empathy: Don’t think of yourself as trying to “answer” these questions that might pop up. Think instead of being spontaneous. This will allow you to tap the creative unconscious part of your mind to develop. Don’t “analyze” the data you have collected to answer it, just answer it. We can then, later on, see if it seems to be accurate. The paradox is that the more you know from your protocol, the more you can “forget” it and just “be the other person.”

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Class Notes

Please send your updates to your Class Agent or email Lisa (lisa.doi@cityterm.org)

Fall 1996: Class agent is Sara Sears Michael Cannistraro writes: I ended up studying mechanical engineering and business. With that education, I have spent the last 10 years working with some of my siblings at the construction company that our dad started in the 60s. I live in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood and spend most of my free time working on music and training for road races. I hope to run the Boston Marathon for the first time in 2015.

Donari Copperidge writes: I currently live in Seattle and work for the Boeing Company as a Hardware Manager on one of the Commercial Airplanes. I also do kickboxing in my spare time.

Will Engle writes: I live in Los Angeles, CA with my wife Lauren Cullen. I continue to play music, including an album This Could Be Heaven (2006). It’s on iTunes, Amazon, etc.

I’m currently writing music profiles for AXS and interviews for examiner.com.

Kerri (Geller) Goldfarb writes: I’m living in Dallas and have a two year old daughter, Eliza. I’m expecting boy/girl twins this summer, so life is about to get a little crazy.

Since leaving the classroom as a first grade teacher, I have continued to work with children as a reading tutor.

I always think of my CITYterm days and what a privilege it was to be a part of the program.

Kate Hasley writes: I also have been in the field of mental health as a clinical therapist working mainly with at-risk youth with PTSD. I did this for 10 years in New Haven, CT and more recently Philadelphia. However, last year I decided to take a break from it all and move to California to participate in a Nature Connection immersion program. For

9 months I camped for half the week and learned about primitive skills, animal tracking, bird language, wild harvesting, but more importantly how to reconnect with the land, myself and community. I feel much more dialed into the cycles of life, the earth rhythms, the seasons and now feel inspired to bring that back to a more urban environment and see it’s applicability for at-risk youth or communities that maybe don’t have the access and ability be outdoors.

The west coast is agreeing with me, but I miss the east as well.

Rachel Hunt writes: I am living and working in downtown Chattanooga’s budding south side. I am employed by a real estate developer, and our business is primarily focused on multifamily projects. In June we completed The Nautilus, an historic building on the river from the 1920’s that we renovated into 8 high end apartments. Currently I am working on a Main St. residence renovation, new build of a log home in Big Horn, WY, a new office building, and designing farm house style 3 and 4 unit townhomes for a new subdivision.

I am happily unmarried, and live with my two Jack Russell terriers Bella and Fat Boy. I hope everyone else is flourishing, happy and healthy!

Zanada Joyner writes: After law school I experienced some medical setbacks (diagnosis of MS) that helped me reevaluate my career.

I’m completing a Master’s in Library Science in the fall and I’m working in Reference at the law school I attended. Hoping to find tenure track appointment in the winter or spring.

I caught up with Jermaine Freeman (F’96) for New Years and again in June. Looking forward to seeing Donari Copperidge (F’96) in September.

Simon Lowenthal writes: After 12 years as a banker in management, I took a new job as a different kind of banker - I now do wholesale education loans for college and graduate students (we refinance them too) at Citizens Bank through its branch network. I spend a lot of time coaching and developing people so that’s rewarding and the business unit is growing very quickly so that’s fun.

In May of this year, I proposed on the same day that I bought a house here in Somerville, MA. My wife to be and I have been dating for two years and are getting married June 2015.

She’s smarter, prettier and funnier than me.

Dan Malakoff writes: These days I split my time between Pittsburgh and Northampton, MA, writing fiction, teaching, and getting dirt under my nails in all sorts of ways.

Divakar Mithal writes: I’m married to a wonderful woman named Leena. She and I met in med school and are trying to jumpstart our respective careers as physicians now. I completed my MD-PhD dual degree a year ago, and am currently training in Pediatric Neurology at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. CITYterm definitely instilled a love of urban life, as Leena and I live in the middle of this huge metropolis and can’t imagine ever moving to the dreaded suburbs.

Ben Pershouse writes: I am enjoying fatherhood, little Brian will be six months old on the nineteenth and he is learning new stuff every day. I am teaching third grade special ed in a small city outside Boston and loving it. The dogs think the baby is fun and can’t wait for him to start throwing solid food on the floor.

Sara Sears writes: I’ve been enjoying my life here in VT. I became a psychotherapist and I’m in private practice. I’ve been reliving, my

HAD A BABY? Email Lisa Doi (lisa.doi@cityterm. org) and we’ll send you a CITYterm onesie!

