What our faculty members have been learning, doing and presenting.

Nelle Andrews P’22, MA, dean of curriculum and instruction, published “Centering Student Voices: How Student Experiences Can Drive the School Change Process” with the Tang Institute based on her action-research project. Read her blog post from this spring here: tinyurl.com/CenteringStudentVoices

In June, Andrews attended and presented at the Summit for Transformative Learning in St. Louis conference hosted by the Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School. She led a breakout session on standards-based grading practices, Righting the Ship: Bringing Meaning and Purpose to Assessment Practices, and another on authentic assessment strategies, Authentic Audiences: Designing “REAL” Learning Opportunities. Andrews also facilitated a three-hour workshop, CompetencyBased Curriculum in the Arts, for K – 12 arts faculty that focused on competency-based course and assessment design for arts courses.

Humanities Teacher Katherine Ayers, PhD, was accepted into the Global Action Research Collaborative on Girls’ Education program. As a 2024–25 cohort member, she will complete an action research project with her MPS students. They will evaluate how the use of certain discussion strategies may increase personal confidence and agency in large-group classroom discussions. The 2024 fall trimester research will be presented at the 2025 International Coalition of Girls’ Schools conference in Philadelphia.

In February, Michael Bergin P’19, MBA, chief financial and operating officer, co-presented the session Keeping Trustees Informed of Changing Risk, Insurance and Legal Landscape at the annual meeting of the National Business Officers Association in Atlanta, Georgia.

MPS Athletic Director Avi Dubnov, MA, attended the 2024 conference of the International Coalition of Girls' Schools in Baltimore, Maryland. He presented a talk titled "The Journey to Becoming the Destination for All-Girls Athletics."

In June, Miss Porter's School hosted Wonder Women, A Leadership Program. During the four-day series of professional development workshops themed Unleash Your Leadership Presence, women leaders, including Porter’s own Math Teacher Michelle Espinar, Science Department Chair Mary Jo “MJ” Moulton and Humanities Department Chair Melissa Schomers, explored their personal leadership, authentic voice and style. Using a learning laboratory approach, Moulton and Schomers exemplified their leadership journeys while working with fellow attendees on a real-word design challenge.

Diane R. Johnson, DrPH, MPH, chief communications and public health officer, earned her Doctor of Public Health in health policy and management from the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health in April. Her dissertation, “Health Communications Matter: A Comparative Case Study of Best Practices to Combat Misinformation and Disinformation During the COVID -19 Pandemic,” assessed pandemic-related national communication and risk management strategies in Uganda, the United States and Singapore. Recognized for her academic excellence, Johnson was inducted into the UNC chapter of the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health.

Stacy Martell, house director and Office of Student Life coordinator, earned her associate degree in early childhood education. She has been accepted to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and will major in child development. Eileen Mooney, PhD, mathematics and art teacher, completed her doctoral work in educational psychology and educational technology at Michigan State University. Her dissertation is an investigation of the working conditions that affect teacher identity, and how the working conditions of the pandemic affected teacher identity. She also had some of her art accepted and represented by the Bowery Gallery in New York. You can view her artwork at bowerygallery.org/mooneyeileen

Sophie Paris, director of Porter’s Center for Global Leadership and Auxiliary Programs, completed a Certificate in Intercultural Competence for Educators through a new joint initiative of the Global Education Benchmark Group (GEBG) and AFS Intercultural Programs. She also facilitated a panel discussion called Climate Change Across the Curriculum at the Global Summit on Climate Action for Educators at the Klingenstein Center, Teachers College at Columbia University; facilitated a six-month online professional learning community called Competencybased Curriculum Design for Experiential Programs with educators from 25 different schools; facilitated a roundtable discussion called Challenges and Opportunities of Leading Global Education Programs for Global Directors at the GEBG conference in Montreal, Canada; and served on GEBG ’s Salomon Prize reading committee to select a leading Global Educator of the Year from more than 600 member schools.