From left to right: Theo Kaell, son of Erica Chapman (F’99) and Steve Kaell (Former Faculty) and Evelyn Moeller, daughter of Abby Sugahara-Moeller (F’96)

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if they’re visiting SF, especially S’97!

It was also great re-living CITYterm last year through my friend from work’s daughter, Bryn Mclaughlin (F’13). Her mom was giving me all the fun updates and it’s great to see CITYterm is as adventurous as ever.

Now that we are West Coasters, we are looking forward to our first Burning Man this year! My parents are flying out to SF to stay at our place and watch the kids for the whole week...we are *very* lucky! It turns out that that is also Max’s first day of pre-school, so we are going to drop him off and say, “This is a very big day for you at your new school... we are going to the desert to party for a week...good luck!”

Fall 1997: Class agent is Patrick Collins

feminist inspired CITYterm days and have been helping get more women onto beautiful Lake Champlain supporting a program called Women in Women at our Community Sailing Center. I’m getting married to an awesome woman name Sue Bette in a couple months!

Breana Smith writes: I live in Charlotte, NC and work at a law firm in the White Collar Criminal Defense/Litigation Group. I was so bored with high school after Cityterm that I started at Howard University in Fall 1997, and later went on to law school at Georgetown University. I recently got married and have a little girl named Maya. I quite frequently share the Rainier Maria Rilke quote about loving the questions themselves.

Julia Smith writes: I am living in Brooklyn and teaching 3rd grade at Brooklyn Friends School. All’s well over here!

Abby Sugahara Moeller writes: I’ve lived in Saint Paul, MN since marrying a native 7 years ago. Jamey and I welcomed baby Evelyn on April 22 - our first. She keeps me busy pretty much all the time, and she is wonderful! I’m not sure what I will do work wise - I’m going to enjoy motherhood for a while. While Evelyn is sleeping I like to make stuff, mostly for her: I built a shelving unit for her closet and I’ve sewn clothes, sheets & toys for her.

And I do get out on my own now and then to take figure skating lessons (I skated until I was 8 months pregnant!), but I’m still figuring out how to get things done and not to be exhausted all the time.

Bright (Tate) Vandervoet writes: My husband Tim and I are in Tucson, AZ where we enjoy speaking Spanish and spending lots of time in Mexico. The Sonoran desert borderland is a wonderful, beautiful and interesting place!

I just graduated with an MS Entry to Nursing and I’ll sit for the boards this fall to become a Registered Nurse (RN). I enjoy working in Emergency Medicine and Critical Care and I hope to find work soon in one of those fields.

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I met Tim in Malawi in the Peace Corps and we hope to return there soon. Our hope is to get back to the developing world where the pace of life and daily activities are a better fit for us.

CITYterm has a strong place in my life as I continue to ask questions and strive to be the change.

Cynthia Yang writes: I just celebrated my 7th anniversary as an event planner with Great Performances in New York City. During that time I’ve produced a range of events, from private concerts featuring Hannah Montana (before she was subsumed/consumed by Miley Cyrus) to trips in Berlin, Tokyo, and Havana. So, basically my stock in trade consists of pathological pedantry and an appreciation of the absurd, and my office is squarely located in the DKDK Zone. When not at work, I’m listening to podcasts while biking around the city, sucking terribly at Capoeira, and trying to get through the reading material that I’ve accumulated as if I were the third Collyer brother.

Spring 1997: Class agent is Lauren Levin Epstein Odell Andy Freedman moved to Tel Aviv for the year with his wife, Emily, in January. Living the life of “adult study abroad” had been an incredible experience, filled with exploration, new culture, language and friends. Despite the current state of affairs in Israel, they are having a blast and if any CITYterm alum find themselves in Israel before the end of the year, please let Andy know!

David Jacoby writes: Max is almost 3, and Olivia is around 1.5...needless to say, life is a bit of a blur these days (!) but they sure are worth it. While I miss NYC, we are loving our house in San Francisco in the Inner Richmond neighborhood, right near beautiful Golden Gate Park...fitting, having lived for so long just a few blocks away from Central Park on the UWS. We have a guest room and all CITYterm alumni are welcome to stay

Claire Kessler-Bradner writes: I was really excited to send my first student to CITYterm last fall! Siobhan Lewkowtiz (F’13) was the first student from Convent of the Sacred Heart High School to attend CITYterm, just as I was the first from Urban back in fall of ‘97. Although I am no longer teaching at Convent, I was thrilled to make the connection and get a relationship started with the school. I am now teaching in the East Bay and hanging out with my 1-year-old daughter, Lita, who may have already outgrown her “Live the Questions” onesie, but is definitely still living the questions.