Art Department Chair Grier Torrence P’21, 23, MFA, had his artwork featured in several local exhibits, including an etching in the Five Points Art Center’s 2024 Printmaking Juried Exhibition in Torrington, Connecticut; a painting in the 2024 Go Figure! group exhibition at Corgi Clay Art Center in Stafford, Virginia; and another painting in the 2024 Modern Day Monet juried exhibition at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut.

Tim Quinn, EdD, chief academic officer and dean of faculty, wrote an article with Amy Rogers, former director of college counseling, titled What Does It Mean to Be College Prep? It was published this summer by the National Association of Independent Schools. Read the full article here: tinyurl.com/WhatDoesItMeanToBeCollegePrep

Fiona York, MLS, head librarian, attended the New England Association of Independent School Librarians’ Annual Conference at Choate Rosemary Hall in April.

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Lucy Newmyer ’23

Advancing opportunities for girls

In the United States, annual giving to charities focused on women’s and girls’ causes represents less than 2% of all philanthropy, reported the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University in 2023.

For Lucy Newmyer ’23, this is much more than a sobering statistic reflecting the inadequate support for organizations focused on gender equality, economic security, domestic violence, reproductive rights and other urgent issues affecting women’s lives. It is a personal call to action, one that has inspired her to commit to making lifelong annual donations to Miss Porter’s School.

“When you look at how few dollars are allocated to these causes, that is a major reason I give to Miss Porter’s,” says Newmyer, a second-year student at the University of Virginia (UVA). “Supporting women and girls is important to me.”

To mark her achievement in joining Porter’s class of 2023, and inspired by her parents’ extensive philanthropic giving to the school and other mission-driven organizations, Newmyer made her first donation as an Ancient in the amount of $23. The modest sum was within her reach as an unemployed student, but she knows Porter’s appreciated it because of how it prioritizes a high number of donors as a fundraising goal.

“At Porter’s, they understand that small donations make a difference. Just giving back to the school is important,” Newmyer says.

Philanthropy for Porter’s is also how Newmyer expresses her gratitude for the deep knowledge and rich experiences she gained as a student. She appreciated how the Certificate in Global Studies, which covers intersecting cultural, economic, social and geopolitical affairs, introduced her to “diverse ways of understanding the world.” Meanwhile, as an editor of the Salmagundy student newspaper, she says she developed strong writing and teamwork skills. Newmyer also enjoyed serving as second head of school, playing varsity tennis and leading for three years the FaceUp advocacy group, for which she helped organize a bipartisan political summit during the 2022 midterm elections.

These and other aspects of her Farmington education have allowed Newmyer to thrive in diverse ways. The intellectual curiosity she was able to cultivate at Porter’s helped her get accepted to UVA’s prestigious Echols Scholars Program, which supports students’ individual scholarly interests. For Newmyer, these are politics, public policy and psychology. She also landed a staff writer position at UVA’s Jefferson Independent student newspaper, where she has written opinion pieces on Congress’ “TikTok ban” bill and the return of considering standardized test scores in some universities’ admissions processes. She also feels empowered to act on her social and political convictions by participating in UVA’s Karsh Institute of Democracy and the campus’s Planned Parenthood Generation Action group. Outside UVA, she is working as a special projects intern at the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools.

“Porter’s opened my eyes to all sorts of opportunities. I really feel like there are so many choices I have now thanks to the education I got,” she says.

Newmyer actively supports Porter’s in other ways. In January, she returned to the school for Welcome Home, an event to connect senior students with college-age Ancients, where she answered questions about her UVA experience. As part of fulfilling her duties as a class representative for five years after graduating from Porter’s, she encourages other Ancients to give regularly to the school.

“Whatever I can give back to Porter’s, which seriously changed my life, I would love to,” Newmyer says.

“I think that giving to Porter’s is something that will always be a part of my life.”