Spring 1998 Class Agent is Piper Evans Polly Auritt writes: I currently live in Venice Beach, CA with my husband, Chris Kosfeld.

We met at Columbia University and have been living in LA for 11 years. I work as the VP of scripted development at MTV Networks and have a dog named Cleo.

Sarah Bockian writes: I’m living in Portland, Maine and I love it here. I just bought a house June 1, it’s a teeny tiny one bedroom house and I’m completely in love with it. My dog loves it too; he spends all his time in the yard. I’m working as an ICU nurse at the big hospital in town, which is fun and challenging and exhausting and exciting. Off and on playing roller derby and mountain biking.

Went back to NYC recently and tried to give someone a tour of the Lower East Side — my neighborhood study! — and realized that I don’t remember anything AND New York just keeps on changing. Wished I had some CITYterm peeps there to help me hunt down the new cool spots.

Anne Louise Cranwell writes: I received my MA in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College in 2010 and since then have been teaching and coaching soccer. I produced a documentary about young women and politics called “Raising Ms. President,” and encourage everyone to check it out at raisingmspresident.com. My husband, Chris, and I recently moved from Ohio to Nashville, TN, and are expecting our first child any day now.

Piper Evans writes: I’m now on my third try living in New York! First Spring 1998 for CITYterm (Dobbs Ferry, but it still counts) then from 2003-2005 (living in Brooklyn and working in Greenwich, CT - I do not recommend this commute) and now again since April 2012. In between those years I’ve lived in Dallas, TX, Chapel Hill, NC, Los Angeles, CA, Evanston, IL, San Francisco, CA, Chicago, IL, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. And there was lots of amazing travel between those! I am now happily working as the CFO of a non-profit: Relay Graduate School of Education. My husband, Yaniv, and I have been married since November 2012.

Jane Hamill writes: I’m an artist living and working in Lambertville NJ on an organic farm that was once an orphanage. My husband and I are hoping to have an artist residency on the site someday. My second solo show at J. Cacciola gallery in NYC will open in the fall of next year. Until then I’ll be painting at home while running a small alternative arts’ space called The Project Rooms and raising miniature chickens.

Nadea Taylor Kolege writes: I am living in London with my husband where I work as a corporate lawyer for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, a New York Based law firm.

Leigh Turner McFarlane is living in Houston, TX and is working as a residential realtor.

She married Michael McFarlane in 2012 and they have a precious daughter named Poppy!

David Meyer writes: I’ve been living in New York now for 11 years, currently in the West Village. I work for The Standard Hotel Company as a Creative Director and Editor of their culture website. Put another way, I am “thoughtfully” gentrifying whilst pining to return to a life of full time fiction writing.

Also wondering if I’ll ever pass through Grand Central and here a group of high schoolers counting off.

Ben Naimark-Rowse writes: I’m a second year PhD candidate at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Boston. I’m researching civil resistance and am teaching an undergraduate course this fall called “From Gandhi to the Arab Spring - Theory and Practice of Civil Resistance.” Despite having left NYC I still love it and despite having lived there for seven years I still love the Red Sox! Ana Saldamando writes: I’ve been living in New York since 2001 (CITYterm got me hooked)! Currently I live in Brooklyn. Completed an MFA from Columbia a few years ago in Creative Writing and am working on my first novel.

Mimi Stith writes: I’m working on my PhD in Anthropology at Boston University. I recently received a Fulbright Fellowship to complete my doctoral research on resource extraction in Tanzania.

Fall 1998 Class Agent is Katiana Anglad Spring 1999: Class Agent is Nikki Georges-Clapp Fall 1999: Class Agent is Zoe Winkler Carter On May 1st Erica Chapman and her husband, Steve, welcomed their son Theo. Now weighing in at 14lbs, three month old Theo delights his parents with cute sounds and lots of smiles. Erica is looking forward to starting her 3rd year as CITYterm’s director!

Spring 2000: Class Agent is Acadia Klain Fall 2000: Class Agent is Lainee Marz Flanigan Kristin Ferebee writes: I completed my MFA in Creative Writing at The Ohio State University in spring 2014, and am now pursuing a PhD in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy at that same fine institution.

Spring 2001: Class Agent is David Simons Fall 2001: Class Agent is Charlotte Cowles Spring 2002: Class Agents are Nick Levy and Caroline Gambell Fall 2002 needs a Class Agent. If you’re interested in helping out please contact Lisa Doi (lisa.doi@cityterm.org).

Eliot Dash writes: I graduated with my MBA from Georgia Tech in May and moved from Atlanta to Philadelphia. I’m now working for the SEI Investment Company (SEIC) on the PMO team of the Private Banks division.

Spring 2003: Class Agent is Sarah Patrick Morgese

Cara (Seabury) Radzins is still living in Connecticut and working as a transportation planning consultant. She and her husband recently bought a house and adopted a dog.

Her latest adventure in NYC included visiting the 9/11 Museum and seeing If/Then on Broadway (a musical about a city planner — what’s better than that?!).

Fall 2003: Class agent is Zanny Alter Alyse Ruiz writes: I just joined the CITYterm staff! I’m the Dean of Residential Life living on the third floor. Definitely cool to be back on campus – hope F’03 will come and visit soon!

Spring 2004: Class Agents are Claire Eustis and Emeric Harney Fall 2004: Class agent is Erin Greene Abby Byrne writes: This summer I took a 5 week trip to Cambodia and Thailand where I did some medical volunteering and travel for fun during the break between my first and second years of medical school. I’m studying at Tulane and loving living in New Orleans.

If anyone is nearby or passing through, get in touch! Would love to catch up or just chat about the persistence of the DKDK zone.

Mimi Powell writes: I start NYU law in August so to (temporarily) satisfy my wanderlust I’ve been traveling in South America for the past two months. I started in Buenos Aires then dropped down to the Patagonia to check on the glaciers. Then I made my way up through Chile, across Bolivia and into Peru.

Pauline Zaldonis writes: I just started a new job managing a mobile farmers’ market, which will bring affordable local produce into low income neighborhoods with limited food access, at Hartford Food System.

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Spring 2005: Class Agent is Corey Briskin Now, almost a year after graduating from law school, Corey Briskin has settled into his job at the Nassau County District Attorney/s Office, and he is loving everything about it!

Corey has already had the opportunity to try — and even win — cases, and he looks forward to all of the litigation experience that still awaits him. Outside of work, Corey sees a lot of Hannah Longman (S’05), Molly Johnsen (S’05), and Sara Chimene-Weiss (S’05), and for the first time in about a decade, he was able to catch up with Jack Bathke (S’05) while on vacation down in New Orleans!

Fall 2005: Class Agent is Natalia Torres Katy Flinn writes: I just left a job at a sweet Montessori school in Decatur, GA, where I started a garden and a little library and learned all about children and the beautiful Montessori method. I have been collecting options for what to do next, and have nearly finalized a plan to go develop a volunteer coordinator position at the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach, SC, where I will enjoy being in my favorite atmosphere. I’ll study for the GRE, take it, and search for graduate programs in psychology with a focus on spirituality.

Sophie Glidden-Lyon writes: This fall I’m starting a masters in Archives and Public History at NYU! I’m so excited to be back in New York. This is an amazing program where I’ll be able to get hands on experience working in and developing archives.

For the last year, I’ve been working at the Maine Women Writers Collection at UNE in Portland, Maine and Tao Yuan Restaurant in Brunswick, and having an amazing time.

Jane Holloway writes: I’m still in Philadelphia, where I’ve been living happily for the last 3 years. I am a research assistant at Drexel doing psychotherapy research on adolescents and their families. I’m taking the GRE at the end of the summer and will be applying to clinical psychology PhD programs in the fall. I will be applying to several schools in New York and hope to attend more CITYterm events in the future!

Molly Nussbaum continues to write and work in television in New York, most recently for “The Americans” on FX and “The Affair” on Showtime. She continues to search for the best pizza in Brooklyn.

Kelly Potter writes: I am living in Dallas and have a career as a blacksmith/fabricator/ welder making custom ornamental architectural metalwork. Presently, I am building three sets of stair balustrade for a temple that is being built in Rome, Italy. Once it is finished, I will travel with my work to Italy for a few months for installation and hopefully be able to do some site seeing aside from

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the construction zone! I am wishing for a project with a job site in NYC so I can catch up with CITYterm!

Spring 2006: Class Agents are Haley Coghill, Jake Loewenthal, and Lily Schorr Allison Caldwell writes: I’ve been managing a visual and performing arts program for teenagers on probation in Dallas, and I love it! I’ve been working on the summer and winter break programs for the past 4 years, and now I am working on designing a yearlong after school component of the program. My other recent project has been designing a magazine featuring inmate artwork and poetry. You can check it out on magcloud.com by searching for “Unchained Arts Collective.”

Missin’ our beautiful CITYterm fam from Spring ‘06!!

Will Gorin writes: I’m currently living in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. My band, SLOTHRUST (www.slothrust.com) just landed a publishing deal with FX. Our track “7:30 am” is the theme song to FX’s new show “You’re The Worst.” Check it out on Thursday nights at 10:30pm! We are negotiating our next record deal with Fat Possum Records and if all goes well our third full length will hit stores internationally by end of January. We are gearing up to hit the road again on a cross country tour with a band called Cymbals Eat Guitars in October. Like us on Facebook to see show listings in a city near you (and let me know if you have a couch/floor we can sleep on!).

Gretchen Knoth writes: I have been living in Washington, DC for the past two years while working at The ONE Campaign, an international organization that fights extreme global poverty and preventable disease. I will be returning to school this fall to pursue my Masters in International Development at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. I’m excited to spend next summer abroad in Turkey, Ethiopia or India!

Julien Lasseur writes: Hard to believe but I’ve been out in LA for 7 1/2 years now. I was working as a cinematographer for commercial and corporate projects until this year where I’ve dropped almost everything to pursue directing and other ideas I’m passionate about. I started a production company with a close buddy of mine Rustic Media and our first project was…a corporate video for Infinity! At least I was able to exercise some creative vision. My last project consisted of a comedy short starring Vernon Davis as Captain Torpedo. It’s pretty absurd but check it out.

Kat Lawrence writes: I’m doing an Urban Regeneration Masters at University College London and leaving in September! I’m really excited.

Jake Loewenthal is heading off to Brown University to get his MFA. Bye NYC! It’s been real.

Anna Nutter writes: I work for a small oil and gas company in Houston. I am being relocated to France. I lived and worked in Russia and then France after college. I’m applying for a Fulbright grant in Ukraine and then hope to get masters and then doctorate in international relations focusing on energy and Eurasia.

Jennifer Pierre writes: I work at Human Rights Watch as the health and human rights/ disability rights associate. I’ve been there for about a year and a half. It’s been a great experience so far and I’m hoping to go back to school in the next year or two. I live in Harlem and absolutely love it. I’m in a little townhouse close to Central Park and great restaurants.

Lily Schorr will be starting law school at the University of North Carolina in the fall.

Venus Tsang writes: I am currently living in Hong Kong and I’m working at a boutique travel publisher called LUXE City Guides. I’m going on assignment this Friday to Brazil for 3 weeks to write city guides to Rio and Sao Paulo!

Fall 2006: Class Agent is Tenisha Williams Recently, Jameson Smith directed Sonnet XIV, a short film commissioned by the Museum of the Moving Image and the NY Shakespeare Exchange.

Jameson served as Associate Producer on the feature film “Bluebird” (starring John Slattery, and Amy Morton which premiered at 2013 Tribeca Film Festival), and as a Co-Producer on the upcoming feature films “Sweets” (starring Katherine Kellner and Kevin Corrigan), and “The Automatic Hate” (starring Joseph Cross, Adelaide Clemens, Richard Schiff, and Ricky Jay). Jameson has also produced numerous short films including the award winning “Atlantic Avenue” (starring Brady Corbet), which is currently proceeding on the festival circuit following a world premiere at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. His short “Sure Thing” (starring Luke Kirby) has been featured in the 2014 Cannes Short Film Corner, and the 2014 Palm Springs Short Film Festival.

Slated future productions include the feature film adaptation of Richard Greenberg’s Pulitzer Prize nominated play, “Three Days of Rain” (last produced on Broadway in 2008, starring Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper, and Paul Rudd).

Spring 2007 needs a Class Agent. If you’re interested in helping out please contact Lisa Doi (lisa.doi@cityterm.org).

Emma Marks writes: After working as an assistant teacher in a wonderful integrated preschool for two years, I am off to get my masters in special and general education in the fall. I will be attending Bank Street College in NYC. In addition to getting my masters, I will also be working as an assis-

Allie Briskin recently graduated from Syracuse University as a dual major in Advertising and Finance. She had the pleasure of being the 2014 Whitman Class Marshal and got the opportunity to speak at her graduation. She is now working in the city at ZenithOptimedia where she is in a four month training program before becoming full-time.

Ellie Broadman is loving living with Peter Neeley (S’09) in Berkley. She works part time as a Lab Technician at the USGS and part time at a Mexican restaurant/sports bar.

She’s having a great time!

Tristan Grant is living in Amherst (temporarily) commuting 70 miles each way to work in Marlborough for SolarCity as a site surveyor, and looking for a living place closer to the Boston area. He misses everyone and thoughts of and references to CITYterm surface nearly daily in his life.

tant teacher in a first grade classroom at the Bank Street School for Children on campus.

I am very excited to be heading back to the city!

Sandy Wood is thoroughly aflutter with the excitement, challenge, and of course constant bombardment of new perspectives that have met her in her first year as resident English teacher at Jhamtse Gatsal Children’s Community in the Monpa Himalayas of Northeastern India. She is incredibly lucky to get to high-five 86 world-rocking (and mischief-making) angels on their way to the family kitchen thrice daily. They give the best hugs and always entertain her initiation of impromptu cartwheel-and-handstand sessions (her inverted stability is coming along slow-but-steadily). So far she has consumed approximately 74 gazillion liters of milk tea.

Fall 2007: Class Agent is Katherine Tapper Matt Duncan writes: For the last year I’ve been working at my family’s wineries, Silver Oak and Twomey Cellars. I had a lot of different jobs in the vineyards and cellars before settling in as a Regional Sales Manager this past January. I’ve been traveling around the country and world promoting our wines. I’m taking a break from the winery to continue my education. This fall I’ll begin graduate study at the University of Chicago for a masters in International Relations.

Holy Fetter writes: I graduated from Stanford in June with my Master’s in Sociology and Bachelor’s in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. I’ll be at the Ford Foundation for the next 11 months working with a program area that funds social justice movements. I’m excited to be back in New York City!

Brian Magarian writes: Since graduation from NYU I’ve started teaching an undergraduate visual effects course at NYU film.

I’ve continued freelancing and have finally made my way into some movies! I worked on a bunch of shots for The Giver and A Most Violent Year as well as occasionally adding trees into shots for USA’s Royal Pains.

On the side, I’ve started working a feature screenplay with my sophomore year screenwriting professor so we’ll see how that goes!

Katherine Tapper writes: I just finished my corps commitment with Teach For America where I taught math in Gary, IN. It has certainly taught me about the state of education in the U.S. and what I role I can play in helping to close the achievement gap. While I’m not staying in the classroom, I certainly want to continue to work in education or at least volunteer with an education non-profit.

I’m also moving back to Boston August 15th, which I’m super excited about Spring 2008: Class Agent is Ezra Plancon Alice Kamens lives in Manhattan and is a Program Associate for Cities of Service, a nonprofit working with mayors’ offices around the country to help them use volunteers more effectively.

Fall 2008: Class Agent is Alanna Duncan Spring 2009: Class Agent is Allie Briskin Viviana Almandsmith is currently finishing up a web design project long-distance to officially get her BA from Sarah Lawrence College (which is 10 min from Dobbs Ferry), she is living at home in California, working at a coffee shop, saving up to turn the successful campus doughnut start-up she founded with her boyfriend last year into a food truck!

Lisa Kong still has one year left at Lehigh University and she is currently working as a Procurement Intern at a candy company called, Just Born.

Lynn Lavelle just graduated from UCLA and will be moving to San Francisco in the Fall.

She will be working for Triage Consulting Group doing Healthcare Consulting. She spent the summer in Malaysia visiting family.

Tory Mathieson just graduated Wesleyan University in May and she is moving to San Francisco. This fall she will begin teaching at Head Royce, a private K-12 school in Oakland. She is still singing a lot (torymathieson. bandcamp.com) (skybars.bandcamp.com) and she is hoping to continue singing back in California!

Jordan Naftalis graduated summa cum laude from Emory University this past May. Over the next year she will be taking a gap year, during which she will be teaching skiing in Aspen, Colorado, before beginning law school at the University of Virginia next fall.

Fall 2009: Class Agent is Lindsay Szper Spring 2010 Class Agent is Rachel Moss Fall 2010 Class Agent is Gracie Hall Spring 2011 Class Agent is Damion Miller Fall 2011: Class Agent is Elissa Lowenthal Annabel Barnes writes: I am gearing up to go back to school, and have been soaking up the last of the California sunshine before my departure. I will be headed back to New York at the end of the month, and am excited to move into my new apartment with another CITYtermer, Babs Laco (S’12).

Annie Brennen writes: I’m a rising sophomore at Northwestern University where I am a declared psychology and theatre double major. I’m a member of the Northwestern Sketch Comedy TV cast, and this past year I CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 27

starred in a short pilot episode called “Word” which was written and directed by Northwestern students and underwritten by Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and Brad Hall. I’m on the Northwestern sailing team, and have been interning at the Single Carrot Theatre in Baltimore. I also have recently been published a few times on Collegehumor.com.

Caroline Engro-Lobel writes: I’m living in L.A. now, something I never thought I’d do.

I’m running the digital initiative (fancy speak for social media) for the TV show Haven on Syfy. Taking a leave of absence from NYU to focus on this, and seeing if anything else comes my way. Missing New York every minute, but have discovered a love for guacamole.

Eliana Gottesman cannot believe that it has been 3 years since she first set foot in Dobbs Ferry! It seems like just yesterday that she didn’t know that she didn’t know about the DKDK zone. Things are going swimmingly for Eliana at the moment. This fall she will begin her sophomore year at NYU where she is studying drama. She is excited to continue exploring New York City in all of its complexity and glory.

Elissa Lowenthal spent the summer interning and living in Washington DC. She is getting ready to start her junior year at Ohio State University. She misses everyone from

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CITYterm and hopes they are all doing well.

Nguhi Muturi writes: I am going into my second year at Occidental College in Los Angeles and I’m absolutely in love with my school. As a politics student, this fall I have the opportunity to volunteer full time for a congressional campaign in Peabody, Massachusetts. I hope to see some East Coast CITYtermers very soon!

Cliff Ritter writes: I’ve been through one year at TCU now. I’m very happy with where I’ve come since my time at CITYterm. I’m studying electrical engineering, a brutal but very interesting subject. I’ve still been playing chess like a fiend. The past few years have helped me put a lot of perspective on who I am.

Matt Ryan finally graduated from high school this spring and is headed to Colombia University for rowing. He hopes that everything is well with everybody.

Cat Silverstein writes: After high school, I committed to American University in Washington, D.C. When the time came for orientation, I still had not gotten the funding I needed to attend and decided to give up my spot in the freshman class. After that, I moved to Vail, Colorado, where I have been since November 2013. I’ve been working an outdoor job as a lift operator at Vail Mountain, where

I had the opportunity to snowboard every single day. At the end of winter, I chose to stay here through the summer and I have spent it working lifts as well as working as a hostess at a pizza restaurant. I also started attending school full time. I completed my first semester of freshman year at the local community college and I am moving on to the second, though I am spreading the classes throughout the fall, winter, and spring of the 2014/2015 season while keeping both jobs. I have recently gotten into rock climbing and come next summer, I hope to move to Hawaii, where I want to spend summer 2015 and complete my sophomore year of college before transferring back to a larger school in New York, Boston, or DC! Yashi Suri writes: I’m going into my sophomore year at the honors college at Florida International University. This summer I did an internship with Indian private equity and venture capital association in New Delhi, India as the social media market chair. I’m majoring in digital media.

Zoe Zachary is currently living in Brooklyn.

She is studying comparative literature at NYU while also trying to be a good young adult.

Spring 2012: Class Agent Hyacinth Parker

Fall 2012: Class Agent Claudia Mihm Spring 2013: Class Agents Sara Eismont and Abigail McLean Katie Carlton will be attending Bates College in Maine in the fall. She is spending her summer working as a camp counselor and shopping.

Jeremy Chimene-Weiss writes: I spent the summer traveling Europe with three of my friends. In Amsterdam, I met up with Ames Ward (S’13), who showed me the Dutch ways. In the fall, I will be attending Bowdoin College in Maine with Shea Necheles (S’13), where I intend to concentrate on entering the DKDK Zone.

Abigail McLean writes: I graduated from high school in June, and I’ve spent the summer traveling with family and friends and working. In a couple of weeks, I’ll get to visit Shea Necheles (S’13) in Boston. I’m starting at Wake Forest University in the fall, and I’m attending a pre-orientation program called Worldwide Wake that sounds a lot like CITYterm. I hope to get back to NYC soon!

Precious Musa writes: My summer has been filled with physical therapy and a steady recovery from my recent operation for a knee replacement. Despite all of that, I’ll be going off to Smith College in the fall to major in creative writing. I’m both really excited and really nervous to be starting over in a completely different environment than the one I usually surround myself in, but I also know it’s going to be a great, fun experience. I’m going to be surrounded by strong, diverse women, and it doesn’t hurt that one of those women went to CITYterm with me! It’s going to be a great year.

Connor Lovelace writes: I have been working part time at a local ice cream shop this summer and I have been preparing for my freshman year at UCLA by choosing classes and looking into extracurricular activities such as Greek life, intramural sports, and College Democrats. I am also starting to apply for work-study jobs and a part time job to be paralleled with my studies. I am expecting to be able apply many of the lessons I learned through CITYterm to my future college experiences.

Fall 2013: Class Agent Margaret Edwards Connie Blumenthal is doing great! She is designing a social networking site (spekt. com) and is totally in the DKDK zone.

Ilana Brandstetter spent the month of July backpacking through Switzerland and was amazed at the beauty of the mountains. She is looking forward to taking a class about the California food system later this year, and was inspired to sign up for the class after Food Week at CITYterm.

Margaret Edwards writes: I got as close to New York City as I could, while still being in rural Maine this summer. I spent two months as a camp counselor working at The Summer Camp. It is an overnight camp for under-privileged girls from inner city New York, Providence and Boston. I had the unique opportunity to experience, through the girls’ eyes, the thrill and fear of being in a boat for the first time. It usually started off with a lot of screaming and ended with hands splashing over the sides of the boat.

The girls brought about endless inspiration of strength, resilience and courage. It was an incredible experience in which I only continued to learn more about myself and use the tools CITYterm so graciously taught me.

Byron Rodriguez writes: I will be attending Emerson College in Boston later this month.

I have been working on a clothing line partnered with other graphic designers and garment producers and I’m looking forward to releasing it at local clothing boutiques in Boston and online. I started interning as a stylist at the Karmaloop Headquarters here in Boston while making crazy connections in the fashion industry! I actually just got back from a short vacation in New York City, and lastly I will be getting ready to move on campus all month for my freshman year in college!

Charlie Townsley writes: After working and saving for the first half of the summer I went on a five week trip to Thailand. While there I split my time between volunteering at an orphanage and traveling around. Thailand is a very beautiful country and I had a great time stumbling through the language and being immersed in a culture so different from my own.

I am looking forward to my senior year and somewhat dreading the process of applying to college.

Spring 2014: Class Agents Gabby Rothschild and Elisabeth Zak Lauren Cunfer spent her summer as a landsports counselor at Camp Aloha in Vermont.

This August she is moving to Philadelphia and starting her senior year of high school at Germantown Friends. She even signed up for drama class after being inspired by all of the theater she experienced at CITYterm!

Céline Gauchey began her summer by traveling around Greece. Since then she has been interning at a startup company called Guardian Princesses and has traveled to NYC for a week to study finance at NYU. Jessica Podgurski has been touring colleges in North Carolina and New England, and spending lots of time at her family’s house in Cape Cod. She’s excited to start her senior year at Nobles and plans to try out for the varsity volleyball team in the fall, which will be her first varsity sport ever. She misses her S’14 family deeply and hopes to see all of them soon.

Mike Rodway writes: After finishing up CITYterm in the spring, I started my own film production company, Flete Films, and have been filming weddings around Maine. Soon I will start applying to colleges!

After spending a few weeks in the Navajo nation in New Mexico and Arizona, where she participated in a community service program and learned about the Navajo culture, Calla Rosenfeld is working with a few of her classmates to learn about and help end veteran homelessness in Washington, DC. Gabby Rothschild is preparing to go into her senior year at Los Gatos High School this fall. She spent the summer reminiscing about her semester at CITYterm, interning for a children’s book company, and studying city planning at NYU for a week. She is excited to begin applying to colleges and explore new places.

Adon Wade-Currie writes: For the month of July I participated in the Middlebury Monterey Language Academy at Pomona College in California. It was a language immersive program which abided by the language pledge, a contract that all participants, students and teachers will only speak in their target language. I entered the academy hoping to improve my conversational skills in Arabic and now I feel comfortable speaking about a variety of topics and the many facets of daily living. I’m still not fluent but I’ve made great strides forward in my journey. Back home in Boston I’m going to start volunteering again at the Bridge Boston Charter School where I’ll be working with young children.

Allie Williamson writes: I spent the month of June completing a course in American Government where we ended up debating issues that we’re relevant to New York in some way, which was exciting immediately after the end of our term. Also, I was asked to produce a film for my friend. We had to drive around Dallas to find new places to shoot, and ended up discovering an amazing quarry. Finally, in August, I’m traveling to Fishers Island, NY then going to visit fellow CITYtermers in Washington, D.C. before the start of my senior retreat.

Elisabeth Zak is safe and sound back at home in Los Angeles after the Spring 2014 semester at CITYterm, and already she has been trying to apply the lessons she learned to her life at home. One major project Elisabeth has kickstarted is her Senior Apex Project for her last year of high school where she is taking the flaws and faults of the Los Angeles public transportation system and drawing a desired line through the city before proposing a solution. The end product of this project will hopefully bring some much needed awareness to her community.

CITYTERM BRIDGES 2014 • 29

Live the questions

CITYterm at The Masters School 49 Clinton Avenue Dobbs Ferry, New York 10522

Our mission is to encourage students to engage fully in learning and thinking for themselves, about themselves and about who and what is beyond themselves.

Our goal is for students to leave CITYterm with the intellectual tools they need to understand and express the complexity of New York City and the emotional and social tools to participate constructively in their community.

CITYterm at The Masters School 914.479.6502 | info@cityterm.org

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www.cityterm.org

Transform your teaching.

Transform your teaching.

Teaching Teaching Transform your students’ learning.

Teaching Teaching Transform your students’ learning.

Experience Experience Transform your school.

Experience Experience Transform your school.

20 YEARS AGO CITYterm began as a laboratory exploring transformational learning.

20 YEARS AGO CITYterm began as a laboratory

exploring transformational learning.

10 YEARS AGO The Teaching for Experience summer workshop was created to share those 10 YEARS AGO The Teaching for Experience findings with teachers all over the world. summer workshop wasfrom created to share those findings with teachers from all over the world.

NEXT SUMMER Join us in founding an international teachers devoted an to NEXTnetwork SUMMERof Join us in founding implementing transformational learning. international network of teachers devoted to implementing transformational learning.

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